I don’t know about you, but I know a lot more about dinosaurs than I did four weeks ago.
My 6-year-old has a voracious appetite for all things Jurassic. Armed with advanced reading skills, he quizzes me most mornings with questions like, “How many school buses long was an Argentinasaurus?” or “Who was the fastest raptor?” I’ll give you until the end of this column to answer.
If there’s any silver lining in the COVID-19 disaster, it’s this graduate course in paleontology. Not because I’m seeking a career change, but because my son and I are learning together. Of course, if you ask him, it’s more me learning and him teaching. He has a point. I’m the one, after all, who gets confused about the relationship between dinosaurs and reptiles. See below.
If you’re fortunate enough to be quarantined with a curious child, you, too, are learning countless lessons about things you may have forgotten or, let’s be honest, never comprehended the first time around. Important things, like the length of Tyrannosaurus Rex’s tail as compared to your living room. T-Rex has my house beat, FYI.
These days at home are also an opportunity to talk with our kids about the more recent past. History — the history of our families, our hometowns and our planet — is just as essential to their homebound education as math worksheets or the diet of a stegosaurus. During this historic crisis, it’s important to give children a sense of how previous generations have persevered. History can be tough, it can be fun, but most of all, it’s personal.
My son and I have talked about my grandparents, who he’ll never meet. With his 2-year-old sister, we’ve perused family photo albums (we have one that’s actually printed). My daughter now points to a portrait of my grandmother, her namesake, and declares, “Me!”
I explain to them about the work their mother did in post-Katrina New Orleans, and what it means to serve others. We stop by the statue of Sojourner Truth in our neighborhood in Florence and talk about bravery. I even tell them a few tall tales from my time as a high school wrestler. Sure, this isn’t the writings of Robert Caro, but it’s a way to open their young minds to a broader world, a longer story.
It’s also a good time to tell your kids about Massachusetts history. The commonwealth has influenced world events and it’s been the site of quite few, too. We can share stories from Concord in 1775 or Roxbury in 1968. We can ask our kids to imagine the challenges faced by our ancestors, whether they arrived by boat from Saigon or called this land home long before the arrival of English settlers. We can look to Revolutionary history and the seeds of American democracy, or explain how people from Massachusetts battled valiantly for the abolition of slavery and the right to marry whomever they choose.
By making the connection between your own backyard or family tree and famous events, you’re giving a child the beginnings of historical consciousness, an essential skill for anyone living in a free society.
If you need a refresher, the organization I run, Mass Humanities, has a great history website for adults, MassMoments.org. Check the websites of your local museum, library or historical society (including our neighbors at Historic Northampton) for stories closer to home. National organizations like the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History are offering free resources for families K-12 students. And consider making that Zoom call with your relatives a family history lesson for everyone.
Someday, hopefully soon, we will emerge from this isolation to assess our losses and rebuild our communities. It’s difficult to imagine that day, but there’s nothing like history to fuel our imaginations. With the time we share with our imaginative children, let’s ask questions about the past and look for answers together.
Oh, and speaking of answers: an Argentinosaurus was about four school buses long. The fastest raptor was a velociraptor. And contrary to popular opinion, reptiles and dinosaurs are not the same thing. Now start studying.
Brian Boyles is executive director of Mass Humanities.