Design and Making as a Means to Understand the Past

What’s the best way to study the past? Is it to read books and articles? To study photographs and artifacts? To use the internet and do research? These tools alone failed to achieve what we really wanted: that students living in New York City in 2016 could walk right into the past and see and feel it for themselves. We found the perfect solution: time travel (see glossary). We could give our students the experience of living long ago, but once there, then what? How do you make sense of history? First, we needed to teach the specific skills for thinking about the past.

How does a social scientist think?

We teach our students to assume the mindset of an archaeologist. How do we learn about the past using primary source materials, such as artifacts, pictures and documents? Students make careful and detailed observations, and speculate using evidential reasoning.  They begin making a picture of the past: Who could have used the object? For what purpose? Where? When? What does it tell us about life at that time? Once they know how to study one “Mystery Object,” they are given the task of looking at a collection of artifacts that they must put together to make a picture of a “Mystery Time and Place.” The emphasis is not on naming the time and place, but on understanding how people lived then and there.  (See Note 1)

Figuring out the “Mystery Time and Place” from the clues provided is an exciting puzzle that mimics the authentic work of archaeologists. Once our students have practiced these skills, we provide a compelling narrative within which they can use them. Using an imaginative inquiry (see glossary) framework, the students are enlisted as archaeologists who receive a shipment of artifacts that they must analyze to create dioramas for the American Museum of Natural History. We raise the stakes even further. Succeeding at this task leads to the opportunity to apply to be on a secret team of experts who must study the history of New York City in order to save its future. As members of this “Team X” (see Note 2) students are motivated to learn about their city’s history for the real purpose of making it better (see Note 3). And they must do it together.

CREATING A CONTEXT: Thinking like a Lenape

“Come gather in the longhouse to hear the Elder’s vision from last night…”

Third graders gather in a circle around the firepit. The villagers are presented with the Elder’s vision and discuss what it means: the Big Hunt is approaching. Our Lenape village must plan what to do.

Villagers share their ideas for what we need to do first, what tools are needed, what animals to hunt and where to find them. Most students have the same response: “We’ll use bows and arrows!”

We encourage them to think through other ways to catch game and the steps involved: “Where will you get your bows and arrows? Where will you find the animals? Is that the only way to hunt? Are there other ways to catch animals in the wild?” These prompting questions push them to think beyond their initial assumptions about what hunting is.

At this point we don’t expect students to have any knowledge about Lenape hunting, but to use their knowledge about the world and what they know so far about Manhattan in the 1500s to imagine what they would do as a Lenape in this situation. We intentionally present them with this authentic problem before they have been given any information — not to stump them or force them to guess — but to activate their innate ability to use logic and their existing experiences to problem-solve.

What students have gotten prior to this lesson is a context for thinking like a Lenape. They have learned about the environment that the Lenape lived in, what resources were available then, and how they lived together as a community. Over the past several weeks, our students have been given a name by the Name Giver, identified themselves as a member of the Turkey clan, lashed saplings together and tied on bark shingles to make a longhouse, and went through the steps of skinning, tanning and sewing hides to make their clothing. In short, they have been living like a Lenape (see Note 4).

With this framework for thinking about the past as someone living back then, students are ready to learn more specific information about the various hunting methods, tools, and steps that the Lenape used. They read a detailed article and study pictures of tools and traps. By the next day, they are prepared to apply their working knowledge to making plans for their hunt. Small groups are assigned different hunting methods to work on and then come together for feedback and input from the whole class. The previous days’ tasks of thinking through the various aspects of the problem (what to hunt, where, how), and research about Lenape hunting have prepared them to make detailed, informed blueprints.

Now it’s time to make what we need and go on the hunt. The “men” work together to make bows, arrows, and quivers, while the “women” prepare racks for drying and smoking the meat that will be brought home. (Our students know that in drama they may be asked to take on the role of either gender.) Sticks, clay, twine, leather, and construction paper have been provided for this purpose. Our goal is to give students materials that will allow them to replicate the process of making these tools. For example, they can shape clay into arrow heads that they will lash onto sticks, whereas rocks cannot be easily shaped and paper is two-dimensional. 

