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History Comes Alive for Garrison Students
"Straighten up that line!" The command barked out in the cool air and echoed off the walls of West Point across the Hudson. The columns of Garrison seventh grade students, dressed in the blue coats of the Continental army and the red coats of the British army in 1780, snapped into a perfect line, wooden muskets at the ready. Col. Joe Ryan divided the troops into platoons and sent them out around the ruins of the South Redoubt to reconnoiter. Ryan, a dedicated reenactor, is Executive Director of the Living History Education Foundation, a not-for-profit dedicated to making history instruction more compelling for students.
Garrison's social studies teacher, Mary Foppiano, has participated in a number of the Foundation's summer training programs for teachers. Garrison's School Forest, which contains the South Redoubt, part of the original defense perimeter of Fortress West Point during the American Revolution, is a perfect location for this historical reenactment.
This spring, Mrs. Foppiano brought her seventh grade class into the Forest for two days, the second including the fourth grade as well. Besides learning about the life of a soldier during the Revolution, the students also learn to pitch tents from the period and to cook over a campfire. "This experience stretches the students' imaginations," she observes. "They can get a sense of what it was like to serve in those perilous times, and what it took to defend American values."
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