Westward Expansion

I had an interesting experience as a parent last night and had to share it with the world, because that’s what we do in the day and age of over sharing… Ethan has a test in Social Studies today. They are covering early history of the United states, from Washington’s presidency through the war of 1812. As an aside, I make a way better fifth grader as a 39 year old than I ever did as a 10 year old… That is to say that this information is way more interesting to me today than it ever was 30 years ago. So the way I quiz him is I go through and read the chapters while picking out what I think are key details of the chapters. To my delight, we were talking about Daniel Boone and the Westward Expansion, Louisiana Purchase, etc., and we got to a quote that is credited to DB himself when asked why he continued to move west until his dying day, which was (I’m paraphrasing), “I need some elbow room.” That, of course, made me think back to Saturday morning cartoon interludes from our friends at School House Rock. Since I had my laptop sitting right next to me, I quickly searched for the video and was rewarded with the 3 minutes and 10 seconds of goodness that I remembered. I quickly brought it up and let Ethan watch it. I now share it with you for nostalgia’s sake:

To me it was one of those moments that I think I will remember for a long time. The perfect blend of experience and technology coming together at just the right time and place. Of course, I guess it all only matters if Ethan does well on the test - if he remembers the content of the cartoon and his chapter and translates it back to his studies. It also makes me wonder if, when Ethan is 39 years old, will he be able to somehow relate “Annoying Orange” to some important history lesson for his children?