The greatest joy for me while being in lockdown has
been “Lockdown School” with my nine-year-old grandniece, Emily. While I’m in my
kitchen in Houston, she’s in her living room in Surrey, England—and with the
magic of Zoom and a lot of help from Wikipedia—we meet once a week to learn and
discuss American History.
Together we have covered a wide range of topics—the
original colonies, Pearl Harbor, Native Americans, and the Wright Brothers, to
name just a few. Emily was most concerned with the possible danger of quicksand
and swarms of wasps on the Oregon Trail. The fate of most of the passengers on
the Titanic made her very sad, but she was heartened by the heroics of the Unsinkable
Molly Brown.
As for Amelia Earhart, Emily was pretty sure everyone
thought she was daft for attempting to fly solo across the Atlantic, but also very
brave. And when we discussed Amelia’s ill-fated last flight and the theories of
what might have happened, Emily was pretty sure the aviator made it to an
island where she married her navigator, Fred Noonan, and lived happily ever
after.
Emily is a supersmart kid, funny, and so clever. Her
vivid imagination has brought history to life for both of us. I have learned so
much. Her impression of Helen Keller grabbing her throat and trying to speak
was heart-wrenching. Our lesson this week was on the moon landing, and since
she takes copious notes, I asked her to read back to me what she had written. She
read: “The third spaceman, Michael Collins, stayed in the spaceship driving
round and round, because there is no parking on the moon.”
Well done, Emily. I am so very proud of you.
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