During today’s class, we walked around the Bethlehem Steel at the Steel Stacks Pavilion. Before I went on this walk today, I already had some knowledge about how the Steel shaped the history of Bethlehem. When we began our walk through the Steel Stacks, I was think about growing up on the Southside of Bethlehem….

I often drove past the remnants of the Steel on ride way to school every day. I distinctly remember the day that they began tearing down parts of the historic monument. I remember being angry about them ripping it down as a little 5th grader and calling one of my friends from school on our landline phone to rant about it. Honestly, I forget why I was so angry. I guess I just remembered my Nana talking about the Steel when I was going through elementary school, and I thought it was cool that her second husband had worked there for an extended period of time. After that, I didn’t give the Steel much thought until the casino and outlet mall was built. I noticed a lot of Asian people outside of the casino and mall, and was confused as to why so many people were traveling to the little town of Bethlehem to come shop and gamble.

Now that I’m older, I’m able to appreciate how the casino and outlets have become an economic asset to Bethlehem. Just this past week, I read an article about how the mayor of Bethlehem was angry that Donald Trump claimed to have revitalized Bethlehem’s economy, which was strengthened by the building of the Steel Stacks. You can read the article using the following link: https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/bethlehem/2019/04/president-trump-just-took-credit-for-revitalizing-bethlehem-bethlehems-mayor-begs-to-differ.html

Going on this field trip as a part of my education class made me reflect on my own life experience. When I was a kid, I always thought that the Steel was a bit of an eye sore. However, after getting to take a closer look at it, I have been able to appreciate its beautiful history as well as its value in the community

As we continued walking through the Steel Stacks, I also thought about how I could take my future students on field trips like this one day. In addition to just looking at the Steel monument, there is also a PBS station there. If I teach a journalism class one day, I could take my students to PBS to listen to news broadcasters discuss their experience in the field of journalism. However, this is only one example. There are so many other ways that I could incorporate a trip like this into my curriculum. If the students are writing an essay about their identify, we could take a trip to the Steel Stacks so they can consider how the steel shaped the history of Bethlehem, which caused their families to decide to live here. Incorporating assignments like this that connect to place and space changes my perception of teaching and learning as a future teacher, because it shows me that teaching and learning is not only found in a textbook. It can be found in the space around you.