Dianne Swann-Wright, Director of African-American and Special Programs at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, discusses the contributions of slaves in creating Monticello—both in clearing the land and establishing the house itself and in crafting furniture and other pieces to finish the house.
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This place-based, interdisciplinary workshop uses Henry David Thoreau’s ethic and his experience at Walden Woods as a model, and features a daily mix of lectures, field trips, readings, discussions and reflection time. The participants encounter speakers from different fields with expertise in the areas of natural history, writing, literary analysis, history, and the environment.
Sponsored by the National Park Service, Gettysburg College, and Mount St. Mary's University, the Academy presents an in-depth perspective of Dwight D. Eisenhower as president and world leader. Sessions introduce effective strategies for teaching the Cold War in the classroom and include:
* New scholarship on the Eisenhower Presidency.
* Field trips, lectures, and discussion on the 1950s including the Cold War, civil rights, and popular culture.
* A visit to the Eisenhower National Historic Site to get an intimate glimpse into Eisenhower's life and times.
* Opportunities to learn about and use primary source documents, film and video footage, and the World Wide Web as research tools.
* A walk through historic Gettysburg exploring Eisenhower's life and times in the community.
This free weekend will feature “field trip” tours of Antietam and Harpers Ferry, focusing on techniques teachers can use to make a battlefield visit a central part of their Civil War curriculum.
Teachers will attend their choice of workshops on Friday and Sunday, covering a range of military and civilian topics. Past presenters of these workshops have included leading historians and educators, and topics have ranged from tactical military history to strategies for teaching the Civil War to struggling readers. These workshops are designed not only to impart specific information about the era but also a variety of pedagogical strategies to help teachers bring the Civil War to life in their classrooms.
In June 2008, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park and the Harpers Ferry Historical Association will host a one-week workshop that will enable 4th–12th grade teachers to walk in the footsteps of John Brown, John Cook, Shields Green, Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Heyward Shepherd, Fountain Beckham, and many others as they learn about events of national significance that have occurred in Harpers Ferry. Educators will get to interact with historians, curators, museum educators, and other professionals in the field. This institute will prepare teachers to use historic documents, artifacts, and images to enhance their teaching and to inspire students with the stories that make history come alive in the classroom and beyond.
This two-and-a-half day workshop will provide a varied program of lectures, demonstrations, collaborative work, and analysis of documents and works of art to introduce teachers to the holdings of the National Archives and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Workshop attendees will participate in and develop classroom activities that utilize both visual images and primary source documents as teaching tools in ways that sharpen students’ skills and enthusiasm for history, social studies, and the humanities. The content focus will be on Westward Expansion and the Civil War.
Many students are familiar with the legendary feats of Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, and Mickey Mantle; but what about the accomplishments of baseball stars such as Minnie Minoso, Sam Jethroe, and Masanori Murakami? Their courage as Latino, African-American, and Asian athletes helped make baseball one of the first great melting pots in professional sports. As a result, diversity and athleticism remain time-tested teammates on the field of excellence. From the archives of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY, this video presents untold stories about Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, Hank Greenberg, and Roberto Clemente, men who defied prejudice to challenge racial and ethnic barriers with a pride and passion that continues to inspire. This electronic field trip through the gallery and exhibits of America's greatest baseball shrine reveals surprising lessons in math and science, social studies and the fine arts—and an opportunity to learn how the character and leadership of these men shaped the future of baseball.
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"This seminar explores how an economically and politically powerless racial minority wrested dramatic change from a determined and entrenched white majority in the American South. It will examine the changing nature of protest from the 1940s to the 1950s; the roles of Martin Luther King, Jr., local movements, and women; and the relative importance of violence and non-violence. Participants will discuss how they can use the experiences of schoolchildren, teachers, and students in the crises of the 1950s and 1960s to bring home the realities of the civil rights movement in the classroom. Topics include the Little Rock 9 and their teachers in 1957, students and sit-ins, and the use of schoolchildren in the 1963 Birmingham demonstrations."
Abraham Lincoln will stand at the centre of the seminar, though less as a biographical subject than as a prism for exploring key aspects of his age. The themes and topics to be addressed include slavery and the Old South; the abolitionist impulse and the broadening antislavery movement; party political realignment and the sectional crisis of the 1850s; evangelicalism and politics; the election of 1860, the secession of the Lower South, and the coming of war; wartime leadership, political and military; the Civil War 'home front'; emancipation; the elements of Confederate defeat and Union victory; and the meaning of the war for American nationalism.
"This seminar explores how an economically and politically powerless racial minority wrested dramatic change from a determined and entrenched white majority in the American South. It will examine the changing nature of protest from the 1940s to the 1950s; the roles of Martin Luther King, Jr., local movements, and women; and the relative importance of violence and non-violence. Participants will discuss how they can use the experiences of schoolchildren, teachers, and students in the crises of the 1950s and 1960s to bring home the realities of the civil rights movement in the classroom. Topics include the Little Rock 9 and their teachers in 1957, students and sit-ins, and the use of schoolchildren in the 1963 Birmingham demonstrations."