Musket Demonstration Click Here Amazing and Humbling, Thats what it was like for me today when I walked into the Headquarters for Washington at Valley Forge. To actually touch the same handrail that he had touched thousands of times as he went to bed weary and worried would he be able to pull this off ? Will they be able to take all of these men and all of these armies from different places with different styles of fighting and turn them into a well oiled machine. I could almost picture Washington looking out his second story window at the top of the stairs out into that bleak winter landscaping watching the smoke of campfires surounding his house of the soldiers whose job was to be the personal gaurd of Comanding General.
As a teacher I have been told over there years that I do an a pretty good job at telling a story and today I was able to truly discern many of the legends and myth’s I had learned before and replace them with facts and stories that are so much more powerful in depth and breadth then the Hollywoodized version the world has come to know. I would share the story of the life and hardships of the Soldiers at Valley Forgebut instead of just focusing on the difficulties they had I would also talk about some of the accoplishments they had as well, from building all of those amazing cabins, to baking 13,000 loafs of bread daily to the amazing Forges they had created as well. I would then have the students put themselves in theshoes of a Continental Army and share their thoughts on what would be going through their minds if they had been there, as a soldier, as an officer or even as Washington himself.
Ok going to go technology Geek on you guys and try to import a video lets see if it works.
Brian,
I agree with you about telling stories in history and how necessary it is to seperate fact from fiction! I also liked what you say about the kids “getting into the shoes” of historical people and events. History is a story & if we can get our kids to live it, role play, imagine themselves in the history, then they succeed & our job becomes so much easier!
John H.
Been enjoying the blog…little disappointed not to see the dog picture today…tell everyone hello from me and hope everyone is doing well.
Duane
I would agree- seeing Washington’s headquarters was Definitely amazing and humbling. Just think, we were able to touch the same place that Washington probably ran his hand across a million times- WOW!
Also, I tried to run your slideshow and I couldn’t get it to work.