KY Faith & Public History Resources for K-12 Public School Teachers Blog

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George Frideric Handel- a Famous World Christian

On April 13, 1742 Handel's Messiah was performed for the first time. It happened in Dublin. This oratorio was criticized as blasphemous because it treated the life and teaching of Jesus Christ as theater. When it was performed at Westminster Abbey, however, the same work was called sacrilege because it was a theatrical work performed in a church. Sometimes you can't win. Handel eventually arranged to perform the Messiah as a fund-raiser for the London Foundling Hospital. This was well received and it became an annual event. The lyrics of the Messiah are lifted straight from the King James Bible . Handel was born in Germany in 1685. In 1727, he became a naturalized British citizen. That same year he accepted a commission to compose a coronation anthem for King George II. Again Handel took inspiration from the Bible - this time from the coronation of Solomon. Nathan the prophet and Zadok the high priest officiated at Solomon's coronation. Hence Handel called his anthem Za

Arbor Day STEAM (tree) Field Trip for 1st through 3rd Grades Friday, April 28, 2023

Arbor Day is Friday, April 28, 2023. We're opening the Walking Trail and Arboretum for first, second and third grade classes to come for a 40-minute outdoor STEAM adventure featuring trees. Your students will hear and read poems about trees. They will learn to identify the parts of a tree and count tree rings to figure out how old a tree was when it was cut down. The experience involves a half-mile walk on a gravel trail through a beautiful arboretum at 616 Clintonville Road in Paris, Kentucky. We are charging $2/person. Use this link to select when your group will come and to help us have enough tree cookies on hand. A spacious picnic area is available for your class to use if you want to bring brown-bag lunches. Some souvenirs: books, candy, and trading cards are for sale if your class brings spending money. Please use this link to register your class and to select the time you will come.

Happy Birthday to the Trees!

Yesterday, February 6, 2023, was the Jewish festival Tu B'Shvat . It is the birthday of the trees. The date this festival is celebrated shifts from year to year. All Jewish feasts do because the Jewish calendar is lunar. The birthday of the trees it will always be in January or February, however. Why do the trees need a birthday? Because the ancient Jewish law forbade a person from eating from a fruit tree until it was five years old. So, all the trees have their birthdays on the same day. What does that have to do with us at the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project in Paris, Kentucky? Our mission is to provide education around the Christian religion and its history, particularly in Kentucky. As one of the signs on our half-mile Walking Trail says, the first people who believed the Christian message were Jewish people living in Jerusalem in the first century of the Christian era. So, by honoring this Jewish festival, we recall the roots of the Christian faith. Bes

First lessons about world religion for primary classes

Religion is lumped in with history, literature, languages and art as one of the humanities but we tend not to feel as comfortable teaching about religion as the other subjects. Teaching about religion does not promote any one particular faith. It introduces the fact that there are differences between people and their ideas and practices about God. Primary students can easily be introduced to the idea that there are different religions during social studies units about the community and its people. Different religions use different types of buildings. Different religions can be identified by the way some adherents dress. When you are teaching about communities, say that people worship in different types of buildings. People who are Christians worship in churches or cathedrals. People who are Jewish worship in synagogues. People who are Muslim worship in mosques, and people who are Hindu or Buddhist worship in temples. Take pictures of any of these buildings in your school community and

Living History is the primary strategy your students will experience when your class takes a field trip to a camp meeting

Living History is a term for an interpretive strategy used at museums like Colonial Williamsburg or Conner Prairie . It is when visitors are ushered back to a specific place in the past that is peopled by costumed interpreters doing everyday tasks using authentic tools and materials or else very accurate reproduction artifacts. Often the visitors are encouraged to assist with the activities. Sometimes the interpreters have adopted a persona based on a real person. This approach uses theater methods and requires each character to have a very detailed understanding of the time and circumstances their person would have lived in. It takes research to locate the documents, oral history resources, and evidence from material culture from which each character is created. Then it takes a certain discipline to maintain the character's first-person perspective when visitors interact from their modern point of view. This introduces a fun tension that emphasizes the shifts in how we live

Merry Christmas and Thank You: An Open Letter to Kentucky's K-12 Teachers

Dear Teacher, It's nearly winter break. We here at the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project wish every Kentucky teacher a blessed holiday season. We want you to know that we value what you do and that we understand that your job is not about the paycheck. It's truly about the students. It takes commitment and sacrifice. We want to take this opportunity to thank you. You more than deserve the recognition and the honor. Many of you keep a warm coat in the trunk of your car for when you have bus duty at the end of the day and the temperature has dropped 20 degrees since you left your house before it was light. You probably have spent several recent evenings preparing to delight your students with a holiday surprise before winter break. You routinely spend your own money to make sure your classroom has enough paper, pencils, crayons and other essential supplies so that every student can learn. Many have made it a personal mission to provide a safe environment for

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