Day 17 - Washington at the National Portrait Gallery and New Media at Mount Vernon

Washington - National Portrait Gallery

Today's experiences at Mount Vernon started with tagging along on a field trip into the city.  The Mount Vernon Teacher's Institute had a field trip into DC this morning to explore the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and I asked if there was room for my to join them.  Luckily there was room and I was able to join the tour.

We arrived at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in the morning prior to the opening of the museum to the general public.  Our focus today was viewing and discussing a variety of George Washington portraits in the gallery. Our guide was Briana Zavadil White, Student and Teacher Programs at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.  She did a great job of both teaching us about the portraits of Washington but also giving us some tools that we can use with our students when teaching about art, specifically portraits.

We started by looking at some of the more contemporary portraits in the gallery, including LL Cool J and Bill Gates.  This portion of the gallery was our first stop to discuss some of the elements included in analyzing portraits. Next we moved on to the presidential gallery and an examination of some Washington portraits.

Washington and I at the National Portrait Gallery

We stopped first at the famous Lansdowne Portrait of Washington, painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1796. When we reached the portrait we were all given 30 seconds to soak in the paining and then we were asked to turn our back to the portrait and our guide asked us a variety of questions about what we remembered about the picture.  It was interesting to both see what each person found memorable and what details we missed.  It provided everyone an opportunity to explain different things in the painting and was definitely a technique I would use in my classroom when teaching art. The painting is much larger than I had imaged it to be. We also looked at a several other Washington portraits in the gallery including The Anthenaeum, an unfinished work by Gilbert which was said to be a very accurate portrait of Washington and the one you find on your $1 bill.

The Anthenaeum - National Portrait Gallery

Houdon plaster bust of Washington - National Portrait Gallery

The rest of the presidential portraits in the gallery were fascinating.  I especially liked Harry S. Truman and found the more contemporary portrait of Bill Clinton to be interesting.  The museum does not currently have a portrait of President Obama.  He will be contacted in the future to commission a portrait for the gallery.

Truman - National Portrait Gallery

Clinton - National Portrait Gallery

National Portrait Gallery Courtyard

When I returned to Mount Vernon in the afternoon I had a meeting with Matt Briney, Vice President of New Media at Mount Vernon, and Robert Shenk, Senior Vice President for Visitor Engagement at Mount Vernon.  As a geek I am interested in the way in which Mount Vernon is using newly developed apps, online video and social media to connect with visitors here on the grounds and people like me - teachers who want to bring the Mount Vernon experience into our classrooms located around the country. I found it very interesting and I think they also enjoyed hearing the perspective a teacher who uses their content in the classroom. Mount Vernon has a great visitor app and recently launched a new spy app named "Agent 711" in which visitors are able to interact with locations on the grounds while tracking down a spy mission. I think in the future Mount Vernon will have some interesting opportunities for teachers via the Internet.

It was another Tomorrow I will be zeroing in on creating the content for my middle school archaeology unit.  

Day 2 - Exploring the Library at Mount Vernon

A little work at the library

Today was my first formal day as a Life Guard Teacher Fellow at Mount Vernon. The focus for the day was getting familiar with the resources at the Fred W. Smith Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon.

My first meeting of the day was with Mary Thompson. Mary is a research historian at Mount Vernon and I had a meeting with her to discuss my project on creating archaeology lesson plan for middle school classrooms.  She provided me with a couple of ideas on some real world situations that I could use later as I develop my lesson.  One of interesting portions of my discussion with Mary was discovering that Washington had bison here at Mount Vernon at the time of his death and at one point thought that he could use bison as draft animals. 

After lunch I had a tour of the Fred W. Smith Library for the Study of George Washington with Sarah Myers.  I had an abbreviated tour last September when I attended the Missouri Teachers Weekend but this tour was much more extensive. The Rare Books and Manuscripts were amazing including the original Rembrandt Peale portrait of Washington and books which belonged to Washington.

Peale portrait of Washington in Rare Books and Manuscripts Room

In the vault with books from Washington's private collection from Mount Vernon

Sarah also explained to me the procedures for accessing different resources located both physically in the library as well as the databases which are accessible only while at the library.  The library also has a very nice copier which allows for easy coping of books.

Copier for easily making scans of books

My final meeting of the day was with Allison Wickens, Vice President for Education at Mount Vernon, to discuss how the meetings throughout the day went and discussion about my lesson plan and potential meetings with other staff and researchers here at Mount Vernon.

Overall it was a great day becoming familiar with the multitude of material and resources available to me while I am here as a fellow.  I have a good plan in place and am ready to start exploring archaeology from a hand on approach.  

In in the evening was fortunate enough to meet up with the Fryer family - Wes, Shelly and Rachel - for dinner in Alexandria.  I have known Wes for a long time and I consider him to be one of my ed tech yodas.  Wes lives in Oklahoma and was visiting DC after a stop at ISTE in Philadelphia last week.  Crazy that both of us midwesterners have to go to DC to meet up and have dinner! I had a great time and was so happy to be able to see the Fryer family.

