Edstrom Educational Consulting

In fifth grade, my class studied the Civil War and I wrote a speech about Sherman’s March.  In my speech I was asked to imagine myself as a first-hand witness and to speak as if I had lived through through the Siege of Atlanta.    I imagined myself as a fiesty and proud Southern woman, wearing a fabulous antebellum dress and spoke with passion about the death of my beautiful city and home.  As long as I live, I will never forget what I learned about that terrible time in United States history.  I vividly remember everything about giving that speech,  from the details about how Sherman laid siege on Atlanta while crushing the spirit of the Confederacy,  to the shirt I was wearing that day.   In fact, when as part of a history class syllabus at Wellesley College a decade later I was reading primary sources of woman in the South during this time, I felt like an “expert.”  I truly understood the causes and effects of Sherman’s March on the greater Civil War conflict.  I could relate the impact to other battles within the Civil War and other wars.  I could understand how geography, politics, religion, slavery, etc. played a role in the conflict.   The learning I had brought with me from the time I was ten years old was absolutely  applicable and ingrained in my brain.