Your Museum: Readin’, writin’, and riverboatin’

Director, Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum

What has 50 eyes, seems impervious to heat, travels here from as far away as Maine and Massachusetts, and displays an insatiable curiosity about Mark Twain? The correct answer would be 25 educators attending the first of three week-long teacher workshops at the Mark Twain Museum this past week. That’s right. Teachers actually gave up a week of their much-deserved summer vacation in order to become better teachers. And by “better” we mean wanting to teach more Mark Twain.
This is the fourth summer the museum has offered these workshops, and although they are “work” there is also a lot of fun.  Hmmm … does this have anything to do with Tom Sawyer’s principle about whitewashing? (“All I know, is, it suits Tom Sawyer.”) Yes we work, but it does seem to suit these teachers.
The week included field trips to some important Twain sites. Besides the museum properties, we also visited the birthplace in Florida, the old Baptist cemetery, Riverview Park, Cardiff Hill, Mt. Olivet Cemetery, and the Garth Woodside Mansion where Twain spent the night when visiting his childhood friend during their adult years. We also rode (and steered!) the Mark Twain Riverboat, explored the Mark Twain Cave, and enjoyed a visit from “Mark Twain Himself.” The teachers agreed unanimously that Hannibal is the place to come in order to teach Twain. One teacher commented, “This workshop allows Mark Twain to leap from the page, becoming flesh and blood in front of us.” 
By week’s end the teachers had created lesson plans to be shared on the museum’s Web site. To date, educators from around the world have downloaded lessons from past workshops approximately 25,000 times. Each summer we focus on different works by Twain. This year the teachers read Following the Equator before arriving in Hannibal, so now we’ll be able to offer lessons that compliment this great work. I have to think that Mark Twain would be pleased to know that so many teachers are still inviting him into their classrooms. We have two more weeks of workshops coming up in July, and no shortage of teachers planning to attend. 
It was a memorable week. And Twain summed it up best: “It is noble to teach oneself, but still nobler to teach others — and less trouble.” 

Cindy Lovell can be reached at 573-221-9010 or cindy.lovell@marktwainmuseum.org.  She welcomes your ideas and enthusiasm!