Учитель истории из Далласа посетил Албанию и Косово, чтобы привнести в уроки личный опыт древних цивилизаций

Usually, teachers assign their students writing prompts to detail what they achieved over the summer break. The tables will be turned on Benjamin Shown. A social studies teacher at Dallas High School, Shown taught U.S. History last year, but will be offering instruction this year in world history and Greek and Roman psychology. He can’t wait to share how he spent his summer break experiencing the history firsthand once only available by book. The Center for Geography Oregon, once affiliated with the National Geographic branch in the state, got funding to continue their program through the Gray Family Foundation. Shown said the non-profit funds a host of events for teachers throughout the year. “So they do a trip every year … somewhere across the globe with Oregon teachers specifically. And I got the opportunity to go on one of those paid trips this summer and it was amazing,” Shown said. The 10-day trip July 5-15 had stops in Albania, North Macedonia, and Kosovo. Previous years the organization had trips to Vietnam and Cuba. But it was this particular jaunt through European locales that drew Shown’s attention. “It's a part of the world I never would have went to without a free opportunity,” he said. “It's such an important part of the world historically. Like the Byzantine Empire, Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire.” On this whirlwind excursion of Eastern Europe, Shown was not joined by the typical tourist; rather, he was accompanied by 14 other scholars from many educational levels. “I would explain it like a cruise on land. So like every day or two you're moving to a new city or a new country. And you are go, go, go,” Shown explained. Landing at midnight in Albania, his group awoke at 8 a.m. and it was non-stop from there. “We only had one day in Albania which was unfortunate. But half of the group went to the beach. The other half of us stayed and went to the museums in the capital. But yeah, it was go, go, go,” Shown said. Then it was on to three-days in Macedonia, with the final two or three in Kosovo. They hopped between two cities in Macedonia and two cities in Kosovo, covering a lot of ground and territory, traipsing through history. So it was a lot for Shown’s first time out of America. “So I'm 24 and it's definitely a unique place to go for your first time out of the U.S. It's an interesting place with their modern history. Because of all the crazy stuff that happened in the 90s. With the wars with Serbia and then the fall of Yugoslavia,” he said. “So it's like, I don't know how I would describe it over there. Other than like you look around and it feels like you step back to the 90s. … Like you look at a picture of the 90s in the United States. Like the building style. That's almost exactly what you see.” To help make their exploration more than a touristy stop in each city’s museum, Shown said their tour guide was a local archaeologist who supplemented his income with these tours. “And so when he's not doing archaeological digs, he's doing these tours. And so he took us to an ancient Roman site. He took us to local landmarks. And there are some landmarks over there that have been there for thousands and thousands of years. One of them we went to in Kosovo.” The guide took them to the Prizren Fortress. “So literally this fortress has been there for longer than recorded history. But like the second they started writing about it. They're like well it's been here for probably a thousand years. We don't know exactly when. So that was really cool,” Shown said. The trip wasn’t all fun and games. Getting a tour of historical Europe came with some strings attached that tied back into the classroom. The tour is only for members of the Center for Geography, Oregon in its Cooperative Teacher program. It required Shown to attend a professional development course, which he took in 2023. Once back from the trip, he and the others are expected to craft a “bulletin board” of everything they saw and that in turn will be put together by Portland State University students into a story map. This will be used by other educators in their lesson plans. “It will go through on a map. And you can click around the map and see where we went and all the pictures and stories. So we were working on that,” Shown said. “... So if another teacher is trying to teach about the Balkans. And since we've been there and we've seen it. And we've kind of seen the artifacts. Talked to local historians and been to museums. We kind of have the perspective to put it into a lesson that makes a little more sense than you know.” Shown said the tour group actually included some familiar faces. One was a professor he attended the professional development course at Western with. The other, a blast from his own past. “I did know that selected in the group was also my sixth grade homeroom teacher. So, from where I went to high school and middle school over in Jefferson, Oregon. So, that was kind of an interesting experience traveling the world with my sixth grade homeroom teacher,” he said. While Shown’s not required to create anything from the paid trip to incorporate into his own classroom, he said the most valuable thing he can bring his students now is perspective. “So, I'm teaching world history. That's coming here. And I'm teaching about the Ottoman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, and the Roman Empire, and the ancient Greek religion. And seeing artifacts firsthand and being in the places gave me a completely different perspective,” Shown said. For example his archeological tour guide took them to a Roman city dig site which had been excavated in the last 10-15 years, and are still digging through. “And he walked us through this town, and the foundations of these Roman era buildings from 200 B.C. are still standing. I had a completely different perspective on what it would mean to live in this place,” he said. “And it's like stepping back in time, almost. So, I think back is going to be invaluable when I'm teaching these things, because I have a brand new perspective. And hearing the perspective of the locals.”