In November the Upper School American Studies students had just returned from a weekend field trip researching Benjamin Franklin and his life in Center City Philadelphia when the PreK arrived. They came to meet Ethan Kline’s dad, Michael Kline, a teacher of American Studies, but what they saw wasn’t a typical American Studies class. This class was a special class just for the PreK to give them a chance to learn about Ben Franklin and also to give them an opportunity to meet the students who take the American Studies class. Judging from Mr. Kline’s pre-class preparation, he was more than ready to take on the pint-sized learners.

He read them a short biography of Ben Franklin which described some of the many things the inventor, politician, and printer did in his time. He told them how Franklin discovered electricity and how he printed books with moveable type. Mr. Kline had carved letters, as well as a kite, a key, and a lightening bolt, in potato halves. Each PreK student circulated around a number of stations manned by the Upper School students, to find the letters that would spell out their names. They dipped the potato halves in paint and stamped the letters on a sheet of paper. They then stamped the symbols that represented the experiment Franklin conducted with the kite and the key to discover electricity in a lightning storm. 

Curiosity led Ben Franklin to discover electricity, and that simple experiment has changed the way we live. Each time the PreK students meet a father or mother who shares his or her profession they are learning a little more about the world we live in, possibly sparking in them the same curiosity and desire for answers that Franklin had.

November 22, 2005