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Learning From the 2003
SHA Public Session’s
PEIC K-12 Social Studies Education Event:
What can be taken forward from this Public
Archaeology experience?
by Patrice L. Jeppson
Circulated for Comment
The PEIC K-12th Grade Issues subcommittee organized a public
education outreach event for the 2003 SHA conference in
(1) the proposed goals for the event (the outcomes hoped for)
(2) the objectives designed to accomplish these goals (the strategies
prioritized so
that desired outcomes might be reached)
and
(3) the results of the conducted event (an evaluation of the goals
reached and/or
missed including the variables impacting the objectives–both
those within
and those beyond our control).
These aspects of the PEIC
K-12 Social Studies Education Event represent some of the questions that count in this and in any
public archaeology endeavor. At least some of what was learned from this experience
can and should be taken forward to future SHA PEIC outreach endeavors and
may be of use in planning public archaeology undertakings in general.
The Research Context of
the PEIC K-12 Outreach Event
Public Archaeology is a rapidly evolving area of practice
within the field of anthropological archaeology and is now regularly found
as part of disciplinary practice comprising archaeological conference and
session themes[2],
publication topics[3]
as well as agency[4],
non-profit[5],
and professional Society agendas[6].
The pursuit allows the profession to proselytize about archaeology’s needs
by presenting to the public the insights gained while serving as keepers of
the public trust with the aim of ensuring continuing public support for archaeology
and enlisting public cooperation in efforts to protect archaeology sites from
looting, vandalism, and economic development (For discussion, see, among others
Hersher and McManamon
2000). Beyond public archaeology directed through this disciplinary lens,
there is also a public interest area of practice whereby, in acting civically
beyond our disciplinary goals, archaeologists seek to integrate intellectual
practice with the daily lives of people giving the public information they
need and can use so as to improve communities through archaeology while improving
archaeology through communities.[7]
Public Archaeology is found prominently featured in the
recently revised Society for American
Archaeology Ethics guidelines where it bears fundamentally on the central
guiding ethical principle of Stewardship (SAA Principle of Archaeological
Ethics No. 1).[8]
The topic also directly constitutes another SAA Principle of Archaeological
Ethics, No. 4 (out of 8): Public Education and Outreach.[9]
Public Archaeology is likewise a feature, albeit one positioned less centrally,
in the Society for Historical Archaeology’s
Ethical Principles and Professional Guidelines for Practice forming Principle
7 (of 7) and Guideline 7 (of 7).[10]
While increasingly recognized as important and ever more
present as a form of practice, public archaeology is nonetheless still finding
its footing (Downum and Price 1999; Gibb 2001).
Applied anthropologist Erve Chambers has recently
summarized the current state of public archaeology as an applied form of practice
and found it lacking in critical evaluation (Chambers, forthcoming[11]).
Chambers writes:
…it is worth asking how
much we actually know about the extent to which such [applied archaeology]
activities do contribute to public education. I mean this in two ways. First,
is the message getting across in general? How, for example do people actually
read heritage into a site, and what is the relationship between their readings
of heritage and the intentions of archaeologists? Second, is the message getting
across in specific cases? How effective, for example, is a particular educational
strategy, or how well do different kinds of sites fulfill their educational
and outreach missions? Much is assumed in terms of the educational mission
of public archaeology, but I think we know very little in this regard. In
my admittedly limited experience, it appears that the evaluation of archaeological
public education activities is often limited (if it occurs at all) to relatively
simple surveys designed to collect visitor demographics and gauge first impressions
related to site specifics and the valuation of archaeological inquiry. That
such evaluative efforts are often associated with attempts to justify or seek
additional support for archaeological work makes their scientific usefulness
suspect….
….There is as yet no standard,
or even clear means, for placing such case material within the context of
similar efforts. What I mean by this should be apparent if we think of the
way we typically write basic (i.e., nonapplied) research. It would be difficult to get any such
material past an editor or peer reviewer without
providing a fairly comprehensive review of how the research fits within the
context of earlier inquiries.
