Please feel free to add your comments and share your stories about Piatt Castles. Whether you visited when you were a child, gave tours when you were in high school, were married on the grounds, or had any other experience here we'd love to hear how Piatt Castles has played a role in your life. All of your stories together make up our story.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Why do we learn?

Library at Mac-A-Cheek
For some of us, education is a means to an end.  We need to gain a set of skills in order to perform a job, or we need to collect data in order to make a decision.  For others, education is an end unto itself.  I suppose that most people seek knowledge for different reasons in different situations.  For me, the acquisition of knowledge is often more rewarding than its implementation.  I love the thrill of grasping a previously evasive concept or making a connection between two seemingly unrelated fields.  I see the world around me as a laboratory and a library - a place to explore and to learn.  In this world I am a perpetual scholar.

This love of learning is one of the many traits that has, through nature and/or nurture, been passed down to me by generations of Piatts.  Abram (my great-great-great-grandfater, builder of Mac-A-Cheek) was a farmer and a writer - a beautiful combination that allows for exploration of the physical world and the intellectual world.  The establishment and perpetuation of Mac-A-Cheek and Mac-O-Chee as historic house museums speaks to the Piatts' love of learning.  Running a history museum in a small Ohio community isn't easy, and it isn't particularly profitable, but it does afford us the joy of bringing new knowledge to visitors young and old.  It also creates an environment in which learning is the highest priority.  100 years after Mac-A-Cheek was first opened for tours, we are still doing research about this history of the land, the building, the family and the community.  We have interrupted family dinners because someone posed a historical question that was so compelling that we couldn't finish eating until we'd discovered the answer.  Living and working in a museum is a brilliant way for a family obsessed with learning to spend its time.  There is so much to explore, and so much to share.  I hope you'll join us this summer to celebrate 100 years of exploration.

1 comment:

  1. Nice write-up! I think that's the main reason the Piatt Legacy and the Castles have lasted as long as they have; because of the ever-striving reach for knowledge. If they had been more concerned with money, or power, all they had would have been dispersed over the years.

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