A Museum You Can Touch
By Katherine Pierpont, Senior Editor

There is a long, desolate stretch of highway that leads from Kansas City International Airport through Missouri and into rural Kansas. Along the way, the landscape is a still-life portrait featuring clutches of grazing Black Angus cows and abandoned farm equipment. This bleak introduction to Kansas could never have prepared us for our whirlwind visit to a classroom museum that is literally bursting at the seams. Due in part to the sights of riveted students and countless treasures culled from dusty attics, garage sales, antique stores and catalogs, the excitement within these four walls was infectious. At the eye of this spectacular hurricane of overstuffed shelves and buried tables was Kansas' 2004 Teacher of the Year, Keil Hileman.

We could hardly believe our eyes – a young student is speechless after looking at Keil's 600 year-old slave collar.

Please touch. Walking into Keil Hileman's classroom at Monticello Trails Middle School in Shawnee, KS, is a visual feast for the eyes. There is a suit of armor, a 1796 Flintock Musket, a wood burning stove from 1907, a circa 1920 porcelain barber's chair, steamer trunks carried from far off lands, a butter churn, a 1930s wringer washing machine, chamber pots, Japanese lanterns, bows and arrows and even a player piano. As the school's Museum Connections teacher, Keil is engaging his sixth, seventh and eighth graders in history by transforming every inch of his classroom into a museum with an ever-expanding collection of artifacts. This dynamic teacher defines "artifact" as anything that can be used to teach a lesson, and his hands-on approach to teaching has students itching to get into his classroom. There are no textbooks, there are no worksheets and there are no written tests. And you better believe that in Keil Hileman's classroom museum, everything you see, you can touch.

A teacher's path. Keil Hileman is a person who immediately strikes you as someone the world has always smiled upon. He's charming and funny and has a natural way of putting kids at ease and eager to share their thoughts. But good fortune has not always ruled in Keil's favor. In 1998, after realizing he was losing his peripheral vision, it was discovered that he had a brain tumor. This devastating blow was delivered shortly after he had recovered from an accident where both his knee and ankle were crushed and he was told he would never walk again. Keil made an astounding recovery from both of these major setbacks and he doggedly pursued his teaching career. "I want to teach the way I wish I was taught," Keil said. And since his first teaching position in 1994, that's exactly what he's been doing.

Got it? Good! During his eighth grade discussion on American history, Keil presented a ball and chain and revealed it was once attached to the ankle of a slave. "Who wants to come up here and hold this?" he asked. As several students thrust their hands in the air, Keil dropped the ball onto the floor where it landed with a resonating boom. A few hands were lowered. We watched as students hesitantly approached the front of the classroom where Keil asked them to try and stand holding the ball off the ground for at least a minute. When they returned to their seats, red-faced, out of breath and rubbing their sore arms, it was clear that the message had been delivered. "I thrive on the look in their eyes when they ‘get it'," Keil said.

It's up to you. He used this demonstration as a segue to introduce what he informed the class was the one piece in his museum that "If there was a fire and after I had made sure you had all made it out safely, this is the one thing I would come back to get." Amazingly, Keil has in his possession a 600 year-old bronze slave collar. Like many of his artifacts, this is something that had been passed from family member to family member until the family, upon realizing how powerful it was, was grateful to donate it so it might serve an educational purpose. The room fell silent and we saw several students dazedly rubbing their throats as they examined the collar and then quickly passed it on. When it came our way we saw what had made them so uneasy: The collar had been sized to fit around a child's neck.

During a lesson on the Middle Ages, Keil demonstrates how a student-crafted catapult works.

Keil pointed out how it had been removed and refitted several times and how the deep grooves on the inside of the collar were formed as a result of calluses on the wearer's neck. After letting that knowledge sink in for a minute, Keil quietly reminded his students, "It is up to you to see that slavery never, ever happens again."

Look and listen. During the day we visited, Keil touched on events from the Middle Ages to civil rights, and it seemed, everything in between. This rapid-fire jaunt through history was fueled by Keil's obviously genuine love of teaching and by the can of soda that he kept well within reach ("It's my one vice," he said sheepishly.) When we marveled at the sheer volume of artifacts lining his walls, he explained that he's lucky to teach in a community that's incredibly supportive of his desire to motivate kids to explore one step beyond. He explained that there are some artifacts in his collection that had little value to the donors but have been priceless to his teaching; other items were donated because the givers knew they would be used to teach and never sold.

While discussing artifacts from World War II, Keil spoke about a veteran who was stationed at Pearl Harbor. When the man passed away, a neighbor spied his Pearl Harbor survivor hat and pin on the front lawn with the trash. She immediately rescued the items and passed them on to Keil. It was during lessons like these that Keil asked the class to pause for a moment and listen. "Freeze the artifacts, people" he said. "Look at me. You need to hear and know this."

Did you know that the guillotine was invented by a doctor to ease the suffering for people who were sentenced to beheading? We didn't either.

A piece of history. We were still reeling from the slave collar, when Keil began a discussion on World War II and revealed yet another shocking piece of memorabilia in his collection. "Hitler became head of the Nazi party by one vote. Tell me, does your vote count?" After his students nodded their heads, Keil launched into a story about a man he knew whose brother captured a Nazi banner after the fall of Germany and carried it in his rucksack the whole way home. As he unfurled the same banner and explained how it hung from top to bottom, he spoke about how it represented the deaths of 12 million people. He showed the students how the holes were from the bayonets the U.S. soldiers used to get the banner to come down. "It still smells like gunpowder," one girl murmured.

Getting the word out. Not only are pieces of history adorning the walls of Keil's classroom, but there are also hundreds of student-created marvels displayed as well. For his final exam, Keil asks that each student create an artifact. The day we were there, he taught with a student-crafted catapult, guillotine and chain mail. Students research their projects and also write a one-page report and present an oral defense. Keil gives extra credit if the project is donated to the museum and extra credit for items that are an extension or addition to an already existing project – for example, one student was considering creating a grass cloak for the museum's "Iceman."

An annual Museum Night is held where students are encouraged to come in historical dress and explain their section of the museum to visitors – "This is the best way for me to get word out about the museum!" Keil said. Afterwards, he is usually flooded with donations from the community.

Keil demonstrates just how sharp an obsidian knife from Mexico is – "Pass this around with the blade down," he warned.

We were only present for one morning in Keil Hileman's notable teaching career, but it's evident that the knowledge he is imparting is truly a gift to these kids. We were made even surer of this fact when we witnessed a brief exchange between Keil and a sixth-grade boy on his way to his next class. "Hey, Mr. Hileman," the boy said, putting out his hand, "Thanks."

Check out Keil's classroom museum website at www.usd232.org/education

If you'd like to create your own classroom museum and would like a free packet with tips on how to get started, feel free to send Keil an e-mail at keilh@usd232.org