Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 19, 1990 TAG: 9007190590
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Learning how difficult growing food was back in the 18th century was only one skill the 18 California elementary schoolteachers tried to learn during a week this summer at Colonial Williamsburg. It is the historical organization's first program for elementary schoolteachers.
"These are things you can't learn from books," said James Banner who teaches in Chula Vista.
Cynthia Burns, a spokeswoman for Colonial Williamsburg, said the program is designed to teach educators in a way that is different from learning in a library or going back to school.
"They have to teach so much. We're hoping to give them some ideas and knowledge that are outside of the textbooks," Burns said.
Colonial Williamsburg, one of the nation's best-known restored Colonial-era towns and museum, offers the teachers a look at history unavailable on the West Coast.
The teachers are part of joint project between the California Department of Education and Colonial Williamsburg. The state has changed its curriculum to put a greater emphasis on the Colonial period.
For Dain Self and Kimerlee Rizzuti, who teach as a team in San Diego, it means more time to explore one area rather than try to cram in the whole range of history.
"We don't have to start ... with the nomads crossing the Bering Straits land bridge to North America," Rizzuti said. "We will mention it, but we'll be moving quickly into Colonial history."
The pair plan to mix art, history, music, mathematics, and social studies into their fifth-graders' study of Colonial times. They are planning on making their own Colonial re-creation in their classroom complete with costumes, Colonial fifes and drums, recipes and other traditions of the early settlers.
"We want to get our students excited. Kids need to touch things, to feel them, to hold them to make them alive in their minds," Rizzuti said.
The teachers have taken notes on a variety of Colonial-era structures and building methods. They learned, for example, that as a fire-prevention measure chimneys were built leaning away from the house. When the mud-and-straw chimneys caught fire, they could be toppled away from the building.
"Less to rebuild that way," a tour guide said.
Dennis O'Toole, Colonial Williamsburg's chief education officer, has been working for several years with California officials to come up with a format for teaching the fifth-graders.
The program is funded by a Los Angeles couple and General Dynamics Corp. Burns said the program cost $23,000. Colonial Williamsburg is considering offering similar but less expensive programs for other groups of elementary teachers.
The California teachers are not the only ones gaining an intimate knowledge of the Colonial period. Visitors can pay up to $550 for two weeks to accompany archaeologists around Colonial Williamsburg.
"I think, in general, they get a better grasp of the social history of the time," said staff archaeologist Meredith Moodey.
The small group of participants in the summer program come from varied backgrounds, she said.
"We've had everything from a Denver policewoman to IBM executives," she said. "They are not necessarily well-to-do, but have a real desire for more knowledge of the period."
by CNB