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Spotsylvania teachers Cheryl Hodges and Chuck Love, with some of their fourth-grade students, meet Gov. Tim Kaine at Spotsylvania's Slaughter Pen battlefield this spring. |
By CLINT SCHEMMER
Spend five minutes with Chuck Love, and it becomes obvious that his love for history is contagious.
Starting today, the Spotsylvania County schoolteacher hopes to share some of that enthusiasm for America's past with his colleagues from around the country.
Love is one of more than 170 U.S. educators converging on Fredericksburg for three days of intensive workshops and hands-on learning about the nation's most horrendous conflict, the Civil War. He's taking part in the 2009 Teacher Institute sponsored by the Civil War Preservation Trust.
"I'm looking forward to it," Love said. "It's designed to show teachers what they can do in their classrooms to teach this subject, and to help them discover more specialized parts of the history."
As a boy in Hampton Roads, Love heard his parents' stories about their lives during the segregationist era and the civil rights movement.
But the history bug didn't bite hard until he happened to see the movie "Glory" in 1989, and learned of the 100,000 African-American troops who fought in the Union Army, helping turn the tide.
"This was a war about slavery, but when I was growing up you never heard about African-Americans really participating in the fight. That made me step back and look at all of it anew."
A big part of the institute, Love said, will be teachers trading nuts-and-bolts ideas on what has worked with their students.
They'll also hear from nationally known historians James I. Robertson and Jack Davis of Virginia Tech's Center for Civil War Studies and Hari Jones of Washington's African American Civil War Memorial Museum.
And they will spend a full day touring three of the area's battlefields: Marye's Heights, Slaughter Pen and Chancellorsville.
Participants in the institute, which is drawing teachers from 32 states this year and has a long waiting list, earn continuing-education credits from Virginia Tech. Now in its eighth year, the institute is held in a different state each summer, usually in areas rich in Civil War history. This is the first time it's been in Fredericksburg.
"It's wonderful that these teachers are so eager to provide the best experience for their students that they give up part of their summer to do this," trust spokeswoman Mary Koik said.
The institute is free, though many teachers pay their own travel expenses to attend. With the economy in tatters, requests for scholarships were way up this year, and trust members did all they could to provide financial aid, Koik said. Some years, as many as 200 teachers have taken part.
Every educator goes home with a CD full of ready-made lesson plans and all of the resource materials mentioned in the workshops.
The trust's recently revamped Web site provides more free materials for teachers to download, from elementary, middle school and high school lesson plans to photographs and battle maps.
For teachers like Love, though, the Civil War was much more than just military maneuvers, bloody battles and high-stakes politics.
"I try to put a human face on the war for my students," said the classroom veteran, who teaches at Spotsylvania's Harrison Road Elementary. "It wasn't just brother against brother; it was all-encompassing. The war hit everyone--men, women, whites, blacks, Indians, Latinos, people of different religions.
"I see that as my most important contribution when I teach. I open it up to everybody, and try to make this history relevant to each student."
cwpt.org/education
Clint Schemmer: 540/368-5029
Email: cschemmer@freelancestar.com
