Paul Anderson

History 2700

Fall 2002

Service Learning Project

My service-learning project was a lot of fun. I am a secondary education History major, and so it was right up my ally. For my service-learning project I taught a class at Cedar High School for Mr. Anderson. I taught two classes for him, both AP history classes. I was given the task of teaching the war of 1812, and the aftermath of the war. I learned many things while preparing the lesson. Most history classes just brush over it quickly, and don’t give to much attention to it. So it was very interesting to do some research, and learn more about it.

Well I shall start from the beginning. When our class was told that we needed to do a service-learning project, teaching a class at the high school only made sense to me. I went and talked to Mr. Anderson, and he told me he would be glad to have come in and talk to the class. So he gave me a textbook from the class, and asked if I could teach the first week in October, which was only a week away. So I set to work.

Upon receiving my task, I tried to think of what I liked best about my high school classes. Movies are always good. Having an energetic teacher that knows what he is talking about is good as well. So I went hunting for some videos that had to do with the war of 1812. I found a couple that were pretty good. One in particular was good. It was an older movie, but it got the point across. It described in detail the sea battles of the war of 1812. Since the majority of the action of the war of 1812 was in fact naval battles it was very appropriate. It described the conflicts in the great lakes area, and how the U.S. dealt with its vastly inferior naval forces. The other video I found was actually a biography on Andrew Jackson. Only the first little bit of this had anything to do with the subject, but it was useful nonetheless. It talked about his involvement in a few of the key land battles in the war. More specifically it talked about his role in the battle of New Orleans. Were he pretty much wiped the floor with the British. So taking a bit from each I worked them into my lesson plan.

Between the texts book Mr. Anderson gave me, and the textbook from History 2700, Enduring Vision, I found all the info I would need on the subject. But I decided to consult the Internet anyway. I ended up not using anything I found on the Internet, but it was still an educational experience. I found a few first hand accounts of the battles being fought, which was interesting. There a couple web sites that dealt with Francis Scott Keys and the Star Spangled Banner. In all I found a lot of information that was interesting, but not especially useful in teaching a high school class. The books had all the stuff I needed.

I put the presentation together and this is what I came up with. I stated before the war in the year 1808. I talked about some of the issues happening at that time. The election of 1808 was important. The embargo act that Jefferson imposed right before he left office. Some of the follow legislation that Madison pushed through trying to correct the situation. The United States economic standpoint. How the rest of the world viewed the United States. And finally the European conflict going on between France and Britain, which in a way started this whole thing anyway. The classes were AP classes, so it was in my opinion that the best way of teaching this was to kind of let them take the lead, and teach themselves. They were all supposed to have read the section before hand, so they should know the stuff. Especially this introduction part I let them take care of it. I would ask a student to get up and explain each of the points I have just mentioned, and then if they had left anything out I would fill in. It worked out amazingly well. I remember back when I was in high school, if the teacher had asked me to read something before class, I would have just ignored it. These kids were sharp. They had read and they knew the answers. In many cases I think they described it better than I ever could have. So then I broke into talking about the Native Americans, and their problems. The Indians had every right to be angry with the U.S. The class was very responsive to questions. We talked about the raids of the Native Americans. The federation of tribes united by Tecumseh. There demise because of the prophet. We went into detail about each of these topics.

We then talked about the deal Madison made with France, which pretty much started the war. The repeal of the embargo act against France, but still embargo against Britain. British aid to the Native Americans. Border disputes with Canada. All these led to a conflict between the U.S. and Great Britain. The U.S. came into the conflict with a tremendous disadvantage. Small Navy in Atlantic, or anywhere. Americans were overconfident. Believed all that was required to take Canada was to march. Lack of Native American support meant fighting on two fronts. Obviously this was not a well thought out war. The class was set to work on brainstorming on some things that could have been better for the American cause. They came to about the same conclusion; a lot of things could have been better. The British naval fleet was about ten times as large as the Americans. This was a big factor considering the amount of naval battles in the war.

I then shifted gears and began talking about the great lake battles. Both sides were convinced that to win the war they had to gain complete control of the great lakes. The students talked about how the Americans planned to accomplish this. A ground force, which failed, so then they built a fleet right on the banks of the lakes. We talked about some of the major battles. We discussed why most of the naval battles were in the interior of the nation instead of in the Atlantic. We talked about the battle of Lake Champlain, and the strategy that was devised to defeat a larger force of ships with only minimal loses. Then we switched to the Atlantic battles, more specifically, the USS Constitution. We talked about the battles “Old Ironsides” was in and how it got its nickname. We talked about some of the pirate vessels that the United States used to plunder British Merchant ships. Against all odds, the United States was winning in a naval war against the most powerful naval force in the world.

