Micaela Blei - Life and Death on the Oregon Trail

 

Hello. So, it's the last unit of the year. I'm teaching third grade, and the last unit is the Oregon Trail. I am prepared to have my students really live the Oregon Trail. This is how I taught third grade. I would create a world and then run it like a puppet master. A lot of those times, those worlds were goofy, like we would have always a game. We got letters from a stuffed animal rock band named Anticlea and the Howlers, who were lost across the United States. We were studying geography, so to help them, we had to study the States. We got letters from time machines. My characters had names like children Cheesy to Pizza and Caesar von Salad. 

 

I was not a serious teacher. But now, this is the Oregon Trail. This is a serious time and this is also a really complicated time in American history. But to be totally honest, I'm not sure I can get at the historical and moral complexities of westward expansion with nine-year-olds. They have trouble taking the perspective of their little sister. So, I'm not really sure I can do that. But I know I can get at the gravity of it, right? This is pioneers 2,000 miles across the United States, which weren't the United States yet, across the Rockies, leaving everything they know, risking everything they have, blizzards and hunger and all these things. It's really real. And at least, I can get my kids to feel like it's really real. 

 

So, I come to my class and I say, “We're going to be doing the Oregon Trail.” And this one smart aleck kid named Alex says, “Well, will it be a game?” Because he knows it's always a game. And I say, “Yeah, but it's going to be a dangerous game.” They're pretty psyched about that. [audience laughter] So, what I've planned is like a simulation. We're going to take on characters of pioneers and we're going to travel the Oregon Trail on a wagon train. So, first, we have to choose names for our characters. I download and print the names of real people who died on the Oregon Trail. [audience laughter] It's pretty authentic. 

 

And so, they can have their first names, but they have to have last names like Chapman and Blunderfield, and Alex is now Alex Bacon, and then they have to choose occupations. All the girls want to be pop stars. And I tell them there were no pop stars on the Oregon Trail. Choose authentic occupations from the 1840s. So, okay, so great. There are farmers and there are gold miners and there's a couple of doctors and we're good. But before we start, I want them to feel what it really felt like to walk for that long. 

 

So, I was here in Manhattan. I took them on a 40-block walk. [audience laughter] It's about two miles. It's not that long. It's long if you're a nine-year-old, I guess. It's a beautiful day, we're going up the west side, we're going up the Hudson and Alex Bacon says to me, “Well, I wouldn't have had to walk. I would have ridden in the wagon.” And I said, “Uh-huh. No, no children never rode in the wagons. The wagons were for if there was someone sick or our supplies or if we had a piano,” because I have done my research. And then, another kid says, “Well, I'm thirsty.” And I say, “Well, there were no water fountains on the Oregon Trail.” And he says, “Well, there's a water fountain right there.” [audience laughter] 

 

I think about the parent phone call I do not want to get about withholding water from a child. I think fast and I say, “Uh, a stream. How fortunate. Let us partake.” So, we finally get back and we're hot and sweaty, but we're ready. We're ready to go on our journey. The way I've designed it is, previously, all of my games were just fiction. I would just write a letter and then they would respond and I would write another letter. That night, I always knew what was going to happen. But now, I want to play a little more dangerously, because it was all luck what happened on the Oregon Trail. So, I have designed a game of chance. 

 

Do you guys know the Oregon Trail video game fans? Okay. I've combined the Oregon Trail video game with principles of Dungeons & Dragons, the role-playing game with dice. So, what we're going to do is every day I'm going to tell them what happened on the trail that day, they're going to make some choices about what they want to do and then we're going to roll dice to see if they succeeded or failed. So, I'll give you an example. We get to a river and they have to decide do they want to pay a ferryman or do they want to ford their wagons. They decide to ford their wagons. We roll to find out if their wagon sank or floated, that kind of thing. So, it's easy. Great. All right. 

 

So, the first day starts, and I have this bonnet that I have sewn out of old upholstery material. I put on this bonnet and I tell them, “I am Mary, you are wagon train captain. We are all here for different reasons, but we will have to work together to get through the bad weather and the hunger and the wild animals that await us.” And Alex Bacon says, “Excuse me, Mary, this is a dangerous game. Could we die?” 

 

I was a little in character at that point. I will also admit I wanted to take Alex down a peg. [audience laughter] So, I said, “Sure. People died on the Oregon Trail all the time. Someone might die.” This shiver of excitement goes across my class. [audience laughter] They liked my stuffed animal rock band, but they are into danger. I know I'm not going to let anyone die. Like, I'm not going to let it get there. No one's going to die on the Oregon Trail. But the idea that someone might, gets them wanting to come to social studies every day. So, this is okay. 

 

So, we're off. We're tracking our mileage and we're rolling dice and we're making tough choices. And at some point, I have them meet a snake oil salesman who offers to sell them an elixir that will make them stronger and faster and get to Oregon City quicker. And something you need to know about nine-year-olds. A lot of them, pretty much all of them, don't know what snake oil salesmen are. [audience laughter] I say this to you and you know this is shorthand for a con man. But to them, it's just someone else they don't know about, like taxes, it's just a thing, like a grownup thing. [audience laughter] Okay, snake oil salesman. 

