Reflecting back on our trip, there are many ideas and new things that were brought to light that I will be able to incorporate in to my classroom.

I have to say I really loved the use of technology in the Abraham Lincoln Museum. It was so interactive and the shows were wonderful. This is a wonderful way to grab or “hook” the kids into the study of history. I get so tired of hearing “history is boring.”  As teachers, it is our job to prove them wrong. What a challenge! Especially with middle schoolers since they think they know everything. LOL

For me, the highlight of the trip was visiting Springfield, seeing “all things Lincoln”. I absolutely loved the visit to Lincoln’s home. There was a picture in the visitors center of Lincoln standing on his porch, surrounded by throngs of people. Then when you walk around the corner and actually see that house, envision Lincoln standing there, hearing the cacophony of voices and cheers, it’s awespiring; I get chills just thinking of it now. Then walking through the house, being in a place where Lincoln actually was, seeing the private side of his life compared to the public side we are familiar with, it really brings things in to perspective.

I was shocked that Lincoln let his boys run amok like he did. I had never heard them described in quite this way. He pretty much let them do whatever they wanted. That is not the way I envision children of the President behaving. This just proves that they were “real” people, the common man. If only we could get some of that back in to politics today.

Despite my infatuation with “all things Lincoln” I have to say there were two other sites / people that really piqued my interest, which I didn’t really expect. Those are Frank Lloyd Wright and George Pullman.

With Frank Lloyd Wright, I wasn’t really interested in seeing or hearing about his architectual techniques, and really didn’t understand why anyone cared. Was it just because he was “American”? Boy was I given a kick in the pants. He is quite an amusing man. While I became enthralled with his buildings, and loved walking around the neighborhood trying to pick out the houses he had actually built or remodeled, I am even more interested in his architectual style and the man himself. He seems quite “self-interested” and didn’t appear to be the nicest of people. I am really looking forward to studying more about him to see if this is truly what he was like. As mentioned before, he and his architectual style are the topic of my lesson plan.

Secondly, George Pullman. Like FLW, his behavior, mannerisms and issue with control really caught my interest. I really had no idea the extent that this man went to to create Pullmantown, this area of “paradise” in a world gone crazy with industrialization. While you can see his vision of perfection, it is skewed from the view of a person on top. You really have to see the other perspective, the people who made it work and did the work. I really feel that our architectual tour of the Pullman factories brought that in to perspective. Jane really made us take a look at the working man, not just at the administrators themselves. That is the part of history that we lose. It has been mentioned many times on this trip and in previous classes that we focus too much on the rich and famous. They weren’t and are not the only people in this country and they certainly weren’t and aren’t always the most interesting.  This is the part of history that you really have to search for. The history that you see in photoraphs, that you read about in letters. Not the textbook version. This is the part of history that we need to bring to light. This is what makes history interesting.