Students enrolled in Mr. Murray’s Military History course are bringing their research and studies of the American Revolution to life. Through historic interpretation and documented analysis, students set out to recreate the life of the common soldier of the American Revolution. As part of Mr. Murray’s living history program, and supported by the Pine Plains…
Category: Schools
It’s Not Your Grandfather’s Shop Class!
Because it is not your grandfather’s world anymore. It’s theirs! To thrive in their world, they need new skills to cope with changing technology. The challenge is not only learning new technology — anything they learn now will be different in a few short years — it is learning how to change. A challenge for students…
Nanjing on the Hudson
Once the world was flat then it became round. Now it is flat again… The high school cafeteria was filled with the sounds and sights of Chinese in a welcome to the delegation from High School #29 in Nanjing (China).
It Takes a Play to Make a Community: Backstage at The Music Man
Pine Plains has a lively history of live theatre — a story in itself. And now, every year, like high schools all over the country, it puts on an annual musical. I could say many things about the value of participating in theatre for kids, parents, and the community at large. But that would take…
A Master Class for the High School Jazz Band
When Wynton Marsalis gave the opening concert for the new Stising Center, he also opened some hearts and minds of the local high school Jazz Band in a Master Class.
Sergeant, Make It Happen!
There was a touch of Revolutionary War and black powder smoke right in the middle of Pine Plains the other day as Neil Murray was giving his students of military history some experience of what it was like to be Continental Soldiers. I grabbed a scene with my cell phone and then, so impressed with the…
Spinning Squash at the Ag Fair
It’s a yearly tradition that I’ve been going to for years: the 2015 Ag Fair hosted by the Future Farmers of America at the high school in Pine Plains. This year I was hoping to find something a little different to film. But the parade started out as it does every year, with the school band, tractors, politicians, tractors, kids…
The High Schoolers Paint the Town!
We don’t often get a chance to see what goes on in the schools because everything is tucked away in brick buildings. When I heard that the high school was going to send some kids out to decorate a couple of stores for Halloween, I thought that this would be a chance to show what…
The Culture of Agriculture
The farmers may be leaving their farms and the farmland, even if preserved, may be left only as viewscape. But a culture and tradition of agriculture remains. Each year the Agriculture Fair, put on by the Future Farmers of America in Pine Plains, grows as an area attraction.
A Touch of Country: The Fall Fair
Every year the Stissing Mountain High School chapter of the Future Farmers of America runs an ag fair. I’ve filmed different parts of it before, but this year I’ve pretty much stuck to the tractor pulls and the barn where kids show cows. Related stories are at a previous Fall Festival Fair coverage and a…
Farming the Future
The 4- H Club dairy cow competition was a proud event for Pine Plains at the Dutchess County Fair. Gina Brooks and her brother, Patrick, showed two of her cows, a Brown Swiss and a Holstein, which she has been keeping in Barry Chase’s barn.
Power and Authority in a Rural School District: A Study
I met the author Carol Ascher at a social function where we were table mates. When I mentioned that I was from Pine Plains, I was surprised that she expressed a great deal of familiarity with it through experiences long ago. Had she lived there? Well, sort of — she spent a year there back in 1972-73 as a doctoral student in anthropology and education at Columbia University. In fact, she wrote her doctoral dissertation about her experiences as a participant observer of the Pine Plains school system.
I was astonished that 1) someone had actually written a PhD dissertation about Pine Plains and 2) that I never heard of it. I wanted to know where it was and if I could read it.
It turns out that it was in a closet and she would look for it. I offered to digitize it so that it could be preserved and shared with the community. CLICK on the picture and you can read it!