#flathal #ErnestShackleton #Antarctica
He did NOT achieve his goal of walking across the frozen continent.
It would be easy to look at his four expeditions and see where he fell short. But remember, he didn’t just a take journey or go on a grand adventure. He might have had fun along the way, but he spends months planning. Dozens of people invested in his dream. Shackleton set out to discover something new, to do what no one before him had — and bring back the knowledge, and story, to share with not just his friends but you, the Flat Friends, everyone!
History Almost Forgot What Ernest Shackleton DID Accomplish!
Flat Hal and Flat Halena have been each individual day to the fullest. Focusing on where they are, and the opportunities it presents. This adventure has a very broad goal: See The World, and Have Fun Learning Along The Way.
That is a pretty easy goal to achieve!
Ernest Shackleton set big, hard to achieve goals, but what he never forgot was the team that traveled with him, working side by side with him.
When the weather was cold, he made sure those working the hardest jobs had good equipment, and sleeping bags that would keep them warm — even when they camped on ice. When someone fell into the ice, Shackleton was among those lunging forward to pull him out.
When the Endurance sank, and only five men could go in the boat searching for help, instead of staying on the nice dry land they had just found, Shackleton “led from the front” and went in search of rescue for his men.
On his first expedition to Antarctica where he was in command, he faced a difficult moment. He and his men from the Nimrod could have persevered (kept going against all odds) and fought nature in search of the South Pole, but Shackleton saw an equally important fact. Not everyone would make it back alive if he insisted they press forward in pursuit of his dream. He placed the lives and welfare of those he led above his ultimate goal, and in doing so he set an example as a leader that has prompted stories to be told about him over a hundred years later.
It is not just what you achieve, how you do it matters also.
Before Shackleton led he did something equally hard, he followed someone else. Captain Scott on the Discovery led the first Antarctic Expedition Ernest Shackleton participated in.
Have you followed someone else, on a sports team or in school, and afterwards thought, “if it were me, I would have done things differently?” What is something you learned by watching how someone else led? Flat Stanley taught Flat Hal a lot during their year of travel. But now that Flat Hal is taking all the pictures, he has realized he doesn’t rush to jump in front of the camera without Flat Stanley by his side encouraging him. Instead he and Flat Halena huddle behind the camera together, lining up the best possible shot to share what they are seeing with all their friends.
Flat Stanley also taught Flat Hal how to share his excitement. We never kept journals before Flat Stanley spent the year with us, but now not only do we write the journals, we are teaching Flat Halena how to make them, and sharing them with others!
Has one of your friends taught you how to do something? Did you say, “Thank you.”? The day Flat Stanley went home, Flat Hal took a moment to Thank him for helping us look more closely at the world around us when we travel. These journals inspire us to be more active thinkers in our travels. Have you learned something from this journal?
Who is someone you have followed or learned from?
Write their name here and one thing they taught you!
The Flat Friends would love to be able to say they magically knew all about Ernest Shackleton and his expeditions, but that isn’t how life (or homework) gets done.
The cruise ship has really interesting speakers onboard. They are like teachers who don’t give tests, but just want to share what they love about the area we are exploring and the things we might get to see firsthand.
It will feel like a discovery to us — but no cramped wooden ship, no waiting for the wind to stir and fill the sails, no pulling out oars to row when the wind simply refuses to blow our direction.
Another way we can learn while we travel is library books. This one was a lot of fun to read, in part because it shared stories from the Discovery Expedition, and the Nimrod Expedition as well as the more famous Endurance Expedition.
Ernest Shackleton & the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration
Reading about Ernest Shackleton taught the Flat Friends a lot. It also got them curious about the Magellanic Penguins, and Magellan’s Straits. Magellan found the passage between the Atlantic and Pacific hundreds of years before Shackleton sailed these same waters.
When we returned this library book, we picked up one about Ferdinand Magellan.
