"What is the Underground Railroad?"

[SDFgirl]

Me (to my class of 3rd graders): "Who here has heard of the Underground Railroad?"

Student: "Me! That's another word for the subway, like in New York City!"

I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing out loud!

 

[AKL_Megs]

In about the third grade, I honestly used to think that it was a series of tunnels that connected different houses to eachother. I remember talking about it in class and my teacher at the time not correcting any of us kids who believed the above stated. Weird teaching. I later found out the truth!

 

[TJ's Mom]

What is scary is that when I taught 8th grade, I still had some kids who thought that!

 

[Laz]

Levi Coffin's house is about an hour from my home. Many young children visit it on field trips>

http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/in2.htm

 

[LadyyRedd]

That reminds me of a conversation I overhead at the college one night when I was waiting for a class to start.

The professor was talking to a young student (18/19 ish) and mentioned Ghandi. The student said "Who was Ghandi anyway?" So the teacher explained and said that the student should rent the movie starring "Ben...um....um...I can't remember his last name...Ben...." and the student replied:

"Afleck?"

I had to stifle my laughter.

The professor said something like "No, I think that was a bit before his time".

Kimya

 

[HSMndLKfan92]

In about the third grade, I honestly used to think that it was a series of tunnels that connected different houses to eachother. I remember talking about it in class and my teacher at the time not correcting any of us kids who believed the above stated. Weird teaching. I later found out the truth!

When I learned about the Underground Railroad last year (7th grade) I was

 

[grinningghost]

I thought there really was an underground railroad that the slaves rode on.

Fortunately, I got the real meaning before adulthood.

 

[KyDerbyMan]

I remember thinking it was an actual railroad with some secret bridge or tunnel crossing the Ohio River.

 

[wdwdancerwannabe]

I think we as teachers have to always think of how children interpret what we are saying and how we present it.

I remember being in the 8th grade and my soc. st. teacher telling us that we were now going to talk about "Checks and Balances"...she rambled on for days and days and she never did talk about how to balance the checkbook!!!!!!!!

 

[All American]

Thanks for the laugh. I bet the student was totally serious in his response too. Kids. Gotta love 'em.

 

[Narnian_Princess]

Wow. Just wow. I knew about the Underground Railroad when I was 6...

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

 

[pansmermaidzlagoon]

In about the third grade, I honestly used to think that it was a series of tunnels that connected different houses to eachother. I remember talking about it in class and my teacher at the time not correcting any of us kids who believed the above stated. Weird teaching. I later found out the truth!

well, there are homes that were connected with under ground tunnels for this purpose - at least here in Upstate NY - clearly the entire route was not this way. In Potsdam NY, for example, a home in town was connected to a home quite a distance out in the boonies....parts of the tunnels are still intact in the basements. There were also underground tunnels connecting homes to the shore of Lake Ontario!

Dd is in third grade - she has heard of it because it came up a few times - maybe because of the local connections..I'll have to ask her what exactly she thinks it is though.....

 

[ButchJohnson]

I think the 3rd grade is about the right time for them to learn about it. It wouldn't shock me that third graders didn't know yet. I'm sure there are also third graders that don't even know about Abe Lincoln and George Washington yet, so good time to start teaching them, that's what schools for.

 

[pat fan]

Thankfuly I knew about from a very young age. The house I grew up in was a part of it....very cool.

On the other hand, a couple years ago there was a blip on the news about the KKK and my DS (16 then) asked "What's the KKK?". Ok, glad you don't know because then you're not involved with that mentality, but quite scary that they don't teach it at school. I sure know and just assumed that it was tought as part of American History. It's not liek I would have a chance to bring up the KKK over dinner (racism yes, but not KKK itself).

 

[oxfordcircus]

Wow. Just wow. I knew about the Underground Railroad when I was 6...

Yeah, the curriculum at my preschool covered that too, but really failed to treat the underlying causes of the rise of marxism.

 

[laurajetter]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought the underground railroad really was underground (when I was a kid, of course! )!

More embarrassingly, In high school in my Health class one day, the teacher had written "The drug cartel" on the board as we were taking our seats. She began teaching, talking about the drug trade, etc. and then class was almost over and I couldn't figure out when she was going to tell us about the drug, cartel.

I had thought there was a specific drug called "Cartel" that we were going to learn about! (I had never heard the word before)

 

[TerriP]

I won't tell you exactly how old I was when I finally learned that "Lennon's Tomb" did not have John Lennon's body in it...

 

[amy4bruce]

Last year, during the Super Bowl, DD who was 6 at the time said that she was glad that Ben Rothlisberger was going to give Jerome Bettis a lift after the game.

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Ben said that he was going to take Jerome home."

It's always interesting to see how a child's mind interprets things that are fairly transparent to an adult.

 

[sweetspicy]

Aren't kids in our town smarter than this?