Wolftrap Teacher Gets Hands-on Look at History

By Karen Graham

Many teachers encourage their students to continue learning and reading outside the classroom during the summer months.  Nicole Bennett, a sixth grade teacher at Wolftrap Elementary in Vienna, spent last week doing just that.

Bennett was selected as one of 15 teachers who participated in a week-long program called the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation Summer Teacher Institute held July 7 to 12 at Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown Victory Center history museum.

"This was one of the most valuable experiences I have had in my teaching career," Bennett said.  

Part of the program included the opportunity to work in period costume alongside museum historical interpreters. 

"I was a Powhatan Indian," Bennett said.  "Through this experience we were able to teach other people of varying levels of learning," she said.

Bennett said the program provided the teachers with a kit to bring back to the classroom, complete with reproductions of artifacts such as pottery and arrowheads, to use in their lesson plans.  

Funded through a private foundation, participants attended presentations on Powhatan Indian culture, the origins of the Jamestown colony, indentured servitude and slavery, the chronology of the American Revolution, and the seasonal cycle of work on an 18th-century farm. 

They also took part in “A Sea Grammar” and “A School for the Soldier,” hands-on programs featuring 17th-century seamanship and 18th-century military life.  

Bennett emphasized how the experience made her feel valued as an educator. 
"Despite the fact that all of the school districts are different, we share the same challenges.  It was nice to bounce ideas off one another," Bennett said.

And come this fall, students in her class will get to see and share in firsthand what she learned, too.