These comments highlight
the ill-defined nature of evaluation in public outreach practice identifying
two critical failures to this end. The first is the need to determine whether
‘the message’ in a public archaeology effort gets across. In other words,
is what the archaeologist hopes to convey ‘conveyed’. The second is the need
for adequate evaluation strategies. There needs to be critical reasoning behind
any ‘effectiveness/success’ assessments done on outreach endeavors. The fact
that evaluation in public archaeology practice is lacking is increasingly
being recognized by many publicly directed-archaeologists and there are individuals
working to establish useful criteria for the formal assessment of public outreach.[12]
To be fair, it should be pointed out that the course of public archaeology
endeavors and the subsequent state of their follow-up evaluation are simply
following the evolution of activity as pursued in general archaeology practice:
One doesn’t interpret a site before it is excavated nor does one conclude
about regional patterns before multiple sites are investigated. Many would
reasonably state that evaluation in public archaeology can only take place
after there are significant efforts that can be analyzed and compared. Given
the varied outreach efforts undertaken (during the past two decades in particular),
and the body of valuable information gathered to date, it is time that public
archaeology address evaluation as a part of all endeavors. Having said this,
it should also be noted however that another view holds that evaluation is
expected and built into modern projects in most other professional fields
(education, business, etc.) and that publicly-directed archaeologists have
been remiss in their undertakings for not beginning with this as a feature
of their efforts.
The 2002 PEIC K-12 Social
Studies Education Event was designed from the beginning with the need for
evaluation in mind. To this end, a formal proposal was constructed at the
outset outlining the desired goals hoped for and with objectives put forth
as to how these goals might be met (Jeppson 2002b) This was done in the hope
that by formalizing the nature of the undertaking the effort would lend itself
as useful research that could be objectively learned from.
The Proposed 2002 PEIC
K-12 Social Studies Education Event:
In early 2002, Tara Tetrault and Patrice
L. Jeppson – the PEIC K-12th Grade Issues subcommittee – decided
to arrange an event for local
Designing Effective Outreach
The PEIC had gained substantial information about how to effectively
reach out to the public school teacher during the educator/archaeologist panel
discussion organized for the 2002 SHA meeting in Mobile, Alabama (a PEIC and
ISRC sponsored event).[13]
I also had gathered information about how to undertake such outreach from
the History/Social Studies Consultant for the Los Angeles County Office of
Education who presented at SHA in
Specifically, these sources suggested contacting/targeting teachers
for archaeology outreach using ‘institutional networks in place as part of
the culture of schools’. This directed strategy included targeting school
district social studies curriculum specialists/directors (as opposed to the
common practice of archaeologists contacting school principles), providing
a letter from the National Council for the Social Studies endorsing the event
(utilizing the NCSS liaison to SHA), and scheduling teacher events on weekends
rather than weekdays (because securing leave just after the Christmas Holiday
is unlikely and inconvenient for teachers and is ever more unlikely due to
the lack of funding for substitutes)[16].
This was information gathered for inclusion in the SHA Annual Conference Public Outreach Session
Guidelines and Conference Organizer Overview[17].
It also informed the teacher targeting strategy for the 2003 PEIC Social Studies
Education outreach event.
Meeting Educator’s Needs
Experience gained from the audience discussion during last year’s Panel
Discussion also identified/verified that there are at least two audiences
of publicly-directed archaeologists found within the SHA membership: one more
novice and one more experienced with working with schools. This division in
experience parallels to a degree the two different approaches found in formal
school outreach - one of these being extra-curricular (offerings outside the
normal course of study offered) and one being curricular-based (where archaeology
content is tailored to meet pedagogical concerns). While either extra-curricular
or curricular efforts may be designed towards meeting civic needs, both types
of outreach as they are practiced primarily tend to be motivated by ‘insider’
disciplinary needs related to Stewardship. Thus, whether it is a matter of
inexperience or motive, the end result in much public outreach to the formal
school sector is that all to often the archaeologist provides the educator
with resources that are either less relevant or less usable for teacher needs (e.g., not
in line with education’s needs). The 2003 PEIC K-12 Social Studies Education
Event was therefore also designed as a way to help historical
archaeologists better understand the needs of educators. It was hoped
that the educational aspects of the event would offer the membership insight
into how archaeology is used in the classroom by educators for education purposes
(as opposed to for archaeology needs).