 

So, they decide to buy the elixir because they want to go get there faster. And so, we roll to see how much stronger and faster they got. And of course, we all know the answer is none, faster. It's snake oil. So, I tell them, actually that was a con. You are throwing up for a day, you lose a day of travel. I think they're going to be really annoyed that they got slowed down, but they are psyched. They got to throw up in social studies. [audience laughter] They're talking about it for days. My game is a hit. The problem is every day before we start, someone says to me, “Is someone going to die today? [audience laughter] Is someone going to die today?” I've been putting them off and putting them off, but my game is going so well and we're getting towards the Rockies and I figure, you know what? I'm going to give them just a brush with death.

 

So, I write out a bunch of possibilities for that day. The next time someone asks me, “Is someone going to die today?” I say, “We have been lucky thus far, but the Rockies lie ahead, the most treacherous part of our journey. Who knows what might happen?” So, I put on the bonnet. [audience laughter] That's what I did. I loved that action. [audience laughter] And I set the scene for the morning. 

 

n the early morning light on a Rocky Mountain pass, a wagon hits a rock and is overturned. Someone is trapped beneath the wagon. Let us roll to find out who it is. I'm not proud of this. [audience laughter] I take off the bonnet, and we have a system of rolls to figure out different kids have different numbers, and I roll and it's this little girl, Katie. [audience laughter] I know. 

 

Her Oregon Trail name is Katherine Chubbuck. She's a farmer. She's one of these kids who always has really messy hair and sounds like she's been smoking since she was three. [audience laughter] She has to come to the front of the class. And I say, “Katherine Chubbuck, your legs have been trapped beneath the wagon. Roll to find out if you get free and what happens.” She rolls and she gets free, but her legs have been infected. I wrote these possibilities. [audience laughter] This is the first time I'm thinking, why did I write that possibility? This is getting really dark. And I say, “Katherine Chubbuck, roll to find out if your infection gets better or worse.” And she rolls and it gets worse. She looks at me and just goes, “Did I die?” [audience laughter] 

 

As soon as she says it, I realize how much trouble I am in. I haven't written any more possibilities. I didn't think we would get this far. So, what happens next? Do we have a funeral on the side of the Oregon Trail for Katherine Chubbuck? Is that the parent phone call that I get for having traumatized a girl for killing her on the Oregon Trail? Bad teachers kill kids on the Oregon Trail, [audience laughter] and I am not a bad teacher or so I thought. This is all the stuff that's happening in my head. I'm thinking so much about it. A lot of it is very existential. 

 

And then, all of a sudden, from the back of the class, this little girl, Ellis, whose Oregon Trail name is Dr. Ellis Chapman, just goes, “Wait, I'm a doctor.” [audience laughter] And I'm like, “Thank the Lord.” Dr. Chapman brings her doctor bag. She knows how to heal the wound. Ellis Chapman comes up to the front of the room. I say, “Roll to find out what happens. The only way you die is if you roll a six. That's the only way you die.” 

 

The class is holding their breath. As Katie rolls, she does the lucky shake thing and then someone just goes, “Shake them again.” [audience laughter] She shakes, and she rolls, and it's a three and she survives. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

I know, I know. In my class, it's like the end of Apollo 13. Kids are throwing papers in the air [audience laughter] and hugging each other. Ellis is hugging Katie, and Katie's just going, “I almost died. I almost died.” [audience laughter] I am so glad we agreed to bring a doctor on the Oregon Trail with us. She couldn't hunt, but she was very useful. So, that was great. 

 

The problem is we still have 720 miles to Oregon City. [audience laughter] I'm exhausted. I can't remember a time before were walking the Oregon Trail. I had all this stuff planned. The next day, I get to class, I put my bonnet on, I tell them we hear animal noises in the bushes. Alex Bacon is right on it. He goes, “Is it wild animals? Are we in danger?” [audience laughter] And he says it. And I realize they love the danger. I'm the one who doesn't want the danger. And I throw my plan out the window. It was wild animals and we were in danger, actually. But I forget about that. I say, “No, it is a baby animal with a broken leg who we must adopt for the rest of the trip.” 

 

They all do the third-grade baby animal noise, which is “Aww.” And I say, “Let us roll to find out what species of baby animal we will be adopting. Is it a baby bunny, a baby fox, or a baby wolf?” It's a baby wolf. They name him Yenni the Benny. They love him very much. He follows us all the way to Oregon. We get to Oregon in record time. I mean, forget pioneers walking. This is Amazon Prime two-day shipping to get to Oregon City. [audience laughter] Nothing bad happens between the Rockies and Oregon City. 

 

When we get there, we do homestead and we do our budgets and we do all that stuff. But we also make cornbread and we have a dance party to September by Earth, Wind and Fire, [audience laughter] which is not historically accurate, but that is the kind of Oregon Trail I want to be on at that point. So, that's the Oregon Trail. 

 

But I have to tell you, guys, about a year ago, I ran into Katie on the street on Broadway. She's in ninth grade now. She looks exactly the same, except that she's been stretched. I recognized her right away and she recognized me and we hugged and I said, “How are you?” And the first thing she said to me was, “Do you remember when I almost died on the Oregon Trail?” [audience laughter] And I said, “Yeah, Katie, I absolutely remember.” Thank you.