[GA] Homeschoolers learn history by living it during special event

Sixty homeschoolers traveled back in time for a history lesson recently near Webster Lake on the White/Habersham county line.

The children and their parents participated in "Living History - Building a Nation," an event organized by the Northeast Georgia Homeschool Association. The association includes members from White, Habersham, Hall and Stephens counties.

Historical re-enactors from the Coalition of Historical Trekkers (COHT) were happy to share their passion for history and demonstrate to homeschoolers the skills American pioneers used to survive.

"We want kids and parents to understand that these skills are important," said Veronica Wiese, COHT vice president.

Wiese said she and fellow historical trekkers, Terry Poll and Ed Seeley, showed homeschoolers how to build fires and shelters, how to cook over a fire and taught lessons in such subjects as archery, tracking, lashing and knots, native pottery, spear throwing, map reading and identifying wild plants. They also played pioneer games and judged for period accuracy when groups of children performed skits they'd written about America's early settlers. Younger children made spoon dolls, birdhouses, necklaces and did leaf rubbings.

Wiese said it is important for children to see how their ancestors lived without today's modern conveniences, especially since people of today have become so dependent on them.

"History is a subject that is under-taught," Wiese said. "We forget to tell children why it (history) is important."

Wiese said she wants students to learn that children, as well as adults, helped build the United States.

"Children as well as adults sailed on the Mayflower and came across the prairie in covered wagons," she said.

Historical trekkers are committed to preserving and researching the people who tamed the American wilderness from 1600 to 1860. Each trekker takes on a persona, and must learn the skills or trade of that particular historical figure. Wiese portrays a German woman from Pennsylvania who lived in the mid-1700s. Wiese said her character worked from before dawn to long after dusk, as most pioneer women did. She cooked several meals for the homeschoolers, such as cabbage and sausage, over a fire using 18th century recipes.

"I get up at 4 a.m. to have breakfast ready at 7 a.m.," Wiese said. "Then you start the mid-day meal as soon as breakfast is over."

Homeschoolers and their parents camped in tents near Webster Lake during the three-day event, and most agreed it was a valuable experience for the whole family. "It's such an incredible learning experience for them to have hands-on history, to see and experience things," said Julie Courson of Cleveland, who homeschools her daughters.

Kim Martin, of the Northeast Georgia Homeschool Association, helped organize this year's event.

Martin met Wiese at a homeschool convention in Atlanta, and asked Wiese if she'd be interested in this type of educational project. "I told Veronica (Wiese) 'If you ever want to go camping near Helen, give me a call,'" she said.

I'm listening to Doris Kerns Goodwin's book (on disk), Team of Rivals, about the Lincoln Administration. It's fascinating, because without the political perspective of the time you can't fully appreciate the military side of the Civil War. Without politics, war has no point.
For example, the Battle of First Manassas occurred because the administration was under pressure to "do something," after the secessionists had taken Fort Sumpter. But because of all the southern defections from the government and the military, the federal government was in fact little better organized than the Confederacy. It was the first major initiative of the Union forces, and it was a disaster. The Confederates routed the attacking Union forces and could have - and by Stonewall Jackson's counsel would have - taken Washington.
Political considerations drove the Union move in the first place, and likewise political considerations restrained the Confederacy from an immediate counterattack. Gettysburg is called "the high water mark of the Confederacy," but militarily you would have to rate First Manassas that way.
Because of the size of its population and its economy the Union forces were sure to win a marathon, but if the Confederacy had taken Washington and Baltimore (which was peopled by secessionists anyway), the Confederacy might have limited the war to a sprint. As "the strong horse" at that point, they very well might have attracted the border states which in the event teetered on the brink but did not secede. In which case Britain probably would have followed its own economic interest and recognized the Confederacy - and that would have been "game, set, and match."
But the Confederacy didn't see itself,and didn't wish to be seen, as an empirial power threatening the North. That would have been a political risk as well - and one that the infant Confederacy did not have the political will to take.
The point of this rant is that people of the 18th Century lived under very different circumstances and understandings than we do. In 1862 Mary Lincoln's favorite son came down with a fever, lingered for about three weeks, and died. And no matter what education and field trips you do today, we should all be grateful that there is no question of learning the lesson that Mary and Abraham Lincoln learned. It's simply not possible to understand the effect on people of life being as uncertain as it was for everyone, up to and including the POTUS, as recently as 1862.

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