These two aspects of public
outreach informed the goals for the PEIC K-12 Social Studies Education Event
which were:
(1) effectively
contacting an audience of teachers
and
(2)
targeting the publicly-directed SHA membership with
information about education needs as opposed to archaeology needs
Drawing on information gained from (the above mentioned) education
and education-connected sources, several objectives were designed and formally
proposed to help meet these two desired goals. These objectives centered on
the PEIC Event planning taking two actions:
(a) creating a joint teacher/membership
format for the event
and
(b) implementing specific
scheduling tactics sensitive to audience needs
These objectives in turn
drew on the budding NCSS/SHA affiliation begun by Tara Tetrault (the SHA Delegate to NCSS) as part of her Inter-Society
Relations Committee duties as well as from the relationship SHA established
with NCSS in 2002 during the Panel Discussion (where the NCSS President and
an NCSS Board Member were participants).
The resulting event proposal forwarded in mid-year to the Chair of
the PEIC and to Allen Leveled, the local host public session organizer, follows
here:
Proposed 2002 PEIC Event
The PEIC K-12 subcommittee (with the assistance
of the National Council for the Social
Studies*), hopes to organize
a teacher-archaeology discussion event at the SHA’s conference in
ABSTRACT:
"How Is Archaeology Used In the Classroom?
An archaeologist and two educators will
work in tandem in this session, sharing their professional expertise with
an audience comprised of both archaeologists and teachers. First, a Current
Research presentation will be made by an historical archaeologist. This archaeology
presentation will then be deconstructed/translated by Social Studies Curriculum Specialists
for use in the classroom. In this way, local
Rationale:
Both educators and archaeologists will
benefit from this event:
-Educators will receive formal instruction
on how to incorporate archaeology content into lesson plans. (The teachers
will thus be primed to make the most of the Public Session’s offerings). This
event helps meet the Society’s public outreach objectives.
-Observing how educators make use of archaeology
for education needs will be informative (possibly eye opening) for the Society’s
membership. This event will help prepare the membership for stewardship activities
in outreach to the formal school sector.
Based on the membership’s attendance at
last year’s PEIC panel discussion of educators and archaeologists, it is apparent
that SHA has an audience for this topic.
*The NCSS is the largest association in the
nation devoted solely to social studies education. Their 26,000 members are
comprised of K-12th grade classroom teachers, college and university faculty,
publishers, and leaders in the various disciplines that constitute the Social
Studies. NCSS works to strengthen
the social studies profession and social studies programs in schools through
professional development, resource provisioning, and legislative network activities.
NCSS is particularly important
to SHA, and to archaeology in general, because NCSS
standards guide social studies decision-makers in K-12 schools. This influence
extends to teachers who are not NCSS
members (and it is estimated that approximately 200,000
Mechanics
.
The event would
ideally be an hour-long session with 20 minutes for an archaeology presentation
followed by 40 minutes of commentary by the education discussants.
.
This event
would be advertised to both the membership and to an invited public of social
studies educators.
.
The NCSS’ Delegate
to SHA will be part of this event.
.
This session
will expand on issues identified during the Archaeologist-Educator
Panel Discussion held last year at SHA in
Participants
The educators to be tapped for this event*
include:
Dr. Susie Burroughs, Assistant Professor, Department of Curriculum
and Instruction, Mississippi State University’s College of Education, Member,
NCSS Board of Directors, and NCSS Delegate to SHA.
George Brauer, Social Studies Curriculum Specialist
and Director, Center for Archaeology, Baltimore County Public Schools. (Past
Recipient of the SAA award for Excellence in Public Education).
Dr. Burroughs instructs new teachers in
general Social Studies Curriculum and Instruction strategies. She will bring
to the table classic as well as cutting edge pedagogy. George Brauer on the other hand is one of the few Social Studies
Curriculum Specialists on the ground (in the classroom, and at a District
level) whose job it is to actually implement substantive archaeology research
into K-12 curriculum. (He won the NCSS' own 'Outstanding Curriculum in the
nation Award' for doing just this.) He will offer the teachers and the archaeologists
in the audience his expertise and experiences with integrating archaeology
detail into classroom-based, as well district level, curriculums.
Dr. Burroughs and Mr. Brauer are both part of a group of education specialists working
with the PEIC to improve public archaeology outreach to the formal school
education sphere.
*The NCSS will not be in a position to confirm
the names or number of participants until later in the year. It is possible
that the NCSS President will attend
as well (as happened last year).
