"IPod, Meet Thomas Edison!"

In a culture where Steve Jobs is better known than Thomas Edison, imagine a school-age child who actually chooses to emulate the man who gave us the light bulb and the phonograph. Believe it or not, there are kids across Colorado who are plugging into a renewed interest for learning and a passion for performance-thanks to historical figures and the fascinating life and times of men like Edison.

Edison, of course, was the prolific American inventor of the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, who among his nearly 1,100 patents, lays claim to 'Father of the Phonograph.' Phono what? Well, if you're one of the students in a Young Chautauqua (pronounced "shu TAW kwa") program sponsored by Colorado Humanities, you not only know what the phonograph was, you understand Edison's passion for invention, the world in which he lived, and possibly, what he was wearing the day the first tinfoil recording scratched its way into history.

In addition to putting the fun back in learning for a generation raised on sound bites, Young Chautauqua is a voluntary school-based program that addresses a growing need identified by educators and parents alike for an increased emphasis on humanities subjects (history, philosophy, language, literature, ethics) in Colorado's K-12 social studies' curriculum. The program is designed to help students in grades 4 - 12 bring history to life by immersing them in the writings and lives of historical figures, well known or not.As part of their participation in the 8 - 12 week program (3 - 5 hours per week integrated into the regular school day, or as an after- or summer school program), each student selects a character for study, prepares and performs a first-person presentation of a monologue and then dialogues with the audience in and out of character. Students work directly with professional Chautauqua presenters and scholars from the Colorado Humanities Speakers Bureau who have been trained to work with children. A Chautauqua coach supervises the program, provides teacher in-service training, presents his/her own Chautauqua character(s), as well as coaches students in research and presentation. Presently, 1,144 students in Colorado schools participate in the Young Chautauqua program, from Grand Junction to Weld County.

While the educational benefits of the program speak for themselves, the intangibles for some students far exceed what they learn about history. As one Denver-area teacher reports, "The students that have responded the most to this program are not just the 'A' students.Many students have seen this as an opportunity to voice and express parts of history that are often untold and to share something about themselves." She tells the story of one student who seemed to lack an interest in history and often failed to turn in required assignments. After the first presentation, the young man asked her for the parameters for character selection, and the rest is literally, history. Since selecting his character, he has had a complete turnaround. The young man is striving to pass his classes and has become truly interested in the history of the Latino Movement and recently registered for a Hispanic youth conference. The teacher concludes, "Young Chautauqua has enhanced learning in my classroom more than anything else."

Colorado Humanities was established in 1974 and is the state's only nonprofit organization dedicated to humanities education for all the state's residents. To find out more about Young Chautauqua or other programs sponsored by Colorado Humanities, please visit our web site at www.coloraodohumanities.org or call 303-894-7951.