Labor Day is a U.S. national holiday held the first Monday every September. Unlike most U.S. holidays, it is a strange celebration without rituals, except for shopping and barbecuing. For most people it simply marks the last weekend of summer and the start of the school year.
The holiday’s founders in the late 1800s envisioned something very different from what the day has become. The founders were looking for two things: a means of unifying union workers and a reduction in work time.
The first Labor Day occurred in 1882 in New York City under the direction of that city’s Central Labor Union.
In the 1800s, unions covered only a small fraction of workers and were balkanized and relatively weak. The goal of organizations like the Central Labor Union and more modern-day counterparts like the AFL-CIO was to bring many small unions together to achieve a critical mass and power. The organizers of the first Labor Day were interested in creating an event that brought different types of workers together to meet each other and recognize their common interests.
However, the organizers had a large problem: No government or company recognized the first Monday in September as a day off work. The issue was solved temporarily by declaring a one-day strike in the city. All striking workers were expected to march in a parade and then eat and drink at a giant picnic afterwards.
Why was Labor Day invented?
Labor Day came about because workers felt they were spending too many hours and days on the job.
In the 1830s, manufacturing workers were putting in 70-hour weeks on average. Sixty years later, in 1890, hours of work had dropped, although the average manufacturing worker still toiled in a factory 60 hours a week.
These long working hours caused many union organizers to focus on winning a shorter eight-hour work day. They also focused on getting workers more days off, such as the Labor Day holiday, and reducing the workweek to just six days.
These early organizers clearly won since the most recent data show that the average person working in manufacturing is employed for a bit over 40 hours a week and most people work only five days a week.
As the U.S. economy expanded beyond farming and basic manufacturing in the late 1800s and early 1900s, it became important for businesses to find consumers interested in buying the products and services being produced in ever greater amounts. Shortening the work week was one way of turning the working class into the consuming class.
The common misconception is that since Labor Day is a national holiday, everyone gets the day off. Nothing could be further from the truth.
While the first Labor Day was created by striking, the idea of a special holiday for workers was easy for politicians to support. It was easy because proclaiming a holiday, like Mother’s Day, costs legislators nothing and benefits them by currying favor with voters. In 1887, Oregon, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey all declared a special legal holiday in September to celebrate workers.
Within 12 years, half the states in the country recognized Labor Day as a holiday. It became a national holiday in June 1894 when President Grover Cleveland signed the Labor Day bill into law. While most people interpreted this as recognizing the day as a national vacation, Congress’ proclamation covers only federal employees. It is up to each state to declare its own legal holidays.
Moreover, proclaiming any day an official holiday means little, as an official holiday does not require private employers and even some government agencies to give their workers the day off. Many stores are open on Labor Day. Essential government services in protection and transportation continue to function, and even less essential programs like national parks are open. Because not everyone is given time off on Labor Day, union workers as recently as the 1930s were being urged to stage one-day strikes if their employer refused to give them the day off.
In the president’s annual Labor Day declaration last year, Obama encouraged Americans “to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies and activities that honor the contributions and resilience of working Americans.”
The proclamation, however, does not officially declare that anyone gets time off.
Controversy: Militants and founders
Today most people in the U.S. think of Labor Day as a noncontroversial holiday.
The first controversy that people fought over was how militant workers should act on a day designed to honor workers. Communist, Marxist and socialist members of the trade union movement supported May 1 as an international day of demonstrations, street protests and even violence, which continues even today.
More moderate trade union members, however, advocated for a September Labor Day of parades and picnics. In the U.S., picnics, instead of street protests, won the day.
There is also dispute over who suggested the idea. The earliest history from the mid-1930s credits Peter J. McGuire, who founded the New York City Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, in 1881 with suggesting a date that would fall “nearly midway between the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving” that “would publicly show the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations.”
Later scholarship from the early 1970s makes an excellent case that Matthew Maguire, a representative from the Machinists Union, actually was the founder of Labor Day. However, because Matthew Maguire was seen as too radical, the more moderate Peter McGuire was given the credit.
Who actually came up with the idea will likely never be known, but you can vote online here to express your view.
Have we lost the spirit of Labor Day?
Today Labor Day is no longer about trade unionists marching down the street with banners and their tools of trade. Instead, it is a confused holiday with no associated rituals.
