By Mike Hutchens, UC Schools Communications Director
Union City, Tenn.–Corey Anne France mixed in a little fun with her lesson on the Boston Tea Party.
France’s fourth-grade social studies class recently participated in a reenactment of the 1773 event while studying the American Revolution and its causes.
The Union City Elementary School students pretended to be the Sons of Liberty and took action against the imperial policy in the first act of defiance by the colonists against the British rule.
Using the campus back playground as a backdrop, class members — who wore feathered headbands as the colonists did then – spotted the ship in the “harbor.”
The playground gazebo served as the ship and students gradually “rowed” through the water to the ship, where they located boxes of tea marked with the East India Company logo. They then dumped the boxes of tea “overboard,” yelling “No taxation without representation” in the process.
“I’ve always heard stories of Marty Sisco teaching history while standing on top of his desk,” France said of the former Union City educator and boys’ basketball coach, who is her step-grandfather. “His students still remember his lessons many years later.
“I just thought if I could make this lesson fun, the students would retain the information and maybe tell my grandchildren a story about me.”