ABSTRACT
It is mid-November. Thanksgiving break is a week away. Students and teachers It alike are longing for the days off. The first quarter has come to a rapid close, and everyone at school is now in “full year” mode. I have dozed off on the charter bus, having met it at 6:00 a.m. with my thirty students; now, ninety minutes after departing from the school, I look through the haze of my sleep-laden eyes and can see we are approaching our destination, Gettysburg National Military Park. I rouse myself and look down the aisle of the bus. Students doze, earbuds dangling from many heads. Pillows are propped along breath-steamed windows with heads tilted against them. Blankets cover many of those snoozing. Adult chaperones, too, are sleeping. I sidle up to the driver, giving him directions as we make our way through the south end of the battlefield, through the town of Gettysburg, and head west on the Chambersburg Pike. As we near the crest of McPherson Ridge, I direct the driver to pull off to the right, near the statues of the Battle of Gettysburg Day 1 heroes, General John Buford and General John Reynolds. I pick up the microphone and announce that we have arrived. A collective groan emanates.
