DOCUMENT RESUME ED 350 244 SO 022 631 AUTHOR True, Marshall, Ed.; And Others TITLE Vermont's Heritage: A Working Conferencefor Teachers. Plans, Proposals, and Needs. Proceedingsof a Conference (Burlington, Vermont, July 8-10, 1983). INSTITUTION Vermont Univ., Burlington. Center for Researchon Vermont. SPONS AGENCY Vermont Council on the Humanities and PublicIssues, Hyde Park. PUB DATE 83 NOT:, 130p.; For a related document,see SO 022 632. PUB TYPE Collected Works Conference Proceedings (021) EDRS PRICE MFOI/PC06 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Cultural Education; *Curriculum Development; Educational Resources; Elementary Secondary Education; Folk Culture; Heritage Education; *Instructional Materials; Local History;*Material Development; Social Studies; *State History;Teacher Developed Materials; *Teaching Methods IDENTIFIERS *Vermont ABSTRACT This document presents materials designedto help teachers in Vermont to teachmore effectively about that state and its heritage. The materials stem froma conference at which scholars spoke to Vermont teachers about theirwork and about how it might be taught. Papers presented at the conferenceare included, as well as sample lessons and units developed byteachers who attended the conference. Examples of papers includedare: "The Varieties of Vermont's Heritage: Resources forVermont Schools" (H. Nicholas Muller, III); "Vermont Folk Art" (MildredAmes and others); and "Resource Guide to Vermont StudiesMaterials" (Mary Gover and others). Three appendices alsoare included: (1) Vermont Studies Survey: A Report on the Status ofVermont Studies in the Schools (Daniel W. Gregg);(2) Conference Program; and (3)a list of conference participants. (DB) ********************************************************************** AeproauoLions suppiieo oy hL,CJ are thenest that can oe made from the original document. *********************************************************************** A' ,, ... ; .: ERAGE. " , . U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS Office of Educational Research and Improvement MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 0 This document has been reproduced as received !rpm the person or organization fig Lcr, originating it 0 Minor changes have been made to improve TrrEasEm- /I3 reproduction Quality Points of vies, or opinions stated in this docu . rent do not necessarily represent official TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES OERI position or policy INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." 0 cx 1-> EST COPY AVAILABLE 2 VERMONT'S HERITAGE:A WORKING CONFERENCE FOR TEACHERS PLANS, PROPOSALS, AND NEEDS EDITED BY MARSHALL TRUE MARY WOODRUFF KRISTIN PETERSON-ISHAQ THE CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON VERMONT BURLINGTON, VERMONT The Center for Research on Vermont College of Arts and Sciences The University of Vermont Burlington, VT 05405 Copyright 1983 by the Center for Research on Vermont "Vermont's Heritage: A Working Conference for Teachers" was held at the University of Vermont on July 8-10, 1983. The conference and this publication were funded in part bya grant from the Vermont Council on the Humanities and Public Issues and by the University of Vermont'sCenter for Research on Vermont. CONTENTS V Introduction The Varieties of Vermont's Heritage: Resources for Vermont Schools,H. Nicholas Muller, III 11 Geographythrough Maps, Harold Meeks 21 PeoplePatterns, Connie Barton, Trisha Daniels, Louis Di Angelo, and Grace Jones 25 Vermont Historians, J.Kevin Graffagnino 31 More Than Just a Pretty Place: Maps, Photos, and the History of South Hero,Linda Morris 37 Limners and Landscapists: Vermont Folk Artists, Nancy Muller 47 Vermont Folk Art, Mildred Ames, Diane Lyons., Ann J. Smith, and John Ulrich 53 Teaching Vermont Poets and Poetry: The Example of David Budtill,Frieda Gardner 59 Vermont's Prehistory:, A Cultural Approach, Elise Caggige, Ni Zak Cote, and Doug Reaves 69 Vermont in Its Literature,Lorraine Lacks 75 Notes on Teaching Vermont Politics, William Doyle 81 Vermont Politics, Thom Anderson, Delia Clark, and GregCluff 91 Resource Guide to Vermont Studies Materials, Mary Gover, Jody Kenny, Rose-Marie S. Tarbell, and Braoster P. Yates 115 Appendix A Vermont Studies Survey: A Report on the Status of Vermoat Studies in the Schools,Daniel W. Gregg 121 Appendix B "Vermont's Heritage: A Working Conference for Teachers" Program 125 Appendix C "Vermont's Heritage: A Working Conference for Teachers" Participants INTRODUCTION of In 1827 Vermont establishedits first state board Schools, as the board education. The Commissioners of Common was called, representedthe capstone of aseries of edu.aational by Governor CorneliusVan sass reforms proposed and inaugurated of and his successor, Ezra Butler. To improve the quality commisaioners