The Big Hunt begins in the longhouse. We pray to the Mesingw, the spirit who protects the animals of the forest. Then we begin our long trek to various habitats (forest, wetlands, etc.) where each group finds animal tracks in different parts of the room. They need to identify the animal and figure out what method would be the most suitable for hunting it. They proceed to build their traps and snares using materials they find at their site.

There is no prescribed way to do this. All that students have available to them is the working knowledge they have built over the last few days from articles, pictures, and discussions, and basic materials that we have given them to represent the logs, saplings, bark, and sinew that were available in the wild. Even after several days of talking and thinking about how to hunt an animal, students are now confronted with the reality of having to actually do it. How can you get the spring action of a snare to work? Where do you put the bait so that it will trigger the trap to fall? How can you get a group of deer to all run in the same direction towards waiting hunters? In this moment, they are forced to put their designs into action. There is trial and error, they may or may not succeed, but either way they are gaining a deeper understanding of the particular system they are working on.

To complete the full arc of the hunting process, we return to the village with our game, which is then cleaned, skinned, the hides tanned and the meat smoked and dried. We celebrate and give thanks to the spirits for our bounty. Our students have not just researched Lenape hunting, but they have experienced the many layers and complexities of it. They write in their Lenape journals about their experiences. 

CREATING AN ENVIRONMENT: Building Mannahatta

“What do we want to teach about the daily life of the Lenape and Dutch colonists?” This is the question that prompts our students to begin building a life-size model that transforms our classrooms into an interactive museum mid-year. We recreate the world of the past — this time not for students to experience the routines and struggles of long ago as they have been doing up until now, but as a platform for conveying their knowledge to others. A new element is introduced to their learning: an audience. We ask them to do this by replicating the environment of Mannahatta, c. 1630: a Lenape village and longhouse in one classroom, and the streets of New Amsterdam and Dutch colonist’s home in the other.

“What are the different parts that make up the Lenape or Dutch colonial community and way of life?” In answering this, our students are encouraged to think about what they know about the various aspects that make up a society: housing, food, clothing, jobs, family, education, religion, and natural environment. The goal of this project is for our students to put together the whole picture of daily life in these two communities. In small groups, students focus on one category. “What is important to teach about your topic?” They think about the big ideas, not just what they want to make, drawing from knowledge they have constructed over the past few months. They are not only using facts and information they have learned, but are also reflecting on their “direct” experiences of living like a Lenape or Dutch colonist, and thinking about what it means and why it’s important. “When you were making a trap as a Lenape hunter, what did you learn about Lenape food that you think is important to teach others?” Students must think about why and how people lived as they did and how those activities functioned together to form a working society.

“How will you show your topic? What will you make?” Here, our students know what to do. At this point, they have already built parts of a longhouse, made traps and snares, made Dutch meals, dipped candles, painted Delft tiles, etc. They have also envisioned the scenery and landscape, as well as the daily routines and interactions from “time-traveling” to the past. Students are not simply repeating what they have already done; there is a repurposing and expansion of previous ideas. Whereas they previously made tools and traps to learn about Lenape hunting, now they need to show the larger system of how Lenape hunting works, for example: the various methods, tools, habitats, prey, etc. They are designing and making with the purpose of expressing their knowledge to others.

“How will you make what you need and what materials will you use?” At this stage, the classroom becomes a maker space, as students try to bring the past to life. They have to creatively use what is available to them. “How can I build a drying rack that will stand up on a classroom floor?”  “How can we make a Dutch alcove bed, when it was built into the wall?”  While they have been able to imagine the world of Mannahatta right in their own classrooms, now they need to actually make it. They grapple with constructing stationary objects and backdrops to represent something dynamic and moving, i.e. a way of life. “How can we show how the gears, shafts, millstones, etc. work together to grind wheat when our windmill is painted on the wall?” “How do we teach about Lenape religion when their beliefs reached all areas of their lives and influenced everything they did?”

