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Georgia: Bringing history to life

By: Chloé Morrison
(Contact)

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Leslie Erdman

About 5,000 elementary and middle school students next week will step back in time for a learning experience expected to be like no other.

“It is going to be a history lesson like they have never experienced,” Mikki Bennett, event coordinator, said. “We are bringing history to life for them.”

During the 145th Anniversary of the Battle of Chickamauga, fifth- and eighth-graders from around the region will attend events created especially to enhance their understanding of American and Civil War history, officials said.

Events for students are Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and the general public events for the 145th anniversary begin Friday and go through the weekend.

Schools from Northwest Georgia and as far away as Knoxville have signed up to send students, and a number of home-schooled students are registered, too, Ms. Bennett said.

The eyewitness learning will include rifle, cannon and cavalry demonstrations, hearing Civil War music and watching a blacksmith create metal, she said. The students will learn about the first Medal of Honor and may talk to surgeons and nurses.

Educators and other experts said the live learning makes more of an impression.

Joe Ryan, president of the Living History Education Foundation in New York, said experiencing history can inspire students and lead to better understanding.

“Experiential learning is the basis of all learning,” he said. “We all learn through experience. Living history excites the kids’ experience level.”

For the School Days lessons, students will circulate through stations to learn about various aspects of life during the Civil War. They will be able to touch authentic, historic items and talk to re-enactors, Ed Hooper, event organizer, said.

Some teachers from Walker and Catoosa counties who will take students to School Days said they frequently use activities and experience to help children learn.

Stephanie Hixon, a teacher at Stone Creek Elementary School, said her fifth-graders use a project called A Class Divided, in which students in the same class are given conflicts to resolve within their close classroom confines, similar to the divided nation during the Civil War. Her class also often visits the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, and living historians visit the class, also.

Leslie Erdman, fifth-grade teacher at Catoosa’s West Side Elementary, said her class does an activity in which they must write a paper trying to imagine the perspective of a person recently freed from slavery.

The teachers said students are eager for the hands-on learning that will come next week at the events in McLemore Cove, where the anniversary and re-enactment events will be staged.

Abby Honeycutt, 10, and her fifth-grade class from Stone Creek Elementary will be there. Abby said she likes learning about history and agreed the living history lessons will be more memorable.

“I think it is fun to learn about what people did for their country,” she said.

Mr. Hooper said School Days should increase local interest in history, which he said can be hard for young minds. He has helped organize other battle re-enactments where similar learning experiences have been successful, he said.

Ms. Hixon said the experience can evoke responses from children who are usually quiet.

“They really get into it,” she said. “I think it could really open their eyes to history and let them see why we are who we are today.”

Planners and teachers said they hope the events make a deep impression on their students. Maybe the student who was somewhat interested in history will have a moment of realization and begin a lifelong passion, Mrs. Hixon said.

But even for students who aren’t destined to be history buffs or re-enactors, the experience will be a good learning tool, teachers said.

“They are going to be able to use their senses,” Ms. Hixon said. “They will hear it and smell it and get to touch things. If they can use their senses, they are definitely going to remember things better.”

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