Day #9 – New York Historical Society and the Museum of Natural History

Today turned out to be the day where I was completely out of it.  Once again we were able to see artifacts that are currently closed off to the public.  They are currently renovating the Museum and have everything pretty much closed off.  The Program that they put on was really nice.  We focused on the subject of slavery in New York.  They gave us a binder of primary sources as well as teaching materials that could be used in the classroom. New York happened to be one of the last of the Northern states to emancipate their slaves.  But then they were not just free, they were slowly given their freedom once they turned the age of 21.  So there were many people in the United States that did not want the slaves to be emancipated, because, just like the South, the Africans were a cheap source of labor and they did not want to have to change their way of life and economy.  There were also many that would not condole slavery but did not think that they should be equal.    

The Activity about just looking at an artifact and having us try to explain what the artifact or the picture might be or mean is a really nice activity.  The fancy toilet was a little weird for me, but like someone said, the students would just love that and they would never guess that.  I have not done much picture/painting/artifact analysis in my classroom, but by doing these mini workshops I am starting to see that I can be comfortable doing these activities in the classroom.  I will take that little handout and use that to help me look at a picture and see what I want to get the students to understand. 

Interpreting the primary documents in a jigsaw style activity was interesting because you have to try to figure who this person really was without having the whole story.  By the time it got to my group, we had no idea that the person went by another name or any other information.  Being able to bring the images and the audio into the classroom is great to get the students to think and come to their own conclusion.

The Natural History Museum was massive.  To think that Theodore Roosevelt brought some of the animals back from Africa to help fill up some of the artifacts was real interesting.  I didn’t get to all of the exhibits, but I did run through the dinosaurs, the South and Central American People, and the African People’s exhibits.  There is no way that anyone could get through all of that in one day. 

The Yankees Game was so much fun, too bad it wasn’t in the old stadium.

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