Exploring old town Alexandria with the Fryer family

Day 1 - Mount Vernon Teacher Fellowship

Hello.  Today is the first day of my 2015 Mount Vernon Life Guard Teacher Fellowship if you consider the "travel day" to be the first day.  The first official day of my fellowship begins tomorrow. This afternoon I flew in from Kansas City on a pretty non-district flight - they way they all should be right?! I have been fortunate to visit Washington DC for many events over the past 10 years and when I am flying alone I always try to get the window seat.  The views coming into DC never get old to me.  Today my biggest thrill came from flying over a place I recently read about by chance.  Last week I finished David McCullough's "The Wright Brothers" (great read by the way) and he describes the accident Orville Wright had in 1908 flying at Fort Myer just outside DC.  Orville's passenger that day was Lt. Thomas Selfridge.  He encountered a problem with the propeller and crashed to the ground - Orville was hurt pretty bad and Selfridge died - the first fatality in aviation history.  It took place next to Arlington Cemetery (where Selfridge is buried today) and as we flew directly over I was struck by the act of flying over the site in a jet plane and considering myself extremely safe.

Upon arriving at Mount Vernon I checked into the DeVos House, a residence built next to the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington.  It is an amazing residence to host scholars who are working on projects at the library.  I feel honored to be able to call it home for the next several weeks.  I will check to see if I can share pictures in a later blog post.  It is very nice and as I type this I am sitting in a beautiful screened in porch off the residence with a gorgeous view of some woods.

Tonight's work area

After dinner I walked a little on the estate grounds and took some pictures of the gardens - both upper and lower.  The gardens are one of my favorite parts of the estate and I highly recommend reading the newly published "The General in the Garden" edited by Susan P. Schoelwer if you have an interest in this subject. I took some pictures as the light started to fade away, a couple of videos and some photospheres.

Mount Vernon - the mansion

Mount Vernon - View of of the Potomac from the mansion

Mount Vernon - Lower Garden

In front of the mansion I did a quick Google Hangout with the family back home.  The girls were excited to see the mansion and view of the Potomac.  I plan on doing quite a few Google Hangouts with them to share as much as possible.  In the future we'll be bringing the whole family out here for an extended vacation.

Tomorrow is a big day.  I have meetings with a variety of individuals from the library and I will learn more about utilizing the most extensive collection of research on the life of George Washington.  I will try to post articles and share photos/videos of as much as possible. Thanks for visiting the blog.

Tonight after dinner I walked through the gardens on the estate and took a couple of videos. 

Mount Vernon's lower garden

Step over apple trees at lower garden

Mount Vernon's upper garden

Previous Trips to Mount Vernon

This post is part of my blog reflecting on my experiences this summer in the Mount Vernon Life Guard Teacher Fellowship program. My blog specifically devoted to the Mount Vernon experience can be found here.

My first trip to Mount Vernon was in the summer of 2006.  My wife and I were in Washington DC and spent a day at the estate.  Getting there was memorable - we took the Metro as far south as we could go and then got on a bus to take us to Mount Vernon.  Instead of getting on the express bus to Mount Vernon we got on the regular bus which made about 30 stops on the way there.  We laugh about it now but it was a long ride.

We both loved the day we spent at Mount Vernon.  My wife also has a history education degree and we proudly wear the "history geek" badge. We really liked the gardens and the working farm. Washington's 16 sided barn was probably my favorite feature of the estate.  

Photo by Eric Langhorst

I have also found it interesting that once you visit a historical site you often find yourself motivated to read more about the history of the site or the person.  This was definitely true after my first visit to Mount Vernon.  I read a couple more books on Washington, incorporated some of the information from our trip in my lesson plans the next year and knew that someday I would visit again.

My second opportunity to see Mount Vernon was a participant in the 2010 Gilder Lehrman Summer Institute.  The Gilder Lehrman summer institutes are amazing and this was no exception.  I was one of a group of teachers from around the country who listened to speakers, took tours of the grounds and had amazing access to everything the estate had to offer. During this visit I was able to tour the mill and the distillery for the first time.  While we were there Mount Vernon began selling the first whiskey from the new distillery and there was considerable media coverage surrounding it.  This second trip again renewed my interest in Mount Vernon and when I had the opportunity I would read books on Washington.  In preparation for the workshop I read His Excellency George Washington by Joseph J Ellis and also purchased a couple of smaller books on Washington's agricultural interests, George Washington's Gristmill by Dennis Pogue and Esther White and George Washington Pioneer Farmer by Alan Fusonie. I also read Adopted Son by David Clary following my second visit which described the relationship between Washington and Lafayette.

The third opportunity to spend time at the estate was in September of 2014 as a participant of the Mount Vernon Missouri Teachers' Weekend.  The Missouri Teachers' weekend began in 2013 as a workshop to enable teachers from Missouri the opportunity to visit and learn at Mount Vernon over the course of several days.  The experience is provided through the generosity of Paul M. Shatz and Deane Lee Shatz.