attempted, inthe education in the state, the be used" words of their first report,"to dictate the books to vigorously in the local schools. Vermont's towns and villages resisted this attempt to usurptheir community'sprorogativ2s. The commissioners were forced torecognize that their efforts unacceptable to thepeople," had been "peculiarly obnoxious and the and five years later the statelegislature quietly' allowed school reform law of 1827 to lapse. We offer this vignette from Vermont'seducational heritage partly because it provides a strikingillustration of a tradition of local control of the schoolsin the state, a tradition we acknowledge and value. Yet the controversy over school texts in the 1820s also suggests amajor problem that these proceedings seek to address, namely,that the economics of a national publishing industryincreasingly dominated by conglomerates and the re;Atively tinysize of the market for text materials on Vermont combine toproduce a situation which "dictates" to the teacher who wants toteach about Vermont what he or she may use in the classroom.Essentially, a teacher must choose between either developingher own curricular materials from what can be a bewilderingvariety of sources or relying on a text like Edmund Fuller's Vermont:A History of the Green Mountain State published morethan thirty years ago. Even in the best of all possible worldsthis can be a cruel choice for a busy classroom teacher. Vermont's Heritage: A Working Conference forTeachers, Plans, Proposals, and Needs represents aneffort to discover a formula to solvesome athe problems of developingcurricular materials for Vermont's classrooms. Our formula was simplyto . bring together a distinguished group ofVermont scholars to talk about their work to an audienceof interested classroom teachers. We particularly asked the scholarsto address the question of how the material they werediscussing might effectively be taught. We then invited the classroomteachers to develop curricular units forclassroom use. We also asked both scholar-teachers and teacher-scholarsto work together to establish some initialguideposts to resources that are currently available for teachers interestedin exploring some aspects of Vermont'sheritage. Our reasoning was that scholars and teachers should workcooperatively to begin to -v- -vi- identify, suggest, anddevelop teaching materialsfor Vermont classrooms and that thesematerials should then beoffered to teachers all over thestate. We believe these proceedings contain many suggestionsfor teaching about the this marvelously heritage of idiosyncratic place calledVermont. We hope that this volume willbe useful; more than it will be used. that, we hope that Moreover, we should rememberas H. N. Muller III suggestsf that teaching Vermont's heritage is a "quest for truth"which involves us in "theattempt to find some universalitieswhich lifts the educationalprocess from the rote to the creative." As you read through the pages of this volume,think creatively about how thismaterial might be adapted use. for your own classroom Linda Morris's "MoreThan Just a Pretty Place" isa case in point. Although this unit about the local was developed to teach students history of SouthHero, many of the activities and objectivescould well be applied communities in the to teaching about other state. Similarly, both NancyMuller's "Limners andLandscapists: teaching unit Vermont Folk Artists" and the on "Vermont Folk Art"done by Mildred Ames, Diane Lyons, AnnJ. Smith, and John consulted by Ulrich, could be profitably any teacher whoproposes to take a group of students to theirlocal museum the historical or historical society. Both information providedby Muller and the living craft orientationof the teaching can be used to enhance unit, "Vermont Folk Art," of artifacts. students' perceptions ofthe world This collectionalso affirms the heritage that variety of Vermont's H. N. Muller IIIurges classroom teachers call upon. For example, Elise to Reaves use Caggige, Nilah Cote andDoug archaeological evidencefrom the 12,000 Vermont's pastto suggest years of of the original a cultural approach to thestudy inhabitants of whatwe now call Vermont. On the otherhand, Frieda Gardner explorescontemporary Vermont poetry,particularly that of finds muchto say about David Budbill, and Vermont's heritagethere. Lachs lookssympathetically Lorraine at a wide range ofVermont's literature andfinds there "an a "vision of the enduring legacy" containing past" whichpoints "theway toward a more sane and civilizedfuture." of Vermont's Another indication ofthe variety heritage availablefor teachersare the bibliog- raphies contributedby the conference Graffagnino offers participants. J. Kevin teachers of Vermonthistory an bibliography ofstandard historical annotated Jody Kenny, works, while MaryGover, Rose-Marie