Episode 22: Matthew Mehan

Ethics and Culture Cast

Matthew Mehan is a teacher at The Heights School in Washington, D.C. and The Worsham Teaching Fellow of Hillsdale College’s Washington DC Allan P. Kirby, Jr., Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a reader at the Folger Library. Matthew has been awarded the Claremont Institute’s Publius Fellowship as well as two fellowships from the Earhart Foundation. His first book is Mr. Mehan's Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals from TAN Books.

Special Guest: Matthew Mehan.

Links:

• Matthew Mehan's Faculty Profile — Matthew Mehan began teaching at The Heights in 2000. He teaches History of Western Thought and the Sophomore U.S. History and American Literature “AmeriCore.”
• Mr. Mehan's Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals — Mr. Mehan's Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals, or "M5," is a book of children's poetry beautifully complemented by a series of paintings that tell the story of the Dally and the Blug, their journey and friendship in a struggle against sadness. Readers encounter twenty-six mythical mammals along the way—witnessing good, evil, courage, humor, sadness, endurance, and hope—one poem at a time.
• Las Vaquitas Lullaby (from M5) — Nestled among the paintings in M5 are a variety of beautiful but endangered or extinct animal species. Some of the creatures featured are based upon very real animals of the past that no longer exist. But one mythical mammal, La Vaquita, appearing in the Letter "V," is alive today! Happily, it is a very cute and very small wild porpoise; its babies are the size of a loaf of bread (which is maddeningly cute when you think about it). But sadly, the Vaquita is an extremely endangered wild porpoise, with only roughly ninety left in the wild. M5 author Matthew Mehan also wrote a “Las Vaquitas Lullaby” to help raise awareness which can be heard here.
• Theme Music: "I Dunno" by grapes — I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626 Ft: J Lang, Morusque