The Archaeologist tapped for the event:
Selection of an archaeologist for the initial
Current Research presentation has not been finalized. Anyone with interesting
data will do, although we are sensitive to the fact that many of our colleagues
are insensitive when dealing with the public and we wish to have someone experienced
and interested in public archaeology outreach. Tara Tetrault and I have decided not to step in for the Current
Research presentation (although one of us can do so if needed). We know there
are others doing exciting public related work and we don’t want to monopolize
a PEIC event. Diana Wall is willing to do it but she is heavily committed
during the conference and also has suggested that a local researcher might
be better.
It is true that the teachers who attend
this event could follow through with the featured archaeologist, using him/her
as a local resource (for site tours, school visits, and contact assistance).
If so, the PEIC would be pleased if this event contributed
to the local archaeology in this way.
Inviting the Teachers:
.
The NCSS' (as
they are part of this) would assist us in advertising the event. The NCSS
has offered to make available for us an official letter of support that will
put their stamp of approval on the event as an educational undertaking for
professional Social Studies teachers. This official stamp of approval by a
major professional education society will be helpful in attracting social
studies teachers and curriculum specialists to the conference. The pull of
this educational skills offering combined with a public session that offers
enriching ‘content’, should be quite a draw.
Specifically, this advertising would amount
to contacting social studies specialists in the local districts, social studies
network teachers, and local college teaching departments of curriculum and
instruction.
.
We realize
[the local host] has responsibilities for the entire public beyond just social
studies teachers (and beyond teachers in general). We would like to offer
our assistance for the general session planning with whatever teacher contacts
and support we can, in turn, provide.
Scheduling
Scheduling of the PEIC event should take into account the following
practical needs and unique circumstances:
.
Scheduling the event early
on the day of the public session would allow the teachers to take the best
possible advantage of what the Public Session has to offer: The education
event will provide the teacher with the skills needed to incorporate that
which the Society offers in the Public Session.
.
Early scheduling
would also mean that the 'family' problem encountered in past teacher-directed
conference offerings would be minimized. The teacher's families could be expected
to sit through the education event if it was scheduled earlier in the day.
This is a plausible (i.e., not unreasonable assumption) because the kids would
know that ‘cool slides’ -- or hands-on activities, or whatever else you have
planned -- would soon start again (in the Public Session).
.
The NCSS (both
last year in Mobile and the year before in Long Beach), as well as a Teacher
Group that advises the PEIC, have suggested to SHA that teacher-directed events
be planned with an eye towards the fact that teachers will have kids and spouses
in tow. (We wouldn’t want to appear to go against the NCSS’ specific (and
sought for) professional recommendations for scheduling of a teacher event
-- especially when they are endorsing our event to their professional membership
of teachers.)
.
Effective teacher
instruction will be hampered if the kids in tow became disruptive which would
likely result if the event were held after the Public Session. It is unrealistic
to expect kids to sit patiently through an event that is not geared towards
them that is held at the end of the day when they are also tired and hungry.
.
The membership
would less likely stay around to attend the event if it were held at the end
of the public session. It would be long after all the other professional conference
doings are completed. A unique opportunity for members of the Society to learn
first-hand about how archaeology is used in schools would be missed.
.
Archaeologists
are in the process of working with the NCSS to put together a joint body
of professionals (archaeologists and educators) that will work on archaeology
standards for a national social studies curriculum. An impressive show of
what archaeology can do for education would be professionally desirable
specifically because the NCSS are on board. A later time slot, with fewer
audience participants (for the above stated reasons), would make for a less
impressive showing.
(06/2002)
________________________________
Implementing
the Social Studies Education Event Planning:
As
the second half of 2002 unfolded and the PEIC K-12 event’s implementation
began, two significant modifications had to be made to the above proposed
event design. Both of these changes
resulted in relevant learning experiences - one
of which is already incorporated for future PEIC (and public archaeology)
needs. The first change resulted when a major problem developed with the
National Council for the Social Studies’ participation in the PEIC event.
The second developed when the other Social Studies Education Specialist, George
Brauer, became unavailable. These changes and the
resulting modifications are described below.
NCSS Related Changes and Results
While the Past NCSS President Adrian Davis had appointed a liaison
to SHA and was very inspired about future joint efforts between social studies
and archaeology, our experience this year taught us that it seems likely that
bridge building between the archaeology and education professions will likely
grow in fits and starts with some NCSS presidents more on board than others.
