The Preservation Blackboard
I'm a firm believer that Preservation Month has a place not just in our country's historic towns and heritage areas, but in our classrooms as well. Whether you're a third grade teacher or a high school sophomore, this stuff and these places matter, and now is the time to make it happen.
My name is Paul LaRue, and I'm a teacher at Washington High School in Washington Court House, Ohio. In addition to economics, I teach a senior-level elective class that I developed in 1998 called Research History. Right off the bat, that might sound like your typical high school course, complete with textbooks, overhead projectors, book reports and pop quizzes; I assure you it's not.
What else can you do in your school to save places that matter?
I like to bill my class as the ultimate in hands-on learning. We get out from under the florescent lights and into the field – our local community – for service learning projects that are all designed through the lens of preservation. In fact, my students and I are partnering with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and PreservationNation.org this semester to share our experiences in preserving a nearby cemetery on our blog, Teaching Preservation.
Over the years, I have found that teaching preservation makes history so much more than words and pictures in a book. Lessons about local and national heritage make it real for my students – something they can touch and relate to. At the end of the day, these are the lessons they will remember and carry with them long after they've forgotten the exact date of an important battle.
The good news is that you don't need an entire elective course like mine to integrate preservation into your lesson plans. All it takes is a slice of time and a healthy dose of creativity. And to get those juices flowing, we're opening up this forum to students and teachers for some ideas and tips to help you on your way (I'll break the ice with the first post).
It’s my hope that you’ll see that preservation has a natural place in every classroom – in May and beyond.
What are your ideas for bringing preservation into the classroom?
Submitted by Michelle Zupan at: March 28, 2009
We are trying to help educators in our area do that very thing. With the Georgia Trust we are hosting an educator's workshop called Talking Walls this summer -- all of it focused on how to teach educators to use historic sites and primary source materials in the classroom. They will visit the sites, meet the professionals in the field, and develop lesson plans directed for their classroom. We've already had a wonderful response from teachers who have cabin fever from teaching to the test. Thanks for the Schoolyards to Skylines reference, Max -- I'm going to get a copy and give it away as a door prize at the workshop!
Submitted by Richard Fink at: March 17, 2009
KIDS LOVE THE GHOSTS... Cliveden, a National Trust Historic Site located in Philadelphia, recently began construction of a climate control project in their historic Chew House. While the project has resulted in the removal of collections and interpretative elements from the house, Cliveden was excited by the opportunity to interpret the site in a state of upheaval. The only question was how to offer tours of a building that was essentially a live construction site? With the historic Chew House full of tarps, power tools and wood debris, Cliveden decided to refocus their interpretation onto the permanent characters that once lived in the house. Having recently uncovered an article that proclaimed Cliveden to be “One of the most haunted places in Philadelphia,” it was determined that conjuring the “spirits” of Cliveden’s past would be the ideal way to bring the bare house to life. On Friday the 13th of February and March, Cliveden hosted The Ghost of Chew’s Wall to a sold-out audience of nearly 200 visitors. Offering a ghost lecture that revealed legends and stories about Cliveden’s alleged haunted past, visitors were treated to a history of our site through ghostly accounts. A panel discussion among Chew family descendants who once lived in the house helped to illuminate historic events at our site through the recanting of paranormal experiences. The discussion was followed by a candlelit ghost tour of the Chew House in which visitors encountered live actors portraying “spirits” from Cliveden’s past. Instead of acting as an interpretative deterrent, the “boarded-up” look of the Chew House provided the perfect backdrop for “spooky tours.” Although they could have simply closed the site to tourists, Cliveden was able to provide a creative revenue-generating event for its visitors. Sometimes, changes in the structure or conditions of a historic site can provide unique opportunities for new interpretative techniques. While power tools, tarps and wood debris would usually deter the typical tourist, visitors to The Ghost of Chew’s Wall program overwhelmingly noted that the current condition of the house has encouraged them to return to our site when it has returned to its “normal” conditions. Although the preservation project in Cliveden’s Chew House has presented obstacles for the historic site, the construction has been used as an outlet for preservation of another sort. Sometimes preservation is not only about the building, but also about the individuals, events and stories that took place within its walls. By preserving the spirits of the Chew House’s past, Cliveden has ensured that the legacy of the Chew family and the Battle of Germantown will continue regardless of the site’s condition. To learn more about Cliveden’s climate control project and haunted history, please visit www.cliveden.org.
Submitted by Max van Balgooy, Director of Education, NTHP at: March 6, 2009
A great source for lesson plans and activities is "Schoolyards to Skylines," a 500-page resource book produced by the Chicago Architectural Foundation for K-8th grade teachers. It contains 47 units for teaching social sciences, science, math, language arts, and fine arts using buildings, sites, people, and events (most of the examples are from Chicago, but can be easily modified for any town, large or small). It's so good, it received an Honor Award from the National Trust!
Submitted by Paul LaRue at: March 6, 2009
Have students create questions to ask a veteran. Then, have the veteran come in and discuss them and record the interview. You can use this as a jumping off point for participating in the Veteran' History Project (http://www.loc.gov/vets/), which my students have found very rewarding over the years.