President John Adams on a stick

As Holly started the school year, I knew from past experience that once third grade was upon us, the Colonial puppet project couldn’t be far behind. Off it loomed in the distance as the school year wore on, somewhat like a dentist appointment. I knew it was approaching and I knew we had to make our way through it and I just wanted it to be behind us.

But it turned out I need not have worried. I say that not because we did such a bang-up job making a puppet modeled on one of the Founding Fathers or another historical figure of that era, but because Holly went into this project with the mindset that it was her task, not mine. She chose her character (John Adams), she found her research materials (illustrated picture books from the Famous People in History series at the library), she sketched out her puppet blueprint, and then she sat down and made the puppet. All she asked me to do was collect necessary supplies: popsicle stick, glue, black and brown construction paper, cotton (for a fluffy wig of hair).

And then she stuck googly eyes on John Adams. For reasons I can’t explain, any face looks funnier with googly eyes. In general, our second president has a rather grim mien, at least as represented by Holly; but the eyes make me giggle. But even funnier still was after she tried to glue the popsicle stick on President Adams’ back. It wasn’t sticking; I explained she’d have to apply pressure, so she pinned her puppet under my recipe box and left him there to dry. With his black cardboard shoes sticking out from under one end and his cottony head of hair at the other, he looked like the witch in the Wizard of Oz after the house lands on her.

Having constructed the puppet to her satisfaction – little yellow paper circles for his coat buttons, a wide rectangle colored in with pink crayon for his mouth – she began drafting the script for him to recite. “I’m John Adams. I went to Harvard, and I’m proud to be a lawyer!” she exclaimed. So far it was sounding more like my last high school reunion than a Founding Father. “I don’t like it that the king of England tells us what to do and makes us pay taxes!” she went on.

As she practiced, I paged through the newspaper. And there was a photo of President Obama and the First Lady at Buckingham Palace with the descendant of the very same king that my little historian was railing against three feet away from me. “Look at this!” I interrupted Holly. I pulled up the same photo on line so she could see it in color, and then showed her a related photo of the Obamas meeting with England’s newlywed prince and princess. “What do you think John Adams would make of these photos?”

Holly studied the screen, and I could see the proverbial wheels turning. Nearly 240 years ago, a man who would become president helped write the Declaration of Independence with the intent of cutting ties with English royalty, and as Holly’s class found out during their visit to the Freedom Trail earlier this month, men died in the fighting that preceded that outcome; it was a violent and far-reaching conflict. But here was another U.S. president all dressed up and smiling with the queen by his side. And he was visiting her at her home. In England, no less.

“So you see?” I said to Holly. “They eventually learned to get along after all.”
Even for Holly – or perhaps I should say even for me – this is too simplistic a message. She deals with conflict among groups and friends every day – on the bus, on the playground, even in the classroom – and she understands that political differences aren’t exactly like third grade cliques.

Moreover, it’s not like the U.S. and England only recently resolved their differences. Unlike Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Ireland earlier this month, there’s nothing surprising about seeing an American president at Buckingham Palace.

But it makes me wonder what seemingly irresolvable political differences that exist now will be resolved with enough time – or with enough new conflicts to erase the old ones. Arguably, the U.S. and Britain have in recent decades been not so much friends as allies united against common enemies.

So it may be a stretch to try to incorporate this into Holly’s talk about the Founding Fathers. But as I looked at this week’s photos from London, I couldn’t help wondering what lesson there was to be learned from the duality playing out that moment in my kitchen between past and present. Maybe if nothing else, it was a reminder of how alliances and enmities are ever-fluctuating, and must always – whether they are as small as a playground snub or as large as world powers – be viewed with a sense of context.

Another chance to learn U.S. history, thanks to my fifth grader

Most parents know that asking their kids what happened in school on any given day tends to be a losing proposition. If they answer at all, they’re likely to tell us about a recess game or possibly a bit of lunchroom drama, but seldom anything from the classroom.

This is definitely true of my fifth grader, which is why it’s such a surprise to me lately when I browse through the pile of papers he sometimes removes from his backpack and leaves in a heap on the kitchen table. This isn’t his subtle way of asking me to admire his work; he’s just cleaning out his backpack to lighten the load and never seems to make it as far as the recycling bin with his old homework papers and tests. But it still gives me a welcome opportunity to look through his classwork, and lately it’s been so eye-opening to see how much he’s been learning, especially in social studies. His class has been studying the early years of U.S. history this year, and I honestly think he knows more about U.S. history at this point than I do. He knows specifics about the founding fathers and their individual approaches to government. He knows about all of those second-tier historical figures whose significance I tend to draw a blank on: Roger Williams, Patrick Henry. Today he went on a brief discourse about the sentiment behind Benjamin Franklin's oratory “We hang together or we will hang separately,” only he acted it out for me, pronouncing the first half but then pantomiming strangulation for the second part. It’s definitely not a quote I’ll ever forget again, after hearing Tim’s rendition, ending with “or…gaaaahhhk!”

I don’t remember learning anything nearly so substantive at his age. I went to the same school, but the approach was so different back then. Without the curricular benchmarks that characterize public school education today, it never seemed like anyone put that much importance into the specific content of what we learned. The classroom was much more process-oriented. We did a lot of writing, and reading, and discussion of concepts like what it means to be a civilization. Though process is important, I’m certain I didn’t leave fifth grade with the tangible body of knowledge Tim will carry with him. Some of it he’ll no doubt forget – every now and then I wonder how it is that we discussed the layers of the earth over the course of four consecutive grades in elementary school and I still can’t name them – but of course, American history will come up again and again in his years of education, so I tend to think what he’s learning now will form a solid foundation for future curricular units.

And he understands so much about what he’s studying. Sometimes I forget just how much historical detail he has assimilated. Last month when we were in D.C., we came across a poster that showed a picture of every U.S. president and identified them by party. “Wow, Millard Filmore was a wig?” I heard Tim say. I chuckled indulgently, ready to explain to Tim that it didn’t mean we actually had a hairpiece for president back in 1850. But Tim continued before I had a chance to say anything. “I’m just so surprised that seventy-five years after achieving independence from Britain, political figures were still identifying themselves with the Whig party.” Oops. My mistake.

Although to me it seems he’s learned an astonishing amount of tangible information about American history, I also remember how his social studies teacher described her approach to teaching when we met with her on Parents’ Night back in September. “What we talk about in fifth grade social studies is essentially two questions,” she said. “One, What is worth fighting for? And two, Why do people leave their homes? I teach the kids that one of those two questions lies at the heart of nearly everything we’ll study in social studies this year.”

I really like those two questions, as social studies guideposts but also as writing prompts and as questions for thinking about life. What is worth fighting for? What is worth leaving home for? It seems to me that Tim’s teacher is right: those questions lie at the heart of so much that explains who people are and why they do what they do. It’s a good way to look at what has happened, and to think about what could happen still. Tim still has years of school ahead to learn about so many things, some of which I knew and have forgotten and some of which it seems I never quite got to. I’ll keep browsing through his homework, because I’m finding there’s a lot I can learn within those tattered and marked-up sheets of paper.