Greenwich Time, Greenwich, Connecticut
May 28, 1989
In January 1988 I began graduate work in secondary education. This was a number of years after I had followed family tradition and involved myself in the preservation of the heritage of both Greenwich and our fast-disappearing Yankee New England.
My interest and certification will be in history, which to those who know me is no surprise. I've been keenly interested in instilling in our students the need to study history and take part in historic preservation.
Many have been unfortunately turned off by history, but those who make it boring and sterile. Yet for those in our secondary schools, historic preservation is and should be encouraged as an integral part of the educational process.
In this community and others like it, we can find a number of relics worthy of study and preservation. The attic and Grandma's house can unfold a universe of historic resources such as diaries, old pictures, newspapers, antiquated gadgets and a rich array of memorabilia gathering dust.
Down the street and atop a nearby hill, an abandoned burying ground peers silently over the surrounding landscape, its gravestones fallen and vandalized, begging for some recognition, dignity and rescue from the overgrowth.
About a mile away is the headquarters of the local historical society, sitting on its stone foundations as it has for centuries. Within its walls a staff of volunteers painstakingly work to preserve the town's heritage, and wait patiently for visitors to come by. The surrounding streetscape is dotted with architectural treasures from various eras of our national historic heritage.
Meanwhile, at any of a number of high schools and junior highs in America, students read assigned homogenized texts about wars, rebellions, economic rises and falls. They are endlessly lectured, perhaps viewing a film once in a while, and, one presumes, catching up on their sleep. Our national and world heritage is light years away. As far as many students are concerned, none of this is relevant, and boredom sets in. No wonder.
While all this happens, Grandma sits alone at home, with a world of unique and irreplaceable reminiscences. No one is there to record this. All seems lost. The old burying ground remains neglected. The historical society and its fine resources go ignored, except by a few. The architecture of the streetscape goes unnoticed until a developer seeks to demolish its façade, erasing the past forever.
Like many concerned Americans, I was appalled when former Secretary of Education Bennett stated in "What Works: Research about Teaching and Learning 1986" that:
"Earlier generations of American students commonly learned the history of American institutions, politics and systems of government as well as some of the history of Greece, Rome, Europe and the rest of the world… Indications are that students now know and understand less about history… Requirements have also declined for writing essays, producing research-based papers, and reading original sources… reasoning skills as evaluating sources of information, drawing conclusions and constructing logical arguments… As a result, students know too little about the past… Two-thirds of students tested could not place the Civil War within the period 1850 – 1900; half could not identify Winston Churchill or Stalin.... The decline in the study of history may hinder students from gaining an historical perspective of contemporary life."
Numerous history courses in America for young people can be equated with institutional boredom. Those who cannot remember the sad episodes in our past are not only condemned to repeat it, but it is also probable of those mistakes may become imposed on the subconscience basis to present and future generations of students. How many of you can recall with nostalgia various boring textbooks, lectures and endless busywork?
The power that we as educators, history preservationists and society in general share is overwhelming when considering the famous quote by Haim Ginott:
"I have come to a conclusion. I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, a child humanized or de-humanized."
It doesn't have to be this way. By bringing about the marriage of secondary education and history presentation, the study of our heritage is enhanced, and its conservation soon becomes a worthwhile experience for students. This may, in fact, lead to a lifelong commitment to history and historic preservation.
By focusing on the community and the family, students of history are able to become personally involved. They study the history of themselves and others who live in the America of past and present. Through historic preservation and by studying history, students realize that the actions of individuals are not isolated from the mainstream of events, just as the events of history are not isolated from each other.
I think the most effective way to involve secondary level students in a better appreciation for the relevance of historic preservation and the study of history is to teach the idea that this fits into the mosaic of the community. In this context the community becomes a research laboratory, and students discover that they are surrounded by history. By using their resources and talents, through such activities as oral history research and recording, genealogy, archival work and collecting, burying ground restoration, house restoration and conservation, and more, students discover the unique and valuable contributions made by men and women as part of the larger culture from years past and how these individuals collectively influenced the history and development of their community, state and nation.
Numerous examples abound of the students involved in the act of preservation and study of history.
