Janet Conner will present “A Horse of a Different Color: Teaching History to Both Visual and Conventional Learners.” This presentation will showcase her exhibits, including her trademark “Teaching with Tables” displays.

Event time: 
Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - 5:00pm
Location: 
Owengo Inn See map
49 Linden Avenue
Branford, CT 06405
Event description: 

Janet M. Conner grew up in the Ramapo Mountains of Bergen County, New Jersey.  She attended William Paterson University, majoring in art and business. Her early hobbies included student pilot, karate, art, and music; and nature has always been her muse.

In 2011, Mrs. Conner began volunteering for Stanley Whitman House Museum in Farmington.  Here she became immersed not only in the history of the ca. 1720 house, but also in the rich history of the towns of Farmington and Avon.  Mrs. Conner became a researcher for the collaborative endeavor “The Stanley Whitman House Slavery Research Project” with Central Connecticut State University.  She discovered microfiche records of the burials of people of color, in handwritten church record books, who are interred in Memento Mori cemetery in Farmington. These records provided names, ages, and cause of death, all useful information advancing our collective knowledge.  

Another collaborative project between Stanley Whitman House and Central Connecticut State University is Digital Farmington, created by Dr. Kathy Hermes, former chair of the history department, and graduate students.  This project is both a history blog and a digital map identifying historic places of interest as a tool for tourism and the history community. Digital Avon, for which Mrs. Conner is a site administrator, has been added to the original.

In 2012 Mrs. Conner became a member of the Avon Historical Society, researching and writing history articles for its newsletter. She created The Special Projects Committee to bring local history into Avon’s five public schools and to the community in displays, exhibits, presentations, and lectures. She has been the lead researcher, designer and curator on a myriad of projects and history topics. Mrs. Conner, being a visual learner, adheres to the philosophy that students and adults can learn more effectively through a multi-pronged approach. This includes incorporating both textual and visual/graphic offerings to better facilitate the assimilation of information in a variety of formats.

Mrs. Conner’s works include “Artifacts Help Tell the Story of the Derrin Family and Farmhouse in Early West Avon,” Connecticut History Review (Spring 2017); “A Farmington, Connecticut Wool Manufactory’s Industrial Transition–A Comparative Study in Late 18th Century Connecticut: Focus on the Stephen Brownson Mill,” Connecticut History Review (Spring 2018); “The Enigmatic John Treadwell, Former Governor of Connecticut–An Analytic Study of His Participation in the 1818 State Constitutional Convention,” Connecticut History Review (to be published Fall 2019); and a contributor for Avon in the “Where I Live Connecticut” series of Connecticut Explored magazine’s 3rd- and 4th-grade social studies teacher resource. She is also the creator of “The Adventures of Abigail Fieldmouse,” works of historical fiction set in Avon.

On Wednesday, May 22, 2019, Mrs. Conner will present “A Horse of a Different Color: Teaching History to Both Visual and Conventional Learners.” This presentation will showcase her exhibits, including her trademark “Teaching with Tables” displays. She offers a non-traditional approach to teaching history, for which she received an “Avon Achievers” award from the Avon Board of Education.

Mrs. Conner is a member of the Avon Historical Society, Stanley Whitman House, Connecticut Historical Society, the Association for the Study of Connecticut History, and The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

This meeting is free and open to the public. The meeting begins at 5 p.m. with a reception. 

The lecture presentation is from 5:30-6:30 p.m. with discussion.
 
Dinner follows for CAAS members and guests. (Dinner fee is $48/person) 
 
Click here to pay online.
 
For information, dinner reservations, and directions, phone the CAAS office at (203) 432-3113 ext. 2 or email: caas.membership@yale.edu
 
Dinner reservations are required by the Thursday prior to meeting. Any cancelations must be received 48 hours before the meeting in order for us to refund dinner cost.