The new President of NCSS stated to Tara Tetrault
that financial concerns for (this very large and financially flush - in comparison
to SHA) professional body were a problem this year. Negotiations were then
likely dealt a fatal blow by paralleling archaeology interests: NCSS was also
approached with invitations for participating in an ISRC-sponsored WAC session
and for a Project Archaeology curriculum
writing workshop.[18]
Both of these other archaeology invitations represented local events for the
NCSS (local to the National NCSS headquarters in
a) National NCSS directed
Tara Tetrault instead to a
This contact had significant
results for the PEIC event. The RISSA President (a private high school History
teacher and Chair of the school’s Social Studies Department, and State History
Day Co-Organizer for
This membership list offer proved fortuitous because the
teacher targeting strategy was facing problems. I had learned as I attempted
to implement the outreach target strategy (using institutional Social Studies
networks) that (a) RI had no state social studies standards, (b) that there
is no Social Studies curriculum specialist at the state office of Education
(a vacant position), that (c) the state of Rhode Island prides itself on independent
school district autonomy and, unlike most other places, is not subject to
the state's control --so therefore there was no set curriculum at a uniform
district level to tap into and in many cases each teacher is doing their own
thing. All this meant that using the recommended institutionalized social
studies network was impossible in the
All we could do was 'not go the institutional route' (which
is what NCSS et. al, and my own experience suggested --and which was what
was proposed to test) and go instead the individual teacher route (contacting
teachers one by one). This was not the preferred way to do things but was
still a tactic that could be explore/tested. In fact it was what the one classroom
teacher (Sara Wade) as well as one of the two NCSS panel participants last
year (the Board member) said we should also try to do: both routes – pursue
the individual teacher and the institutional route when we could.
b)
As
a result of the SHA PEIC /WAC/Project Archaeology ‘confluence of invitations
to NCSS’, the PEIC K-12th Grade Subcommittee initiated a program of outreach
updates to agencies, non-profits, and professional archaeological societies
informing them of (a) the potential problem of uncoordinated public archaeology
outreach to the education profession and (b) towards that end, began providing
these colleagues with information about what the SHA PEIC K-12 has been up
to (Jeppson
2002c). These measures were taken in an effort to encourage coordination of
strategies that target the audience of educational professionals, namely the
National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), but this co-ordination should
have broader benefits.
The objective of this action is merely to increase information sharing
among education-directed archaeologists but one result may be that individual
outreach activities will prioritize audiences. As there are so many archaeologists
active in public outreach to the formal school sector these days, and as this
outreach regularly involves targeting the same education groups, it seems
it would behoove us all to make an effort to keep one another informed about
our activities - if only so that the profession comes across as organized
and informed. Archaeologists in the societies, agencies, and non-profits tasked
with outreach to the formal school sector will one day soon need to think
about collaborating, coordinating, and possibly prioritizing so that short
term projects don't divert attention from long term possibilities. This is
especially true on the road to developing national archaeology standards for
Social Studies Education through creation of an educator/archaeologist-based
'Archaeology Alliance' (along the lines of what the geographers have done
with the Geographical Alliance or the economics professionals with the National
Council on Economic History). The time is approaching where all of us need
to be part of an on going conversation about short and long term goals for
working with NCSS and coordinating our efforts even if we have somewhat separate
agendas.
To date, this outreach update program includes indexing
PEIC K-12 activities on the SAA operated Archaeology and Public Education electronic
newsletter (A&PE) and emailed updates to the SAA’s Manager of Information and Public Education and to the
Director of National Project Archaeology. There is an effort in progress to
present an ‘update’ during the SAA Public Education Committee’s (PEC) annual
meeting and email correspondence with the AAA’s Public Education Initiative project staff
will be soon be enacted. Public Archaeology in general can only benefit to
this end.