“Who is your character? What is your character doing and saying to teach about his or her life on Mannahatta?” This is the essence of the museum: the environment allows them to assume their character fully and put it into a greater context so that their teaching is from within. In New Amsterdam, Pheabe shows visitors why the garden behind her home is so important to her housework, while in the Lenape longhouse Bright Moon teaches important life lessons through storytelling around the firepit. Upon entering the museum, visitors, too, are immersed in the past. They move through the rooms, asking questions: not, “Can you tell me how the Lenape or Dutch lived?” but, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it like this?” Students are the experts because they have become their characters.

“What did you learn by making and doing the museum?” Our students reflect on their experience the next day. This metacognition gives them time to recognize the value of learning by making, contextualizing, and explaining:

“Gardening is in my head now, because as I was making it [the garden and gardening tools], it was like I was doing it, except they didn’t use paper and clay.”

“I felt like a Lenape. Once I became a Lenape, life was really hard.”

“I already knew about how they built longhouses, but after doing it and explaining it I learned how it’s real and how it’s really effective.”

“I learned about how to build snares from reading about it, but it’s like I got reborn into a Lenape village and learned it all over again!”

In the museum, students are not simply presenting what they know in a static way (imparting information); they are engaged in the iterative process of recreating their understandings.

As they interact with visitors, they step out of what has become familiar territory to them, and see it from an outside perspective once again. The audience helps them see what they already know in a new way and the act of making creates a crucial context for this learning.

CREATING COEXISTENCE: Stepping into a Complex Society

“Little Fox, we have received a message from your Dutch friend, Antonius. Their Director-General, Willem Kieft, has declared that he plans to force us, Lenape, to pay a tax in exchange for the protection they claim to provide us.”

Little Fox and Antonius met one day while gathering oysters by the river and became friends, and have continued to meet from time to time. The Dutch and Lenape live on different ends of the island, and even though their trading relationship allows for occasional interactions, it is unusual to have personal friendships develop between the two peoples.

The Lenape villagers (Students-in-Role – see glossary) react to this urgent news: “This is not fair. They think that we signed a contract saying they could have some of our land, and in exchange they would help protect us. But we didn’t really sign a contract. We don’t believe in owning land. When that trade was made, we thought we were agreeing to all live together and help each other. And now they’re asking us to pay for that.”

The next day, they gather with their Sachem (Teacher-in-Role – see glossary) for a Council Meeting. In their democratic fashion, each person is given a chance to express his or her opinion about what to do about the tax. Their immediate response is to refuse to pay, but then some villagers express their concern that not paying it would ruin their trading relationship with the Dutch. As the Sachem listens to and summarizes the varying opinions, the group eventually arrives at the consensus to not pay the tax.

Meanwhile, a Dutch family in New Amsterdam is having a different conversation: “I just came from town. They’re saying that the Lenape won’t pay the tax! What’s that going to mean for the colony?” says Papa (Teacher-in-Role), as he enters the house. Antonius, upon hearing this, thinks about his friend, Little Fox. He shares his father’s fears about what will happen. He is thinking not only about how it will affect the colony, but also about how it will affect his relationship with his Lenape friend. As the conversation continues at the dinner table, he learns more about what this tax is about. His father explains how he is one of the advisors to Director-General Kieft and tells them that Kieft is considering war with the Lenape. He asks his family (Students-in-Role) what he should advise about the tax situation, even though Kieft has been known to do what he wants regardless of what his advisors or the colonists think. His family members share their concerns that war would hurt trade with the Lenape:  “Isn’t that what we’re here for?” They also discuss how unfair it is that they, the colonists, are the ones who know what’s best for the colony, but that Kieft does not listen to them. “He’s going to ruin things for us!”

These two scenes are happening simultaneously in two different third grade classrooms. In this part of our study, we play out the Mannahatta story through the interactions of the Lenape and the Dutch colonists, and how these interactions are complicated by historical events that unfold. These experiences are seen through the eyes of children — a Lenape and a Dutch child — who become friends. One class is the Lenape village and the other is Dutch New Amsterdam. Their homes are the environments they created in their respective classrooms for the Mannahatta Museum. Like one’s own home, the Lenape longhouse or Dutch home grounds them in one perspective, and when they meet their friend in the other room, they are learning about the other culture.

