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http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/338/matthew-t-rader-yXdJ8QVZlIA-unsplash.jpg
7740f580dd7c3b6b12e038fe97367fe5
Dublin Core
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Title
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baseball
Description
An account of the resource
baseball
Identifier
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baseball
Text
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Professional Development.
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Randee Wittkopf, 46, high school social studies teacher, mom, wife, sister, daughter and lover of the Humanities
Date
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July 2019
Description
An account of the resource
This past summer, my son was offered an opportunity to represent the United States and play baseball in Belgium and Holland. Naturally, I took one for the team and volunteered to chaperone him on the 10-day tour. I had never been to the Continent, only to England and Scotland, and was eager to collect more stamps for my passport. I knew that traveling to these medieval cities and touring the places that I had only taught about would impact me, but I just didn't know how much.
Our first day, we took a day tour to Bastogne and spent time at the Battle of the Bulge Museum and the memorial there dedicated to the paratroopers and Patton's 3rd Army who fought and saved the town. Standing on top of the memorial and scanning the panoramic views of the village around us, I couldn't help but sense the honor and sacrifice so many made to hold that town. I can still smell the air, feel the breeze in my hair, and the pride I felt as I watched my 12-year-old son read the plaques dedicated to those men who fought so bravely to save the world.
It just so happened that the museum, which if you haven't visited I highly recommend, was also hosting an exhibit that contained art painted on sections of the Berlin Wall. It also had cars from East Berlin that were painted and represented the attitudes of the artists and their conceptions of liberty, freedom, confinement, denial and oppression. The pieces took my breath away...the visions these artists expressed on the symbol of the Cold War were hauntingly beautiful yet also loud and defiant. I will never forget them.
Our first baseball game wasn't until day 4 of our trip, and we arrived to my delight to a ball field that looked like it was built right after World War II...which it was. It was right next to the local airport that was still in use and I could visualize the GIs playing ball, teaching the Belgians the art of the game, sowing the seeds of peace and fraternity while healing the wounds of occupation and oppression for so long.
There are so many moments from this trip that moved me, but the one place that I will never forget and will always keep in my heart was the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. I really have no words to express the sorrow, the inhumanity and the anger I felt as I moved through the house. The last room which held her personal diary, her writings, her stories instilled a sense of loss and sadness in me that I still can't express in the right words. It brought back memories of my grandparents' friends, one of whom had numbers tattooed on her arm. I didn't understand then what they meant, and I wish so much that I still had my grandparents here now so that I could understand what their friends went through. So I could continue to tell their story. The Anne Frank House exemplified Humanity. Life. And it showed what happens when we forget that we are all human and we all should see each other as mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters. Humans.
Title
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How Baseball Leads to Profound Moments
Identifier
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how-baseball-leads-to-profound-moments
Anne Frank
Baseball
Battle of the Bulge
Battlefield Monuments
Berlin Wall, 1969-1989
Cold War
Cross-Cultural Relations
Teachers
World War II (1939-1945)
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http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/9/115/download-1.jpg
1a029127aa9c1001b30d6853fbeb846a
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Title
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Jackie Robinson
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Teacher Advisory Council
Description
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This collection includes contributions from the National Humanities Center's Teacher Advisory Council. The council is a 14-member board that supports the Education Programs of the National Humanities Center for a one-year term of service.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
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Baseball, Jackie Robinson, and Racial Identity Formation
Description
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As I grew up in rural South Carolina in the 1980s, baseball was my favorite hobby and pastime. For most of my 7 year Dixie league/recreational league baseball career (ages 5 to 12), my dad was my coach. I don’t remember watching baseball on television because we only had three to four channels and did not have cable.
On my first baseball team, I was the only black player; and then after that most of my teams were majority black. At this time I only had vague notions about race, although I knew that I was black. Because both of my parents worked, my brother and I attended a day-care facility in town. The day-care provider was a thirty-something year old white woman and most of the children in her care were also white. Again, I had little sense of my blackness.
Of the many books on hand at the daycare, one day I discovered a children’s book about Jackie Robinson. By this time, I’m in the third grade and am a good reader, so I read the book very quickly. Just as quickly, it becomes one of my favorite books.
I was extremely excited for several reasons: Never before I had a read a book with a Black main character. I knew there were black baseball players, but did not feel like I knew any very well. The book discussed racism that Robinson faced and how he overcame it and became one of the best baseball players in his generation (Rookie of the Year and MVP). It was the first example of people facing hardships because they were black and Jackie Robinson overcame the hardships. And lastly, a big part of my own racial development and understanding was that being black was not just about facing hardships in the past and overcoming them.
I continued to study Negro league baseball. Read several books and became fascinated by these invisible men who participated in a separate but unequal league, but had equal or superior baseball talent.
Subject
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Reading a short biography on Jackie Robinson and developing my own racial identity were important ways that the humanities helped me in this moment.
Source
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A children's book about Jackie Robinson (I don't remember the title)
Creator
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N/A
Date
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I was a third grader in the 1980s.
Contributor
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<a href="http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/education-programs/teacher-advisory-council-2017-2018/">Jamie Lathan</a>, 39, teacher and school administrator, husband, father, son, brother, friend.
Identifier
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baseball-and-racial-identity
African American History
Baseball
Biography
Black History
Books & Reading
Children's Literature
Introspection
Literature
Negro Leagues
Race Identity
Robinson, Jackie
South Carolina
Teachers & Teaching