Photo by Eric Langhorst

The unique characteristic of this third visit was my opportunity to visit the new Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington, opened almost exactly a year earlier.  We had our lectures in the beautiful David M. Rubenstein Hall and had incredible tours of the estate.  The staff was generous with their time and we had high quality scholars on Washington providing lectures.

The four days spent at Mount Vernon and experiencing the new library sparked my desire to apply for a 2015 Mount Vernon Life Guard Teacher Fellowship.  Access to the library, the expertise of the staff and ability to stay at the estate will provide me a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn about Washington and create a resource that teachers can use in their classrooms.

Welcome to My Summer at Mount Vernon

Hello.  This summer I will be enjoying an opportunity of a life lifetime as a Mount Vernon Life Guard Teacher Fellow.  I will be a scholar in residence at Mount Vernon for much of the month of July and I couldn't be more excited.

You can learn more about the Mount Vernon Life Guard Teacher Fellowship program here and read more about the proposals of the six selected scholars here.

Screen capture from Mount Vernon website

I will be blogging to reflect and share both the experience of preparing for and participating in the Life Guard Fellowship.  My goal is to include reflections, pictures, videos, links, etc relating to the experience. I will be posting many of these entries here on my general blog "Speaking of History" and a separate blog named "Learning at Mount Vernon" .  I welcome you to join me on this journey and please let me know if you have any questions.

Images from 2014 Mount Vernon Missouri Teacher Weekend

I had an incredible several days as a participant in the 2014 Mount Vernon Missouri Teacher Workshop this past week. I will be adding some blog posts about the experience but wanted to share some of my favorite photos for the workshop in this blog post.

I love to take pictures at workshops such as this and I have posted over 750 of my images from the Mount Vernon workshop on Flickr.  You can view them here.

Mount Vernon in the morning

Reading Room at the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon

View of sunrise from the porch at Mount Vernon

Washington's original books

Flower on the grounds at Mount Vernon

Vegetable garden at Mount Vernon

Reenactors at Mount Vernon Colonial Faire

Bakery at the MountVernon Colonial Faire

View from window of Washington's gristmill

Posed contemplation while in the manuscript room of Washington Library

WordFoto App

I have used Wordle for years in class but recently have also been playing with the WordFoto app on my I-pad.  WordFoto isn't as "texty" as Wordle - meaning that it is not intended to take an entire speech or paragraph like Wordle.  It is more about taking a photo and adding text elements to the photo.  


I have enjoyed taking some family photos and making this year's Christmas card and making an graphic of a Husker football player.  I think it also has potential for making interesting images of historical figures and places.  Below is a quick WordFoto made of a picture I took of Mount Vernon a couple of years ago while attending a Gilder Lehrman summer workshop.  I have include the original photo as well to allow you to compare.  

The WordFoto app is currently available only as an Apple app.  If you would like to check out some great examples of what WorldFoto can do check out their Flickr page.

Podcast #212 - Washington's Big Decision Lesson Plan from Mount Vernon

Many people think of George Washington as a general or a president but he was also a very innovative farmer. During my week at Mount Vernon this summer as a participant in the 2010 Gilder Lehrman Summer Seminar I spent time studying Washington's actions as a farmer. He did some amazing things on his farms and was on the cutting edge of technology for his time. Today on a visit to Mount Vernon you can visit a reconstruction of the 16 sided round barn he built and designed to thresh grain.


One of Washington's most important decisions as a farmer came in 1765 when he decided to shift the from growing tobacco to wheat. He was one of the first to do this on a large scale in Virginia. He made this decision for several reasons and it ultimately allowed him to make a profit at a time when those who stayed with tobacco eventually fell further in debt.


During the seminar I created a lesson plan to help students analyze why Washington made this decision. The lesson is created primarily for a middle school or junior high history class and can be conducted in one 45 minute period. Students will also be using a couple of primary resources from George Washington. The podcast describes the lesson plan and this blog post includes a full description and materials in PDF format.

This blog entry also includes a short video shoot at Mount Vernon with Daniel Purkey, Lead Interpreter for Historic Trades at Mount Vernon, describing the reasons for Washington's decision.


Link to a full text description of the Washington Decision lesson plan (PDF file)


Link to the student graphic organizer used in the lesson along with a copy of a completed teacher version (PDF file)

Click to subscribe to the Speaking of History Podcast at i-Tunes here

Direct link to Podcast #212 - Washington's Big Decision Lesson Plan

Podcast #211 - Sunrise at Mount Vernon

Hello. Several weeks ago I was very fortunate to participate in the 2010 Gilder Lehrman Summer Seminar for Teachers at Mount Vernon. One great opportunity while attending the seminar was the opportunity to stay on the grounds at Mount Vernon. On a couple of the mornings I got up around 5:15 AM and walked to the mansion to see the sunrise over the Potomac River from the back porch. Today's podcast is a very quick reflection on that experience. I have also added several of the pictures from that morning at the mansion with this blog post.

You can view over 900 of the pictures I took while attending the week long seminar at this Flickr set.

Click to subscribe to the Speaking of History Podcast at i-Tunes here

Direct link to Podcast #211 - Enjoying Sunrise at Mount Vernon