Gary Moskowitz
SOUTHEAST GLENDALE -- Matt Birtle, a fourth-grade teacher at John Muir
Elementary School, knows that something as simple as cornmeal can teach
students about history.
At Muir's annual open house Thursday, Birtle and 29 of his students
demonstrated for parents what native Americans would have eaten at early
California missions of the late 1700s. Parents were served o7 atolef7 ,
a cornmeal soup, and o7 pozolef7 , a vegetable stew, at Thursday's open
house.
Birtle's fourth-grade students are studying California history. They
gave the open house a patriotic theme by dressing in red, white and blue
and singing patriotic songs like "America the Beautiful" in remembrance
of Sept. 11.
"They need to see what is was like. The whole idea is to make
information in the text come alive, so they remember it," Birtle said.
