Calling on the past, securing their futures

The image of the balance book is blurry, written in tight looping script more than 200 years ago.

To history buff Tom Chuderski, it is worth squinting at the computer screen before him.

The documents in the handwriting of the nation’s first president are available to him and anyone else in an online archive maintained by the U.S. Library of Congress.

Chuderski this month will travel to Washington D.C. to learn in person at the storied cultural institution how to use the letters, ledgers and other primary history resources on display to enliven the past for his Bonita Springs Charter School sixth-grade geography students.

One of just 20 teachers chosen nationwide for the three-day session, Chuderski plans to share the skills and techniques he cultivates with other instructors at the school. He may also make presentations to other employees of Charter Schools U.S.A., which administers the Bonita Springs school, as well as at a state conference of social studies teachers.

The understanding of research the Library of Congress training will bring to older students will aid them as they prepare to write the papers of middle and high school, Chuderski said, but he also hopes it will bolster the school’s Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores.

The sixth-grade class already more then held its own on the FCAT this year, he said, ranking among the top in comparison with their peers across Lee County. But Chuderski said what he learns at the Library of Congress could aid them the next time they tackle the writing portion of the test, administered in only the fourth-, eighth- and tenth-grades.

To do well in writing, students need to know how to present materials, use detail and back up their arguments, he said.

“Part of that is feeling comfortable with the information,” he said. “I want to make sure these kids are.”

Principal Deborah Tracy agreed research and reference skills are needed to do well on the test.

She wasn’t surprised Chuderski was chosen for the Library of Congress’ 2006 Teacher Institute.

“He’s a very resourceful, innovative kind of teacher,” she said.

In Chuderski’s geography class, lessons are just as much about the people living on the land as the ground beneath their feet.

A lover of the past with a penchant for ancient times, Chuderski lingers lovingly over Egypt, turning what was a hobby into a full-time profession.

Originally in retail, Chuderski, 60, went back to Florida Gulf Coast University full-time to get his teaching degree, fulfilling a lifetime goal at the urging of his daughter.

His wife concurred, supporting the family while he finished his education. He’s now heading into his fifth year of teaching at Bonita Springs Charter School.

The job has taken him to Washington D.C. before. Shortly before hearing he had been chosen for this year’s teacher institute, Chuderski returned from the school’s eighth-grade field trip to the capital city.

They missed out on the Library of Congress on that trip, Chuderski said, but he is looking forward to the experience of an in-depth tour Wednesday, the first day of the training session for teachers.

Chuderski, who said his love of history was sparked by books exploring the past stacked alongside his grandfather’s chair when he was a child, looks forward to finding out what the library has available for students.

Fascinated by the nation’s first president, he already was thrilled to find the institution had posted images of letters, diaries and financial records written by Washington himself on its Web site, http://www.loc.gov.

That the navigation skills he learns this month could inspire that passion in a student shifting through collections ranging from folk culture in Florida to exploration of woman’s suffrage is reason enough for the trip, he said.

“If I can inspire just one to become really interested, my job is done,” he said.