Mission Moment

Dear Covenant Families,

Third grade Living History Day (LHD) is tomorrow, and it concludes all of the grade level LHDs for this school year. As I was reflecting on what to share with you in this Mission Moment, I thought it might be interesting to share some of the history of these special days in the Grammar School.

When I began teaching Explorers in the fall of 2000, the school was meeting at a little church on Westside Drive. At that time, there were around 75 students enrolled in grades E-6. A few weeks before Living History Day, information was shared through Monday folders (no email, website, or Covenant Copy in those days), followed by a mom who came around and gave us tunics and tribe assignments. Instead of getting 12 student tunics and one for me, the mom handed me about 50 tunics and told me to send them home to my students’ parents. I thought there was absolutely no way the parents were going to wear them. Much to my surprise, our tribe of Dan was very well represented the next day. Looking back, I can still remember the way my heart swelled with gratitude that day. I was so touched by the goodness and so grateful that the Lord guided my little family to Covenant. And to think the journey had just begun!

From its inception, Living History Day was designed to be an extension of the classroom. It is an immersion of the senses into a time period and how life was lived long ago. For almost 20 years, the entire school (or after we grew, the entire Grammar School) participated in Living History Day together. The reason for this was simple. Each year, all grades were studying the same period of history at the same time. The History curriculum moved through a 4 year rotation consisting of ancient times, middle ages, colonial times, and modern times/Texas history. To make things even more interesting, History was not the only thing that was on that rotation. Literature, Bible, and Shakespeare were also rotated accordingly. The reason behind this was for each child in a family to be studying the same thing at the same time. We envisioned dinner conversations debating why Rome fell, and everybody knew something about it and could contribute.

There were some really fun advantages to this plan. Family trips were often planned around the particular time period being studied at school. Think Revolutionary War, and then a trip to Boston in the summer. Being able to celebrate LHD together, as a family, was another advantage.

I remember another year we pulled out our trusty tribes of Israel tunics when we were renting space from Shearith Israel. This time we took our activities of 4 years prior a big step further. On that day, each tribe built its own sukkot, or booth, during the Jewish holiday. It was a Festival of Booths. It literally makes me laugh out loud when I think of the entire community dressed up and building these little lean-tos. It took the entire morning, and then we crammed into them while also spilling out of them to eat hummus and pita bread for lunch. I can imagine the staff of Shearith looking out of the windows, half-perplexed and half-hysterical. What a sight to behold.

As the school grew, we continued in this tradition with the same fervor, maybe even stronger. All parents, students, and teachers dressed up and descended on a park or other venue to immerse themselves in this sweet tradition. The last year that we had LHD as an entire Grammar School, we were donning our finest middle ages garb, dancing around maypoles and eating turkey legs with our hands. I remember looking around the park and thinking that this had just gotten too big. There were over 700 people in attendance at that last event. The prospect of planning LHD had become akin to planning a wedding.

Meanwhile, on the curriculum side of things, the 4 year cycle was becoming more and more onerous. Training teachers to teach a book and time period that they wouldn’t teach again for 4 years was lacking. It felt like scratching the surface when what we want is for our teachers to dig deep and develop knowledge and passion for their subject matter. And the inventory. Class sets of books for 4 years. There are truly no words to describe the labor involved with purchasing, maintaining, and regularly moving this large of an inventory.

Even though the writing was on the wall that the time for change had come, we still felt sad and almost dragged our feet in dismay. What if we rolled this out and it did not work and we lost something special? Could we still accomplish our goals?

You already know the ending of the story. We made the change and it really wasn’t even wobbly. Everyone got excited to have their time period and to develop expertise that could promote better student engagement and excitement. Living History Days were so much easier to plan, not merely because of the number of participants, but also because the scope of participants was manageable. Finding ancient activities that are meaningful for multiple ages is difficult. The reinvention of that wheel every 4 years was challenging too.

Now we are at a place where we can ensure that the activities of LHD are not a redundancy from something that happened in class. Each activity is chosen because it is not something that will also be done in the classroom. Living History Day truly brings life and light to all that is happening in the classroom. It is still one of the most important and special days of the school year for our students. Thank you to all of the parents who still fully participate in the planning, the production, and the support that is necessary to make this day worthwhile.

While everything has changed from my first Living History Day in 2000, I can also say nothing has changed. The families still wholeheartedly support and participate in the day from the planning to the execution, all while donning period costumes. In fact, Living History Day would not even be possible without the hard work of our parents. It is one of many aspects of Covenant life that would not exist without the care and commitment of our parents.

Thank you current (and former) Grammar School parents for all you have done to make Living History Day an enduring tradition here at Covenant.

Non Nobis,

Laura Mountjoy
Grammar School Head