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Chapter Nine

I am a language arts teacher, and have been for my entire tenure as a full-time teacher. However, this was not my original intent. I obtained a degree in history and expected to teach one of the social studies. Unexpectedly, however, writing research essays for the history classes I attended helped me to develop as a writer, which made my experience as a language arts teacher easier.

Because one of my colleagues is moving to another school, however, I was asked last week whether I would be willing to teach a social studies class. This volte-face has allowed me a little nostalgia because I have remembered the kind of lessons I taught and witnessed in college. I know there will be exciting ways to teach history as an experience to students. This is coupled with other nuances in what I will teach this year, including a computer elective and the chance to facilitate much more student interaction while they read novels this year.

As I have been relearning the history I was taught in my own schooling, I have revisited European medieval history, which fascinates me for no other reason than because life for Europeans in the fifth through fourteenth centuries was starkly different than what we experience today. Peasants often lived in one-room homes made of tethered wood, eating and sleeping in the same close quarters with family, and sometimes sharing the house at night with their farm animals. These peasants made fires in their homes, and since they did not build chimneys, the home could become smoky and dark.*

Castles, though fascinating and romantic, were not necessarily luxurious. Lit by candles and warmed only by open fires, they could be dark and cold; and they were infested with fleas and lice. Privacy was in short supply, and people tended to bathe only once per week. At dinnertime, however, jesters and musicians would entertain; and lords spent free time in hunting and falconry. Pages grew to become squires, and eventually became knights in formal knighting ceremonies.*

This is only a small amount of what I have had the privilege to relearn so far. I suppose this is one of the reasons I became a teacher.

*Bower, Bert, et. al. History Alive: The Medieval World and Beyond. TCI. January 2004. Print.

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