Becca’s GED Social Studies Blog

So, I mentioned how you can learn more about history by meeting people and visiting historic places around where you live. It helps to see how the past affects the present… how places grow and change over time.

One guy I met while I was truckin’ did civil war reenactments, where they go out and dress up and replay battles from the civil war. Not somethin’ I’d want to do, but it’s pretty cool to watch and talk to the people. Maybe there’s a group like that where you live. You can talk to them about what they do and see the costumes… and it’s a lot better than learning about the civil war from books! And you can go and watch and actually see battles from the war.

Every year around the 4th of July, there’s a civil war reenactment at Gettysburg, that’s where there’s a real famous civil war battle. Here’s a web link to some information: http://www.gettysburgreenactment.com

But there are civil war reenactments all over the country. If you get interested in a topic and just start finding out about it, you find all sorts of interesting things. For example, did you know that a civil war nurse named Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross? Think about that… back in 1881, over a hundred years ago, before women could even vote, a woman started this important relief organization that helped people during Hurricane Katrina and all kinds of disasters. Here’s a good place that you can read about her: http://www.civilwar.com/content/view/257/53/

So, what interests you about the civil war? How did it change the place you live or affect your family?

Hey! In my last post, I asked some questions about California missions. Here’s my best shot at answering them…

How do you think local Indians felt about the California missions?

One of the links I posted last time said the missions wanted to “train them for life in a European colonial society.” It also said, “Conversion was seldom an entirely voluntary process.” That sounds like the Spanish came and started pushing the California Indians around, right? If I lived somewhere and people from a different country came and started building mission towns, I might be kind of mad. I mean, the Spanish were taking the land where the Native Americans lived. And they already had their own religion. I mean, I don’t want someone coming to my door and trying to change my religion. I learned that Native Americans helped build the missions. Then the Mission Indians had to live at the missions and learn to be Catholic. I bet they didn’t like that too much. I know I wouldn’t!

Why was it important for Spain to build missions on the coast?

It seems like Spain wanted a few things. Everyone who came to California came by boat. That means having missions on the coast was important. It showed that Spain already owned the land, and it gave them towns to trade with ships. Then, it gave them a way to control the local native Californians by making them “Mission Indians,” who lived in the missions and learned to be Catholics. All this sounds like it’s about control. Spain wanted to control California, and the best way was to make missions all along the coast.

That’s what I think. What do you think? And let me know about any interesting places and people nearby you!

Did you know….GED Academy students say social studies is the second hardest GED topic after math? I guess I was sort of surprised, cuz the way I see it, social studies is all about people.

I know, I know, someone says “history” and you just turn it off. I hated social studies in school. All that memorizing stuff and dates and names. But it really is about people, how they act, and what they do. And the GED social studies isn’t really about memorizing things, that’s what’s good about it.

One of the things I like most in life is meeting people, talking to people. It’s all learning about people! So, I thought I’d work on social studies in my blog… learning about people.

Here’s a great idea for social studies. Find a local place near you with some history about where you are, and go visit it. Take your kids. Maybe you’ll learn something new about where you live.

I’ve been all over the U.S. driving my truck, and I like to find out about different places. When I’m in California, one thing I always look for is missions. I’ve been to a few of them.

California missions go all the way back to 1769, and they were started by Catholic priests from Spain. Did you know Spain used to own California? It’s true. And it explains all those Spanish names, right? “Los Angeles” means “the angels,” and “San Francisco” means “Saint Francis.” Of course, back then, the Spanish didn’t care that there were already Indians on the land. King Charles of Spain wanted the land for Spain. So, he had missions put on the coast to create towns and to convert Indians to be Roman Catholics. Each mission was a day’s walk from the next one, so it covered the whole coast. Each mission has a central square, a church, and a bell tower–tall enough so you could see it from all around back then.

The important thing is to think about what information about missions means, to ask questions. So, I’m going to ask some questions, and I’ll go back and give my best answers to them in my next post. You can let me know what you think by adding comments.

• How do you think local Indians felt about the California missions?
• Why was it important for Spain to build missions on the coast?

The best way to find out more about a California mission is to visit one, if you ask me! But, not everyone is in California. Here’s some more information about California missions on the web.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbmissio.html

http://www.calgold.com/missions/

http://www.ca-missions.org/links.html

So, what interesting places are near you? What can you find out about where you live? Let me know what you find out by posting a comment, and maybe I’ll write some about the interesting places where you live.