PACETAH

The East Coast tour has come and gone! Twenty-nine PACETAH participants, Social Studies Advisory Council members, and some (brave) spouses  departed on Sunday, June 25 for 9 days of whirlwind activity in 3 states (Massachusetts, Maryland, and Virginia) and the District of Columbia! Although we didn’t have time to see “everything”, we certainly crammed as much into the 9 days as possible.  We were able to overcome a couple of “glitches” with EF Tours in order to see everything we needed to see.  (Who would go to Jamestown and Yorktown without expecting to see the “real deal”?  Go figure… )

We traveled by air, train, bus, and for some of us, by sea!  We missed the floods but NOT the humidity!!  The USA Today, in its Friday, June 30 edition, listed ”10 great places to steep in American History.”  We managed to see 6 of the 10:  The Old North Bridge, Concord, Mass., the Old North Church and Old South Meeting House in Boston, The National Archives and American History Museum in DC, and Yorktown Battlefield.  What did we miss?  Fraunces Tavern, NYC, Independence Hall and Betsy Ross Home in Philadelphia, and Ft. McHenry in Baltimore. One teacher, with great foresight, carried a pedometer.  Before we left Reagan Airport in DC to come home, it read almost 47 miles!  We worked hard and we played hard, and I want to thank all of the travelers for being so congenial and for making the trip great fun! 

As part of our WTAMU Summer Institute, 2006, 32 history educators traveled to Independence, Missouri to spend time at the Harry S Truman Library and Museum.  Not only did Library staff make available access to their archives, we modeled innovative ways to use primary sources in the classroom!

 After we finished will the Cold War, we stepped further back in time to visit the National Frontier Trails Museum and the Arabia Steamboat Museum.  I found both to be fascinating vignettes on life in the 19th century American West.

The Texas Panhandle was represented by seven participants at the OAH conference in Washington,D.C. in April 2006.  We were pleased that Dr. Shaffer was able to join us on the first day of the conference.  As always, the OAH offered provocative sessions which encourage critical thinking and debate!  Our teachers occasionally were amazed (and dare I say, horrified?) at some of the sessions.  The off-site sessions offered such rarities as a behind-the-scenes tour of the National Archives, the nuts and bolts of digital access to the Library of Congress, and other useful and fascinating topics.  For my part, best of all was simply being in the nation’s capital and actually seeing all the things we teach our students.

Seventeen grant members attended the NCHE conference in Austin last week.  The sessions were really informative!  On Thursday we did our own tour of historic sites in Austin, including the Texas State Cemetary, the Capitol and downtown Austin, as well as the LBJ Library.  We observed the “circus-like” atmosphere on the Capitol grounds as, on one side of the Capitol, we observed a group promoting ethanol (several teachers got both a free meal and a free T-shirt out of that deal!). On the other side of the Capitol a protest against the proposed immigrant legislation allowed lots of students and a few older folks to wave flags, chant, and perform for the TV cameras that were in evidence.  It appeared that most were having a good time.  Our teachers had a good time, too, although I didn’t notice any of ours dancing in front of the TV cameras!

Jill, Monica and I just returned from the NSSA meeting in Las Vegas where we presented a session on mentoring.  Jill and Monica did a GREAT job!!  There was lots of interest, and some really good discussion.  Thanks, Monica and Jill for being great ambassadors for the grant and for the Panhandle.