Hands-on history

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Wednesday, November 20th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Digging deep to teach history!

In 2022 eighth graders around the country were tested on their knowledge of U.S. History. The average score? Five points lower compared to 2018.

Myrna, you met some high school history teachers in Alabama, getting out of the classroom to help make history real for their students.

BROWN: I did…and what a journey!

AUDIO: Alright we’re ready…

It’s early morning in rural Randolph County. Students and teachers from Handley High School hop off their school bus and onto farmland. Waving them over in the distance, a group of men and women in pickup trucks.

AUDIO: Good Morning, good morning….

The two teams gather to form a circle and get final instructions.

DANA CHANDLER: Some of you who did not wear boots, get on the back of Alex’s truck….the rest of us let’s go.

As they head towards Wildcat Creek….

AUDIO: [Sloshing through creek]

…fallen leaves make the rocks in the shallow water slippery.

AUDIO: [Student yelping, “Did your socks get wet?” “Yeah.”]

But with damp socks in tow, they safely reach their destination: a two-acre corn field. Sixteen students, six archaeologists and three history teachers.

MERREDITH SEARS: It took absolutely about two sentences out of my mouth to convince our administration.

That’s lead-teacher, Merredith Sears. Thirty-three years in education, this outdoor classroom was her idea.

SEARS: I called and I said hey, what do you think if I took the kids out of school for a week to do a historic site survey and they’re like, cool. Can we come?

That was in 2006. Sears says she still remembers those early days of teaching.

SEARS: We felt like everyday we were going into a classroom and hammering facts into children’s heads and there wasn’t a whole lot of creative thought. There wasn’t a lot of analytical thinking. There wasn’t really time for hands-on projects.

She says back then her students struggled as well.

SEARS: I think philosophically in their brains they knew like history was maybe real but they didn’t have it in their hearts.

Today, they’ll get to hold pieces of history in their hands. The class is called community studies. An 18-week elective course Sears developed for high school juniors and seniors. She says her lesson plans have grown in scope and complexity.

SEARS: I can’t believe all that we have done. We have written a book. We have podcasts. They have hosted in past years like a political forum for local candidates, local and state candidates.

But in 2011, the already popular course got an unexpected boost.

DANA CHANDLER: I want smiles today.

That’s Dana Chandler. He’s an associate college professor of history and a local archaeologist who’s worked all around the world. When he found out what Sears was doing, he wanted to be a part of it.

CHANDLER: Meredith and I came up with the idea sitting around my dinner table. This is not just a rinky- dinky play at archeology. This is actual archeology.

AUDIO: [Student hammering wooden peg into ground]

Day 2 of the dig begins with 17-year-olds Chyanne Wilkins and Anyiah Andrews pounding wooden pegs into the ground. They’re making perfect 2 foot by 2 foot square pits.

AUDIO: [Shoveling]

Then the digging starts inside the pits. 17-year-old Dallas Lorton is already on his umpteenth bucket of dirt.

DALLAS LORTON: And we’re putting the dirt in the buckets and they’re going to dump the dirt onto the sifters to find artifacts in the dirt.

Sifters are like giant window screens on stilts. Lundyn Stroud is one of several students using her hands to comb through the dirt. As they sift, it looks like they’re playing in the dirt.

LUNDYN STROUD: We’re sifting through the dirt to see if we can find anything that’s in the big blops of it. Anything like what? Like pottery.

Teacher Cadie Tipton says there’s an art to sifting through clumps of dirt and digging for precious artifacts like pottery.

CADIE TIPTON: We try to keep the pit as square as we can and we shave it off layer by layer because for every inch of soil that’s about a decade in time and so we want to be able to date things.

AUDIO: [Student writing with marker]

Dating the findings is Chloe Moore’s job. The high school junior is standing under a tent using a permanent marker.

CHLOE MOORE: I’m cleaning and bagging and tagging. I have to wash the artifacts and then put them in these bags and say who found them, where they found them and what they are.

It often takes hours, even days to spot an artifact. But on this day, less than 45 minutes into the dig…

DANA CHANDLER: Look at that. Alright, everybody look at this. Hand it around…

The students find several pieces of potsherds with deep grooves. Sears says that’s a trait of the Deptford culture.

MERREDITH SEARS: What we think we’re looking at are Native inhabitants who were probably from the Woodland Period. This is not your Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw or Creek tribes. These were their ancestors.

Historians believed they lived in the southern part of Alabama. But teacher Chris Glass says finding artifacts on this side of the state is a game changer.

CHRIS GLASS: We’ve proved that they’ve come farther north than we ever thought. High school students are changing the history of the whole Southeast. That’s a big deal to me.

…And to 17-year-old Alexis Johnson

ALEXIS JOHNSON: I think it’s really cool to see and know that like the artifacts we’re finding, we’re the first to touch them in almost 2000 years.

Dana Chandler says these discoveries have an even deeper impact on the students.

CHANDLER: So they learned a lot about the people. That they were real people with real lives, laughter and love.

And Chandler points out, they had a moral code as well.

CHANDLER: Native Americans knew that murder was wrong. They knew stealing was wrong. They knew lying was wrong. Where did that come from? Only one place. God revealed that to them.

AUDIO: Alright folkety folks..so what we gonna do now is put our string around…

That level of understanding is what inspired Sara Welsh to pursue archeology. Eight years ago, she was sifting and digging for artifacts in Sears’ class. She returns every year to hopefully inspire other students to walk in her shoes.

SARA WELSH: I had direction from Mrs. Sears and I kind of want to be that for them.

AUDIO: Alright guys. Good job. I’m thrilled. Now get back to work!

Reporting for WORLD. I’m Myrna Brown in Randolph County, near Wedowee, Alabama

AUDIO: Tell them again. Get back to work [Laughter]

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