Day 5 in Puerto Rico: El Morro

Today was our last full day in Puerto Rico and we decided to take it easy. Originally we were to tour Ponce, but decided we would prefer to spend more time in Old San Juan and tour El Morro. I think we were all relieved about this change in plans as we were all exhausted, and I don't think we would have survived the two hour drive over the mountain while 14 of us squeezed into one van. El Morro is the oldest fort in Puerto Rico and it is a magnificent site. El Morro means "the mound" and the fort was built on the headland of San Juan to defend the bay and city. Below are some links if you would like to learn more about El Morro.

National Park Service: El Morro

El Morro

This video explains the lion head that is displayed on the arch to the main entrance of El Morro.



Next we went to a museum that displayed folk art from North, South, and Central America. The displays showed religious artifacts, musical instruments, pottery, clothing, festival masks, and toys of the indigenous people of the Americas. It was really neat to see these items from everyday-life of long ago, even though the masks were kind of creepy looking. I would like to find out more about the festival masks and learn why they made them so scary looking.

Although I was exhausted and just tired of going on tours, I do think it was valuable to have learned so much about the history of Puerto Rico this week. If you are truly going to learn about the culture of a place, you need to learn about the history. After all, the customs and beliefs usually are derived from the history. I think it is important to expose kids to cultures that are different from their own and that is something I would like to incorporate into my classroom this year. Our reading series uses books from countries all around the world and I think it would be valuable and worth the time to expose students to some of the cultural aspects of those countries as we introduce those stories. Even if they are just getting a little snippet of what that culture is like it is worth the time and the students will grow as individuals. I think exposing children to cultures different from their own is one way we can help them grow into accepting individuals.