Module Five brings students to the Eisenhower Library in Abilene to experience the intense days in the spring of 1944 leading up to the D-day decision. They then summarize their findings and assessments in a "briefing report," which they will present at the Eisenhower Library during the re-creation of the May 15, 1944, "dress rehearsal" for Operation Overlord. Each team receives approximately 15 high-quality scanned "top secret" Operation Overlord documents.īecause there is not sufficient time for students to examine each document with equal care, students must prioritize and distribute them among team members. In Module Four, students divide into planning teams for information gathering, analysis, and synthesis. and British officials looking over intelligence and deception matters. Students from Salina South Middle School in Salina, Kansas, portray U.S. The Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) Team, for example, is made up of six members: General Eisenhower, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, Adm. Students randomly select historical characters they will portray from a cast of 32 political and military leaders.Įach character belongs to one of six D-day "planning" teams. Module Three materials feature background for Operation Overlord and biographies of those responsible for planning and implementing it. Many members of the Eisenhower Library staff were involved in the research, development, preparation, and vetting of materials for the program. The documents vary in length, reading difficulty, and type-ranging from letters to speeches to reports and memorandums to leadership manuals to oral histories. In all, 57 "leadership" documents, numbering more than 150 pages, were selected for use in the program. Module One and Module Two focus on learning about leadership theories and identifying examples in documents selected by archivists from the library's holdings. "These programs are enormously helpful in showing how we can strengthen the civic literacy efforts that are a pivotal priority of NARA's Strategic Plan for the coming decade."Įven though the climax of Five Star Leaders is the onsite visit at the Eisenhower Library, a good deal of work (Modules One through Four) is completed at the students' own schools before they come to to Abilene. "Five Star Leaders, as well as the White House Decision Center at the Truman Library, are examples of the ways in which National Archives–related entities can make history education more exciting, more engaging, and more meaningful for students," said Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein. In addition, midlevel officers at the School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, have visited the library and participated in the program. To date, more than 500 Kansas and Missouri students in grades 8 through 12 have traveled to Abilene to participate in Five Star Leaders. Using role-playing, original documents, and dramatic re-creations, students practice newly acquired leadership and decision-making skills as they work their way through a crisis faced by historical figures decades before. The purpose of the program is to teach today's students about democratic leadership and decision making by immersing them in a scenario from the pages of history. In Five Star Leaders, students visit the library for a half-day and assume the roles of Eisenhower and his commanders as they receive reports, in the form of facsimiles of the actual documents from 1944, that provide the information that Eisenhower used in making the decision to invade the continent with landings on Normandy. Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas, in a program called "Five Star Leaders," named in honor of Eisenhower's five-star rank as General of the Army. Now, high school students whose parents were not even born on that day, one of the most historic of the 20th century, are able to experience what Eisenhower and his commanders in Operation Overlord experienced in the spring of 1944. As the optimal meteorological window for the invasion approached, he received in his rural English headquarters constant updates about troop and equipment readiness, the movements of the German army in France, and of course, the weather over the English Channel. However, Eisenhower's decision to launch the long-awaited invasion of Europe on D-day was not one that was easily made. Eisenhower's name was forever enshrined in the history books on June 6, 1944, when the Allied armies under his command landed on the coast of France and began the long drive to defeat the Nazi army and hasten the end to World War II. The D-Day Classroom Eisenhower Library Program Offers Students Lessons in History and Leadershipįall 2006, Vol.
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