This “coexistence” framework allows students to live out the interactions and problems that arise within a dynamic and diverse society. They grapple with complex problems that have been universal human questions throughout time: How do you co-exist peacefully? How do you share space and resources? How do you work out competing interests? What do you do when you reach the limitations of your relationship? Whose fault is it? How do you deal with the other, the unfamiliar?

How do our students navigate these diverse views within their roles? Do they decide which view is “better”? No, they do this by being curious, by befriending.

Now that each class has experienced the fallout of Kieft’s tax from their respective points of view, the friends eagerly find each other to discuss the recent events and compare their perspectives. The moments of interaction between the two friends provide opportunities for students to share the different points of view and teach each other more about Lenape or Dutch culture. For instance, in this series of lessons, the goal is for students to learn about varying perspectives on Kieft’s Tax, and to gain an understanding of the decision making process (i.e. government) in Lenape and Dutch societies.

We intentionally want the students to be children — not adults — in this drama to maintain an open stance as they learn about each other, rather than having them re-enact the partisan  politics of the time. However, by taking on the role of children, students are in some ways a witness to events that are driven by the adults around them. They are not the Director-Generals or Lenape chiefs solving the problems, but they have to think about how they can still have a voice within this society. They are the Lenape community members who participate in a democratic meeting or Dutch colonists petitioning against their leader. Is that enough? We don’t think so. In our curriculum, we want to them to be agents of change — without having to change  history.

Through this “imagined-but-real” friendship, third graders are thinking about the big ideas of what makes a community work. In trying to save their friendship they identify what a complex and multicultural society needs for survival: a way to share land and resources fairly; a strong leader who allows the people to have a voice; acknowledgement of each other’s differences and needs. In their design for Mannahatta, equity and respect are the essence of a successful society.

CREATING THE FUTURE: Becoming Agents of Change

“New York City is in a state of emergency, and the situation is grim.”

After many months of living in the past, Team X discovers their true mission: to save the future of New York City. Now the call to action they received at the beginning of the year makes sense: they must use what they have learned about the past in order to create the future.

In a way, they have been creating all along, but this time it is different. Whereas students were taking apart and putting back together existing systems, now they must come up with a whole new design. In making the City of the Future (see Note 2), students are thinking like urban planners, innovators, and entrepreneurs. They dream the impossible.

We place no limits on their creativity. The only criteria is that their inventions are purposeful, that they use past practices as a guide, and that they consider all of the parts that make up a successful society.

“What if we could breathe underwater?”
“What if there was no money?
“What if everyone trusted each other so we didn’t need any rules?”
“What if there was a park next to every building?”

Students organically build on to each others’ ideas and are taught to say, “Yes, and…” instead of “No, because…” They brainstorm and troubleshoot together and learn that this is a group process in which everyone has ownership in every idea that is generated. As they develop their ideas, they are invited to bring their designs back to the group for feedback: their classmates help them work through limitations that they bump up against as they turn a general idea into a complex system. “We have a food machine that distributes food to people who need it, but we’re not sure where the food comes from.” Their peers offer possible solutions: “What if solar panels could create energy that turned into food?”, “What if everyone who has enough food gives their extra food to the machine?”, “What if restaurants and farms gave some of what they made to the machine?” Students return to their plans to refine and expand them. The subsequent revisions contain ideas from the whole class.    

Their project designs are blueprints for a sustainable city. Eventually each group pitches their best ideas to the class, who then votes on one project per category: housing, food, transportation, education, government, religion, community life, natural environment, jobs/work, and games/entertainment. They then begin working on their prototypes.

Their ideas are wildly utopian; they are not constrained by real world barriers. But this doesn’t matter — the point at this moment is not to come up with realistic solutions to save the city, but to think like an innovator and an agent of social change. Beyond just making models for a final presentation, they are prototyping a way of thinking that could be used to solve problems in the future: Pay attention. Learn from the past. Don’t give up. Make something that is different and better than what already exists. Their Team X mission to save New York City may not be real, but their sense of agency is. They know they can change the future for real.