Theodore Roosevelt home at Sagamore Hill
The tour of Theodore Roosevelt’s home at Sagamore Hill instills a message of tremendous importance to us and our students. This message might be the most important of the trip to New York to bring to our classroom. It may be the most important message we can carry to our family and friends. To paraphrase the former President: Go explore, and have fun exploring. Learn something in those explorations. Accomplish something with what you learned.
The Library
Theodore Roovevelt lived by this creed. He explored the world as well as expolring his ablities and his role in that world. He did what he wanted to do. When he faced obstacles, he found a way to vanquish them. As seen in his home, his interests were many and varied, and he made sure he experienced all of them fully. The Home at Sagamore Hill shows this attitude brilliantly.
On his daily hikes with the family, they would choose to go from one point to another. When they came to an obstacle, they had to go over, under, or through it, they could not avoid it or go around the difficulty. Figuring a way to traverse the obstacle required learning about it and deciding what to do about it. This involved educating yourself in some ways about nature, even if it was only studying that particular situation and how nature caused or created it. When faced with a similar situation, you already have some knowledge to apply to the new difficulty. You have a confidence to face obstacles and overcome them. We live a life not in hiding, but face forward and straight ahead.
Pueblo City Schools transports fifth-grade students six times each year to the Pueblo Mountain Park in Beulah, Colorado. The students attempt learn about ecosystems and biomes in the Southern Colorado area and discuss issues crucial to nature use and conservation. A biographical study of Theodore Roosevelt would add a tremendous impact to that program. Maybe we can move in our classroom studies to a problem-solving model towards nature, rather than the informational approach we have now. We do talk about conservation and nature concerns, as well as what has been done to alleviate the problems, but we don’t ask the students how them would approach the concern. What are the obstacles? How will you go through, over, or under these? We could use this model to enhance our science and our social studies curricula.
Theodore Roosevelt’s home has inspired me. When I introduce him to fifth-graders, maybe I can do the same for them!
p.s. We have two songs because I couldn’t decide. Billy Joel because we were at his hometown. Simon and Garfunkel because that was what Theodore was to his family.