Other Format Changes
A second modification to the proposal occurred after the educator George
Brauer gave notification that he was unable to attend
SHA. This change too, in the end, led to a research conclusion (explained
below). A social studies specialist and 32-year, avocational archaeologist with extensive historical archaeology
experience, it was George Brauer who had originally
proposed to me in 2001 the idea of a deconstruction/‘translation’ education
event for archaeologists at SHA. I had collaborated with George Brauer at the Center for Archaeology/Baltimore County Public
Schools from 1998-2002, and he mentored me extensively about what archaeology
needs to do to effectively coordinate with social studies educators for social
studies education needs. When the plan for his participation in the PEIC event
was disrupted, George felt that my years with him meant I could do well enough
in an educator’s absence. While I had experience with curriculum and instruction
in collaboration – and Tara Tetrault too had experience
with writing curriculum - I was extremely reluctant to go ahead with the PEIC
event without an educator on board because (a) teachers don’t like non-teachers
to tell them what or how to teach and (b) I felt that archaeologists needed
to see what teachers do -- not be told about what teachers needed by
another archaeologist.
As primary organizer, and because I felt strongly that the deconstruction/
translation portion of the PEIC event should not be directed by an archaeologist,
alternatives were sought to replace George. However, as the RISSA President
had coincidently at this time declined to participate as part of the presented
program (replacing the NCSS national representative), and because time was
running short, I made the decision to reformat this segment of the program
in a manner that would allow for, and hopefully encourage, the audience of teachers to share their ideas
about the presented archaeology with one other and with the archaeologists
in attendance. This way, the teachers would still come away with ideas
about how they could use the presented archaeology in the classroom and the
archaeologists would still have an opportunity to see first-hand how educators
use archaeology for education needs.
Two other factors were in mind when making this substitution. First,
not all teachers desire or are capable of constructing
curriculum themselves -- and this could especially be so given archaeology
content is something teachers are unfamiliar with. This factor meant that
the substitution of an audience discussion might not be an effective plan.
So another measure was put in place. We already planned to have a classroom-ready
lesson plan to distribute as a take away handout. This lesson plan would be
moved ‘up front as presented commentary’ to serve as a means to encourage
the discussion we desired if discussion proved lacking. Teachers could respond
to this lesson plan with ideas of their own and this might, in turn generate
further discussion. Moreover, this lesson plan could also serve as THE education
segment’s contribution in case the teachers were reluctant to speak up in
another profession’s forum (and be observed by these others).
Fortunately, when he abdicated, George Brauer
made the offer to help us in any way possible including advising us on a lesson
plan that could be used by us in his place. This would be a lesson demonstrating
how the archaeology presented in the first segment of the event could be used
in the classroom – essentially everything originally planned minus an educator
actually demonstrating/discussing it. At the same time, this would be something
(an educational resource) designed by an educator so it would not face rejection
by the educators. (It wouldn’t be an archaeologist telling an educator how
and what to teach.)
To this end, George Brauer designed for our
use a lesson plan modeling how to use archaeology and history in the classroom
to study social studies topics. He used
As part of the revised event proposal, this lesson plan would be modeled
IF the educators did not immediately take up discussion on their own at the
end of the archaeology presentation. If the lesson model were needed (because
the teachers didn’t ‘discuss), it would, ideally, generate discussion among
the educators in the audience. Tara and I would loosely direct any resulting
‘discussion’ (namely keeping the discussion on track, allowing archaeologists
to ask questions and share education-related experience but preserving the
time for educators to discuss how archaeology could be used in the classroom).
Thus, even with the necessary substitutions, the teachers would have access
to current research and be able to take away with them how to use the archaeology
presented during the event in the classroom. The archaeologists meanwhile
would still see how educators could use archaeology in the classroom for educational
as opposed to archaeological needs. While some objectives for accomplishing
the stated goals were modified, the original goals remained viable.
The Archaeology Component of the Event
As format modifications were integrated, and the event planning moved
forward, the co-organizers also spent previewing current research presentations
at historical archaeology conferences in an effort to identify a talk that
would be useful for the Social Studies Education event. A talk by David Orr
was selected and he was approached about reprising his CONEHA presentation
during the public session at SHA (Orr 2002).
This presentation was selected because it touched upon several topics
covered in middle school and high school in Rhode Island (U.S. Presidents,
Historical Landscapes, Revolutionary War, US History, Life in Colonial America,
How people view themselves overtime, how people created and changed structures
of power, authority and governance, Revolution and the New Nation etc.,).
