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You reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office--six clerks are within call. Summon any one and make this request: "Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio." Will the clerk say, "Yes, sir," and go do the task? On your life he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions: Who was he? Which encyclopedia? Where is the encyclopedia? I was hired for that? Don't you mean Bismarck? What's the matter with Charlie doing it? Is he dead? Is there any hurry? Sha'n't I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself? What do you want to know for? And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions and explained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him to try to find [Correggio]--and then come back and tell you there is no such man.

I walk over to my laptop and make a quick “click”. The sounds of Aretha Franklin fill the classroom…. Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chian Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools Five long years I thought you were my man But I found out I'm just a link in your chain....  found out I’m just a link in your chain…. Go ahead – click on the video and listen. I’ll wait. I’m certain you are thinking I’ve lost it. Why is ElementaryHistoryTeacher playing this particular song for nine and ten year olds as the opening salvo to a lesson regarding an aspect of the American Revolution? Don’t click off just yet. I have a connection. Teaching history isn’t all about reading a lesson in a book or having a teacher tell a fascinating story for kids to take notes from. Teaching history is all about making connections and visualizing the links – links in a chain of events that ebb and flow through history to the present day. In this particular exercise where I play the Queen of Soul’s famous song for m