I have been teaching for 12 years now, and this past year I requested to be moved to 2nd grade. I teach language arts and my deepest passion, history. I began my career wanting to be a museum curator and studied dutifully to earn my college degree in history with an emphasis on museum studies, but an opportunity to tutor 5th grade children lead me down the path I was always meant to find, teaching.
Teaching 2nd grade Social Studies has been a fantastic adventure these past few weeks.
My students have embraced all the colorful characters and events that make our American history unique, interesting and finally, remembered and celebrated. Many of my students come from homes where few conversations of the past are explored.
My students are always excited to enter my classroom and eager to learn about the next event or character from our past. From George Washington to the events of September 11th, my students have never let up on asking more questions, searching for more answers or just wanting to know more about the events of our past.
My Project
To have one of the last Navajo Code Talker's come to our school and share his story with my class will be a once in a lifetime opportunity for my students and anyone who is present in the room. Peter McDonald is a living hero; a person from our past who should never be forgotten. I feel if my students are blessed enough to have him speak with us it will change so many lives, including mine, forever. In five years, there will be no one left alive to tell the story of being an actual Navajo Code Talkers.
The Navajo Code Talkers are highlighted in 2nd grade Texas TEKs (10.A), this is a teacher's required curriculum, as being a distinguished example of a good citizen, along with Paul Revere and Abigale Adams who have been dead for over 200 years.
What better way to showcase a good citizen mentioned in our required curriculum than to have an actual Navajo Code Talker join us live for a visit. That's when history, and the people a part of it, truly come alive. What greater gift can we give these children than to see history come alive.
These brave World War II veterans are more that just soldiers in history book, names written on a tombstone, a person highlighted in our required curriculum, or found in a google search engine; they were real, and some to my astonishment, are still living today.
Hearing Mr. McDonald speak about his first hand account of the war and the part the Navajo Code Talker's played in it is the GREATEST primary source available. The Navajo Code Talker's deserve to be heard . We all can learn so much from his life; a life of a hero and an absolute distinguished citizen of the United States.
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