Monday, July 28, 2008

Iron Ore

The National Endowment for the Humanities sponsors summer workshops for teachers using your tax dollars. Shop Teacher Bob is taking advantage of this fact and is living on the dole this week. I'm attending one of the Landmarks of American History & Culture workshops sponsored by the NEH and the Minnesota Humanities Center. The itinerary goes something like this:

Leave St. Paul on a bus and hit all the high spots of iron ore history on the Mesabi Range. We're talking hematite and taconite here and the history there of. Ely, Hibbing, Duluth, Virginia and lots of stops in between including the Greyhound Museum. When you've seen so much iron ore history you want to puke, back to St. Paul.

This will be the third workshop I've attended and these things are great. Previously, I was in Dearborn, Michigan and Lowell, Mass. Both workshops dealt with aspects of the Industrial Revolution as does this one. Both places put on quite the show. Excellent speakers, exceptional staff and lots of history where it actually took place. I'm expecting the same this week. If you teach, you should definitely look into these.

If I can, I'll post some pictures later in the week. Have to wait and see what the computer situation looks like.

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