Saturday, October 18, 2008

Jessica's Post

I personal liked learning from the historic interpreter rather than the tour guide. The interpreter really acted like they would back in the time period their profression was. Learning from the interpreter was more hands on because they did have different things we could do. The tour we had was okay but i really did not care much for our guide. He really did not seem like he wanted to be there. All of the interpreters I talked to really cared about what they were doing and how they came across to people.

In a programmed tour you're taught what someone wants to teach. The guide only tells you so much about certain things. With self-discovery you can explore whatever you choose. Self-discovery allows you to spend as much or as little time as you want on anything. At Stan Hywet Hall they had to use new water proofing to stop flooding inside. Hale farm was almost exactly what it would of been like bac in the day except for some restoring to some of the rooms in the houses. I personally would have rather lived in the time period of Stan Hywet Hall because of all the new technologies that were available. In that time period people were not as busy as we are today. There was not all the hustle and bustle as there is today. I also thin that people respected others more. Today proper respect is hard to come by. The only reason I really would not want to live in that time period is the fact that women were not totally equal yet.

6 comments:

Anna C said...

I disagree with the point about our tour guide not wanting to be there. I thought he did want to be there but he was a bit of a monotone. It was hard to listen to because it was talking about what DID happen instead of putting us in the shoes of the people who lived there.

Sethna said...

The interpreter certainly was an interesting approach to the issue of a tour guide. I thought that it was slightly juvenile, I prefer straightforward presentation of facts. The Stan Hywett fellow was slightly obnoxious while, for the most part, the Hale Farm people did an excellent job toeing the line betwixt irritation and informative presentation.

Women are still not totally equally. But I mean, look at what happens when you start letting them believe that they can think for themselves.. you get people like Sarah Palin and all the brilliant "maxed out moms" who can totally relate to her.
Society's attitude towards women today ought to reflect what we've had in the past.

/sarcasm

First Knight said...

Jessic's thoughts about women's role changing are interesting. If you want to search further into this topic I have an excellent book that looks at the role of a midwife in a colonial village. To say that she was not important is rediculous. This woman was amazing in her management of her home and her work. There is a one hour video from PBS about this as well. I'm pretty sure I can get it for you if you are interested. Let me know. By the way I beleive our guide was very happy with what he was doing. I think he enthusiasm for the job and his personality is why some from our group did not like him.

Lienne said...

I also disagree with your comment on the tour guide's lack of enthusiasm. He seemed like he really enjoyed his job and liked sharing history with others. It's interesting that you would think that the people living in Stan Hywet were not as busy as we are today. I think that having to house all the guests the Seiberlings had would've certainly stressed me out.

Anna C said...

I would think that people then were at least as busy as we are today, if not busier because they didn't have as much modern equipment to cut down time on household chores or other things they had to do. I mean, the servants had to get up really early and ride a bus to the seibering house. That certainly took some time...

First Knight said...

There have been some interesting studies on time management and stress today compared to the past.
Basically, they worked harder to get the nessecities. We live with greater expectations to accomplish more each day because of our technology.