Volume 34 - Center for Understanding the Built
Environment - March 2000
by Ginny Graves, Honorary AIA and National Outreach
Director of CUBE
CUBE---Building Community, Building Kids
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What's a Q-Bee?
If a honey bee collected a pound of honey, it could
fly the equivalent of two times around the world.
We know that the CUBE Q-Bees sow, nurture, harvest,
collect, multiply and that their efforts are encircling the globe on
a daily basis.
From the "Odd Book of Data"
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And she went to London to visit the
Queen!
This is a story about a Q-Bee and how far the Q-Bees fly. It is a story
about Harriet Plyer of Tampa. CUBE met Harriet while doing a workshop
for Tampa Preservation Inc. (TPI). Well..not really. Dean and I met
Harriet when she came out of an elevator wearing two different colors
of shoes. (But that's another story.) When CUBE left Tampa, Harriet
raised over $600,000 for heritage education in Tampa. A few years went
by. TPI trained hundreds of teachers and a couple hundred thousand kids
using their "Tampa Through Time" multi-media curriculum (filmstrips,
sound tracks, activity books, walking tours, Polaroid and a whole bag
of tricks). CUBE returned to Tampa. We did another workshop, a little
pep up. By this time, Tampa had two Q-Bees. Harriet Player and Robin
Gonzalez. Robin wrote two children's consumable walking tour books.
Robin rewrote the Teacher Training Notebooks, directed the teacher workshops,
created a Preservation Girl Scout badge, and wrangled the other Tampa
cultural organizations and museums into a friendly and non-competitive
educational Alliance, coordinating curricula, teacher trainings, and
field trips.
Harriet spread the word by taking Q-bee learning to the Monteagle Sunday
School Assembly Grounds in Tennessee, a Victorian summer enclave that
is one of the 7 remaining active Chatauquas in the US. She pressed unsuspecting
relaxed friends into service as team leaders. For one week, children
played the City Game, recast as "Walk Around the Mountain" written for
the Assembly grounds. The kids made up and traced their own team scavenger
hunts (using Polaroid of course), tested each other's hunts and architectural
knowledge for prizes, and invited parents to compete in the hunts and
finally to "See Box City." Finally, Harriet went to London to visit
the Queen. Well…not really. Harriet is the
queen. The One and True Queen, Harriet Lenfesty Plyer. It helps you
to remember Harriet's email address when you know her maiden name (totqhlp).
With the assistance of the Tower of London, an international Heritage
Site Discover Southwark, two artists, business partners The Pool of
London Partnership, Tate & Lyle (sugar), the Tower Hamlets Education
Business Partnership, and the usual pressed-into-service pals, including
two American friends from Atlanta, one architecture grad student from
New Zealand, a monk, and a nanny, this Q-Bee put together a project
for The Tower of London and its surroundings which include All Hallows
Church. They are rebuilding their Vestry Hall, bombed during the Blitz
and the construction wall would be a perfect palette!
120 kids, armed from bag lunches and eyeball scavenger hunts, coming
from London Docks St. Peters C of E Primary, took a "Walk Around the
Block," visiting the Tower, Tower Bridge, and the River Thames. All
Hallows (with its Roman street running though the crypt) was a big hit.
In the next three weeks, they created a 90' construction fence ("hoarding")
wall mural depicting the 2,000 year history of the site.
All of this…a result of a couple of workshops, some dedicated Q-Bees,
and the richness of community-based education. You can try it!
Contact Harriet about her Tower of London experience @ totqhlp@aol.com.
Contact Robin Gonzalez, 2520 Jetton Ave., Tampa, FL 33629 about what's
happening in Tampa!