The original holiday was meant to handle a problem of long working hours and no time off. Although the battle over these issues would seem to have been won long ago, this issue is starting to come back with a vengeance, not for manufacturing workers but for highly skilled white-collar workers, many of whom are constantly connected to work.
If you work all the time and never really take a vacation, start a new ritual that honors the original spirit of Labor Day. Give yourself the day off. Don’t go in to work. Shut off your phone, computer and other electronic devices connecting you to your daily grind. Then go to a barbecue, like the original participants did over a century ago, and celebrate having at least one day off from work during the year!
。
B | 海淀区中关村第一小学西二旗分校
与怀柔区长哨营满族乡中心小学
手拉手数学学科“同课异构”活动
“同”聚智慧
“异”起成长
在教育均衡发展与协同共进理念的引领下，北京市积极开展手拉手学校项目，旨在促进不同区域学校间的资源共享与交流合作，为广大师生搭建更为广阔的学习与成长平台。
“水本无华，相荡乃成涟漪；石本无火，相击而发灵光。”2024 年 12 月 13 日，中关村第一小学西二旗分校与怀柔区长哨营满族乡中心小学，在这一富有意义的项目推动下，携手开展了一场别开生面的数学教学交流活动。
中关村第一小学西二旗分校的孔京京老师，与怀柔区长哨营满族乡中心小学的彭晓利老师，共同讲授一节数学课。北京教育科学研究院特级教师郭立军老师现场指导。
PART 01
孔京京老师聚焦一个单元所承载的核心素养整体设计，进阶式引导学生深入认识小数。在教学中，她既紧密结合生活实际中小数的应用，也注重数学史中小数的发展，让学生在广博的时空中认识小数的由来以及小数的实际价值。
C | 最后，学生尝试用小数表示自己的身高、食品的价签，灵活迁移、思维敏捷，既有独立思考，又有智慧碰撞。
孔老师注重教学内容与生活实际的紧密关联性，巧妙地引入生活场景中小数的广泛应用实例，让学生深切体会到小数在日常生活中的无处不在与实际价值。
PART 02
彭晓利老师在教学过程中展现出卓越的引导能力，其教学风格亲和且极具感染力，能够循循善诱、娓娓道来。在课程开启之前，借助精心设计的微课，引导学生预先对所学内容有所涉猎与思考，为课堂学习奠定良好基础。
D |
课堂之上，彭老师以学生的发现与疑问作为切入点，巧妙地逐步梳理出学习小数所应具备的思维架构；将零散的知识点进行系统整合，转化为具有逻辑性与关联性的结构性知识体系，助力学生构建清晰的认知地图，而这一认知地图也成为学生在后续学习中实现知识迁移与灵活运用的有力工具，极大地提升了学生的学习效能与知识内化水平。
PART 03
郭立军老师对两位教师的课表示了赞扬与肯定，她指出了两位教师的相同点：都采用了至少两种数学模型助力学生打开对小数认识的大门；不同之处在于两位老师分别采用了顺向和逆向的思维活动帮助学生认识小数的意义，感受小数与实际生活的密切联系。
E |
最后，郭立军老师分别从水平数学化和垂直数学化介绍了学生的思维层级，鼓励老师们从宏观结构来理解认识每个知识点，以撬动孩子们的生长点。
PART 04
本次“同课异构”评价研讨会，不仅是一次教学艺术的精彩展示，更是一场教育理念的深刻碰撞。
F | 两位教师为我们生动诠释了“同课异构、同标异思”的深刻内涵。这样的教学形式，不仅是教师们打开思路、发挥教学创意、彰显个性魅力的有效途径，更是我们探索新课程标准下高效课堂教学模式、提升教学质量、优化课堂结构、打造品质课堂的一次宝贵尝试。
教学是发现、是分享、是成长。通过两位老师的精彩演绎和专家的深刻点评，在场的每位老师都体会到“同课异构”的魅力所在——在异构中比较，在比较中反思，在反思中提高。这种方式有效助推了教师的专业成长，促进了我校教研水平的提升，为各自的教学注入新的活力。
G |
今天的“同课异构”
只是一个美好的开始，
它将成为我们不断探索、勇于创新、
持续进步的起点。
– END –
文字丨王雨
编辑丨新闻宣传中心
审核丨高菲菲
校对丨郭琪琪。
Current article:http://zhc.shengyaodanrongchui.buzz/list_ntd1oc/wk3.html
