Teacher attends Virginia institute

Antonia Lee, a fifth-grade teacher at Shawnee’s Will Rogers Elementary School, was among 27 Oklahoma teachers to attend the recent Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute in Virginia.
“This was the most grueling and yet most inspiring teacher training I have attended in my 20-year career,” said Tulsa teachers Dessa Weber. “We were engaged from sunrise to well past sunset learning how to teach Oklahoma students about the history of how our nation began.”
The Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence selected the teachers to receive the all-expense paid trip to the summer institute in Williamsburg, as well as $300 stipends for classroom materials. In addition, participants received a one-year subscription to the Colonial Williamsburg Electronic Field Trip series, which combines Internet activities and live television broadcasts to help bring the Colonial Williamsburg experience to the classroom.
While at Colonial Williamsburg, the world’s largest living history museum, the teachers met character interpreters of 18th century people, and were immersed in early American history through hands-on activities and reenactments of historic events. The week’s lessons were built around the theme “Becoming Americans.” Participants also visited Jamestown, the site of the first permanent English colony in America, and spent a day at Yorktown visiting the battlefields where the Continental Army forced the British to surrender.
This is the 16th year the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence has coordinated Oklahoma’s participation in the Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute. The Oklahoma program was founded and supported through the fund raising efforts of the late Oklahoma City businessman Edward C. Joullian III.
Lee has taught for 18 years in the Shawnee school district.