Some of the most fulfilling days of my career have been producing meaningful educational experiences for history teachers. For seven years, I annually led a team of eleven staff members in producing and delivering a comprehensive teacher training seminar to select middle and high school teachers from across the United States. It was held in a Gilded Age mansion on Embassy Row in Washington, D.C. The event was both content-rich, featuring 50 hours of lecture, discussion and research, and logistically intense, including room, board and transportation. The seminar included a series of morning lectures and discussions about teaching the American Revolution, followed by afternoon sessions working with the rich resources in our world-class research library and museum collections to develop lesson plans on specific aspects of the Revolution.

Additionally, I produced one-day workshops at historic sites around the United States, providing local teachers the opportunity to expand their knowledge about the American Revolution. For these workshops, I chose topics related to the local history and the Revolution, arranged tours of the local history sites related to Revolutionary history, invited a scholar to lecture and respond to questions, produced primary source rich classroom materials and provided instruction demonstrating use of the materials. In each professional development seminar or workshop I produced, I learned from passionate and devoted teachers excited about our nation’s history and I left inspired to serve them better.