Post # 8

8

 Another topic that I talked about in my final project was “the power of place”. I truly believe that one of the best ways that we can make a connection to real people from the past is by walking where they did, and experiencing what they did. This made me thinks about in what instances though my education was I thought this way. I couldn’t help but think about something that we called the heritage festival in my hometown. This is a week set up in our town where the community comes together and practice living history from the early 1800s. The people of the community dress in old-fashioned cloths and camp in the park they way the first settlers in the tiffin swamp area would have. Tiffin was founded in 1817, so this living includes some pretty rough conditions.

I always thought this was a very interesting concept. I believe that seeing people reenact this lifestyle really gave a visual for me to understand better. As a child the local schools would all take a day and have a field trip to the living festival. I think this is such an important tool that can help students and anyone learn and form connections. Again, I cannot stress enough how much this semester how much I have made a personal connection he the people we have read about as a human experience. I think that living history is another tool that had the capacity to explain to people of our current time how humanistic the people from our past were.  

If I were willing to take it one step further, I’m sure that I would really get a better experience if I were willing to participate in living history. However, I am not sure if I am willing to sleep outside for a week. Maybe I will just visit once a year instead.