One of those occasional updates
I am having the most enjoyable summer I've ever had as a college student. True, there was Israel a few years ago, but that was just for two weeks, and the rest of that summer was just wasting time away. Friends were around, but the days just melted into each other and... ANYHOW, that was then and this is now.
I have an internship at a place called Hale Farm, halfway between Cleveland and Akron, maybe a bit closer to Cleveland. Hale Farm is a living history museum where visitors are shown what life was like in the early to middle 1800s. Although there are several actors who pretend it's 1862, I am not such a person. I demonstrate beeswax candle making to whoever comes my way. I attempt hook them in in a way that corresponds to their demographic. If it's little kids with their parents, I'll talk to them about power outages. If it's more of an adult crowd, I'll talk about how it was all women's work, or ask the women how they'd feel about having to make 300 candles in a couple days. And with the Amish and Mennonite crowds, I'll talk about having to work over an open fire instead of natural gas. There's a way to hook almost everyone.
And then I start talking about the process of producing beeswax and show them what dipping looks like. I mention how much more awful tallow candles were. There are plenty of other things to mention if they ask questions.
I don't really care about candle making itself. But I love learning to engage the public in this way. I figure if I can get so into something I don't care about, imagine what teaching history in a classroom will be like. I've mastered a pretty large body of information in just several days without trying too hard simply because this setting makes me do it. What fun!
So, that's going to be my summer. I will eventually move to a new site. I don't know what it will be. But right now, life is grand.
I have an internship at a place called Hale Farm, halfway between Cleveland and Akron, maybe a bit closer to Cleveland. Hale Farm is a living history museum where visitors are shown what life was like in the early to middle 1800s. Although there are several actors who pretend it's 1862, I am not such a person. I demonstrate beeswax candle making to whoever comes my way. I attempt hook them in in a way that corresponds to their demographic. If it's little kids with their parents, I'll talk to them about power outages. If it's more of an adult crowd, I'll talk about how it was all women's work, or ask the women how they'd feel about having to make 300 candles in a couple days. And with the Amish and Mennonite crowds, I'll talk about having to work over an open fire instead of natural gas. There's a way to hook almost everyone.
And then I start talking about the process of producing beeswax and show them what dipping looks like. I mention how much more awful tallow candles were. There are plenty of other things to mention if they ask questions.
I don't really care about candle making itself. But I love learning to engage the public in this way. I figure if I can get so into something I don't care about, imagine what teaching history in a classroom will be like. I've mastered a pretty large body of information in just several days without trying too hard simply because this setting makes me do it. What fun!
So, that's going to be my summer. I will eventually move to a new site. I don't know what it will be. But right now, life is grand.