Colonial Fair

Colonial Fair at Edgewood

The annual Colonial Fair came to Edgewood this past week. Through games, crafts, cooking, music, and dancing, the Fair brings the 18th century to life for Edgewood's fourth graders. Students, along with their parents and teachers, dipped into the past, wearing period costumes and somewhat experienced life in Colonial America. Many students will always remember the activities from the daylong event. But for some, like Emily Levine, this event revealed a cultural milestone from more than two centuries ago. And that while girls and women today are still striving to be treated fairly compared with boys and men, it sure beats the Colonial days. -- Paul Tomizawa

(Emily's audio transcript)
"For lunch we had the food they would've eaten and it helps you to learn about it. Before we were just reading about it and now we're feeling it. (Does that make a difference for your learning?) Yes. It's easier to understand when we do it because if we don't do it then we're like 'oh Jamestown schools must not have been good.' But when we experience it, we're like "Wow!" And how boys and girls were treated unfairly because girls, when we did the spelling bee, we had to spell cat and bat. And boys had to spell independence and declaration and like Philadelphia. And so their words were a lot harder so it helped to understand the difference in what they did. (There was a difference between how boys and girls were taught in school?) Yeah. Boys learned much more. Girls at a young age stopped going to school and learned to sew and clean and cook and take care of the household instead of learning. Instead of getting a good education."

Listen to Emily