At Central Catholic High School in Norwalk, a course on historical research is offered. This course is a collaboration between the school and Lockwood-Mathhews Mansion which combines classwork pertaining to the history of Norwalk and architectural design. Both teachers and students realize that in such a setting a better understanding of the community is achieved, using Norwalk and the Lockwood Matthews Mansion as both a reference and a laboratory of preservation education. Activities have included tours, slideshows, at a project in refinishing wood.
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| Lockwood Matthews Mansion, Norwalk, Connecticut USA. |
Lockwood Matthews Mansion also conducts its own 'Invitation to Discovery' program, which involves lifestyles of the 19th century. Staffed and decided by volunteers, the program exposes students to such exercises as reading and vocabulary building, as well as the decorative arts and architecture. In the 'Search and Discovery Game' the students use color photographs to match pictures with rooms on the second floor of the mansion as well as the fine decorative details found throughout this magnificent South Norwalk mansion.
Burying grounds are the most fascinating, yet one of the most neglected sources of the darker side of local history. They contain important clues about the people who lived in town, their values and social patterns, and represent idea places for high school students to take on the role of historical detective. It is quite multidisciplinary, in that data collected at the sites can form the basis of discussion and study such issues as a religious rites, ethnic, social and cultural traditions, gravestone design, epitaph poetry, life expectancy patterns, town growth, economics and much more.
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| The front porch of the Bush Holley House, headquarters of the Greenwich Historical Society. |
In a program I designed and implemented under the sponsorship of the Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich, students from area schools have taken of the restoration of numerous neglected burial sites. This entails organizing themselves and selecting a particular site for clean-up. Through this hands-on experience, students have come to realize, perhaps more than adults, that the cause of neglect and vandalism of these sites is ignorance of these historic places. They also come to understand that fiscal restraints in local government prevents the town from doing more to maintain these places. Thus students realize that they have an important role in safeguarding the past and assisting town government.
Genealogy, the study of family history, is a popular activity with young and old alike. The history of our nation is comprised of the individual histories of people and families. Genealogy shows the student how each of them and their families are an integral part of the community, encouraging students to feel pride as Americans and leading to respect for other people's ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Many historical societies and genealogical organizations hold seminars open to all interested and family research.
Many historical organizations sponsor various hands-on educational activities for junior high school and high school students. Sturbridge Village, Mass., sells educational tools for teachers through its Living History Resources catalog, as well as developing extensive educational programs suited for various curriculums. The Antiquarian and Landmarks Society of Connecticut offers an array of special programs for students of all ages, such as thematic tours of museum houses, craft activities and living history experiences of two of the properties under its control.
The virtue in the collaboration between educational institutions and historic preservation is that not only do students actively participate in collecting and preserving much of which might be lost, but it also serves as a rallying point for a variety of studies of local themes that collectively make up the kaleidoscopic nature of the great and humble aspect of America's past.
As John Dewey pointed out long ago, "If an experience arouses curiosity, strengthens initiative and sets up desires and purposes that are sufficiently intense to carry a person over dead places in the future, continuity works in a different way. Every experience is a moving force. Its value can be judged only on the ground of what it moves toward and into..."
Many of those who are actively involved in the preservation of heritage know that many citizens are not as committed to historic preservation as they are to such important issues as environmental and wildlife conservation. Preserving our history has been solely tied to the restoration of a house as a museum, and usually within the exclusive realm of the well-to-do, leaving many would-be preservationists outside because of a lack of financial resources or a lack of shared concern with historians.
Thus the partnership of education and historic preservation is vital. It opens students to the multi-disciplinary aspects of our heritage by working cooperatively toward a constructive goal. I am amazed when visiting schools to find that so much of our educational system is still resistant to learning through experience, still casting aside what is not academic.
Virtually none of the years of social studies courses in our schools deals with the fears, emotions and achievements of the past, not to mention a students belief and self-worth, motivation and relations with our cultural history and community.
I think the Thomas Jefferson summed up the pertinence of history when he pointed out: "History, by apprising them of the past, will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of the times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views."
We have a choice; we can broaden our horizons, and not succumb to the modern-day phenomenon characterized as the "closing of the American mind."
Jeffrey Bingham Mead is a direct descendant of one of the founding families of the town. He is a free-lance writer and a member of the Greenwich Historical Society.
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