The information in the talk could also be applied more generally by innovative
teachers for other curriculum needs -- for example, for Civics (e.g., students
could write the President or Head of the National Park Service about the need
to restore
Orr’s talk also compared new archaeology data from recent excavations
to what was written at in period documents. So the talk provided useful content
for teachers who want to instruct about the strengths and weaknesses of primary
documents and to compare primary and secondary documents. It was hypothesized
that we could in fact introduce the education segment of the event with an
overture to the educators saying something about how archaeologists perceive
this content as an opportunity to teach about primary documents by using the
learning skills of gathering information, forming hypotheses, and re-evaluating
(by breaking the class into two groups, giving the different groups the different
data sets, having them draw conclusions independently, then redrawing conclusions
once they hear the other groups information). The educators, in turn, could
correct or corroborate our assumption leading the education segment discussion
to take off from there.
Orr's research comparing the archaeology and documentary record was
moreover a good example of historical archaeology. His research would not
just verify with archaeology what the documents say or vise-versa but instead
used the two data sources against one another to extend what is known about
the past beyond that possible using either resource in isolation. Importantly,
Dave Orr is also a terrific presenter when he speaks. The
Rounding out the archaeology portion of the program would be handouts
for the teachers to support this talk. These would include professional archaeology
society material as well as handouts made specifically for the PEIC K-12 Social
Studies Education event. The former could be used as a classroom resource
(for example for Career Day) and the latter could be used as ‘prompt notes’
that the teacher could draw on when discussing the Orr talk topic with the
class. One handout would be useful for a student reading as well. The materials
gathered for dispersal included the SHA brochures “Careers in Historical Archaeology”
and “Underwater Archaeology”, the SAA brochures “The Path to Becoming an Archaeologist”
and “Experience Archaeology” and an SAA handout entitled, “Educational Materials
Available from the Society for American Archaeology Public Education Committee.
Handouts produced for the event included an archaeological education fact
sheet entitled “Archaeology as Education: Some Identified Benefits” (for Students,
Teachers, and for Archaeology), and a general archaeology fact sheet containing
the kinds of knowledge archaeologists rely on when they conduct archaeological
research, a short list of important archaeological sites and finds, types
of Historical Archaeology Sites, a small sample of historical archaeology
sites, a list of reasons that people visit archaeology sites, a list of what
archaeology contributes to (economy, tourism, heritage, etc.), and a list
of Valley Forge Web Resources directly linked to the David Orr talk and research.
An NPS web resource download “Discovering What Washington’s Troops Left Behind
at Valley Forge”, photocopied for the event would serve as the suggested Student
Reading and as an ‘Orr talk - High Points Fact Sheet’ while a Valley Forge
map download, “Valley Forge Encampment” would be a useful student resource
sheet (<www.cr.nps.gov/logcabin/htm>). A Social Studies Education
Event Survey Questionnaire seeking feedback on the educational aspects of
this event would also be a handout.
Pencils with archaeology as education embossed slogan were also designed
as a give-away to go along with these handouts (courtesy of myself and Tara
Tetrault). In preparation for this item, several
slogans were run by the PEIC K-12 Teacher Help Group and by a handful of publicly-directed
archaeologists. The archaeologists and teachers came down united on different
slogan directions. The teachers selected slogans about archaeology (“Archaeology
- Dig Into The Past!”, “Archaeology – Dig It!”) while the archaeologists chose
education sounding slogans, (“Teach Archaeology”, “Teach With Archaeology”,
“Teach The Past”). When queried about each others choices, the teachers responded
that the education directed slogans looked like “You are telling us what to
do” or “makes us feel bad because we don’t know enough about archaeology”.
The archaeologists expressed preservation concerns in that the archaeology
slogan, to them - or if not to them, to other archaeologists (!) - could be
seen to be promoting excavation by lay people. My own experience indicated
that this is a misguided archaeology mindset - that archaeologists do not
understand teaching objectives and that this kind of fear is not valid (Jeppson
and Brauer 2003).
This completed the planning
for the proposed plan that formed the basis of the PEIC K-12 contribution
to the SHA Public Session held on January 19th:
______________________________________________________
SOCIAL STUDIES LECTURE/DISCUSSION:
(
- Revolutionary War Archaeology for Social Studies Educators
-
** 'Cabins and Command:
George
Washington and the Hutting of the Continental Army at
A
talk to be presented by David G. Orr, National Park Service Archaeologist
and
Research Professor of Anthropology,
***
'How Can This Archaeology be Used in the classroom?':