The three invasions of the British played a key role. The students took turns naming the different invasion tactics and the outcomes of each. Washington D.C. was attacked and the White House was burned to the ground. The battle of Baltimore ended in a stalemate. The Battle of New Orleans was definite lose for the British.

At this point we took a break and watched a movie. It was an older movie, but it did a really good job of getting the point across. It went over the naval battles in great detail. It also went into the land battles, but not that much.

After the video we went back to the British invasion, and went into greater detail with each battle. The Battle of Baltimore was probably most significant because of the star spangled banner. Washington D.C. was attacked, and was the closest thing to a British victory with their invasion. The battle of New Orleans we saved for later because it came later. Instead we talked about the treaty of Ghent

The Treaty of Ghent pretty much ended the war in 1815. The class identified the key players at the council. And the terms of the treaty. Also the unusual arrangements of the treaty. For neither Great Britain nor the United States had called for a treaty, it was the Russians that did. The Russians needed Great Britain’s attention in Europe with the war with France, and not wasting time with this two-bit nation. The treaty was eventually signed, but it took a while.

After the treaty was signed the war continued in America. The class discussed the battle of New Orleans. The absolute slaughter of the British. Andrew Jackson’s leadership. The makeup of the American forces. The fact that the battle took place after the war was over. We then showed a short clip of a biography on Andrew Jackson.

We then talked about the effects of the war. The end of the Federalist Party. A greater sense of patriotism. Even though the idea was to take Canada, the U.S. was happy just to keep its borders. Economic problems, and no national bank. The class did a very good job about pointing out the hardships the United States was going through at this time.

We then raped things up by talking about further reforms made by Monroe. Larger naval forces. Economic reconstruction. And with that the class was over, and so was my service learning project. It was an incredibly fun project, and I was glad I had the opportunity to do it. I learned a lot of things. I learned many things that I would never have taken the time to investigate and learn on my own. Like I said, most history classes just skim over the war of 1812, and don’t go into detail that much. In a lot of ways I can understand that. The whole war was a really stupid idea on our part. The strategy going into the war, and the over confidence was ridicules. The fact that we were so eager to start a war without any means of actually fighting a was also dumb. Our navy was almost non-existent. Our land forces were small and unprepared. We had a few really good generals, but nothing compared to the British. It was the one time in our nations history that we actually invaded another country with the idea of taking control of it. We failed miserably. Although technically we can say we won the war, what actually did we win? We did not win anything we had set out to gain. Our goal to capture Canada became a pipe dream at the beginning of the war. The shift from aggressor to defender happened rather quickly in this war. We were very close to losing the nation we had fought so hard to gain. Never has any foreign power come closer to capturing our President in our nations history. The British burned the White House to the ground, and force the President into hiding. Since the war of 1812, never has there been an attack on our nations capital by any foreign nation. With the national bank gone, our nation had no way of funding the war effort. The country went into debt badly. The war of 1812 taught us how badly the interior of the nation needed improvements. Roads, and railways were badly needed in the interior, but the nation had no money to help. The states were forced to take these massive transportation improvements on their own. The Eerie Canal in New York is a direct result of this time. The American army was not the most respectable lot of soldiers either. A lot of the militia was pirates and dockhands. The U.S. army was to small to directly confront the well-trained British troops. They may have played dirty in order to win. The war was not one of the bright points in our nations history, so that is why I think it is sometimes skipped over a little. There were some good points that came out of this whole ordeal though. The U.S. did gain complete control of the great lakes. The war did unite the nation in a way that nobody dreamed possible.

In conclusion, I thought that over all the assignment was fun. I would do it again in a second. I look forward to next semester when I can. I am not the best writer, and I hope I have given you what you wanted, but I have learned a lot from the experience, and I hope that I was able to help some of the students of Cedar High School learn a little something as well.

Work Cited

Enduring Vision, pg. 223-235

video, Sea of Honor, vol. 3 war of 1812 (1812-1815)

video, Andrew Jackson, a Man for the People.