By MIKE FERGUSON

Baker City Herald

When you marry a man in the diplomatic corps, you’re going to live in a lot of places.

Susan McWilliams of Bend has made it a habit to learn things about everywhere she’s lived and she’s lived all over the world, including Portugal, India, Liberia, Israel, Nepal and Los Angeles, which McWilliams laughingly called andquot;a really different culture.andquot;

Her husband is now a retired diplomat, but McWilliams is still learning about Central Oregon and she’s teaching others, particularly teachers, how they can help others discover their sense of place.

During a talk Saturday at the Baker Public Library called andquot;Reading the Landscape: Inquiry into Local Story,andquot; McWilliams helped those in attendance to more fully appreciate the tools waiting at their disposal for learning about their community.

Her 90-minute talk was a condensed version of a course she teaches in Central Oregon for Lewis andamp; Clark College. The approach is called andquot;place-based education,andquot; which McWilliams defines as andquot;learning to be where we are.andquot;

Everywhere McWilliams lived with her husband and two children, she preferred mingling with indigenous people rather than other Americans. That openness helped her come away with what she calls andquot;a sense of placeandquot; for each country in which her husband was posted even if they lived there only a few years.

andquot;Even today, as I look at photographs and mementos, a sense of place is still there,andquot; she said. andquot;It’s not the amount of time you spend in a place. It’s what you do and who you connect with while you’re there.andquot;

McWilliams taught at international schools in some of the places she lived. In Lisbon, Portugal, the school was andquot;in an old house in a regular neighborhood.andquot;

Twice a week, McWilliams would take her first-graders for a walk around the neighborhood. Students were fascinated by a construction site, and began interviewing the workers about how their heavy equipment worked and why they construct buildings the way they do. Students wrote what they learned in journals and even produced a mini-documentary about their own neighborhood.

andquot;They learned a heck of a lot, even going to a known area again and again,andquot; McWilliams said. andquot;In Bend I don’t see kids outside exploring their community,andquot; because, she fears, too many are indoors watching television or playing video games. andquot;I think we’ve lost something.andquot;

McWilliams wants American children to have that same sense of wonder about their place in the world that her students in Portugal had.

So she teaches teachers how to awaken that curiosity in their students. Most of her students are already aware of the resources available to them libraries, the chamber of commerce or visitor center, Census data, bound newspaper volumes, and all kinds of maps, from Sanborn Fire Insurance maps to soil surveys produced by the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

But there are unconventional sources, too.

Rather than merely viewing a local artist’s work in a gallery, McWilliams gets Central Oregon artists to invite her students to their studio, where students can watch the artists paint and ask them andquot;how they interpret their place.andquot;

Instead of forcing her students to listen to a talk on natural resources, McWilliams took them to the source of Bend’s municipal water system, where they andquot;stood together in a small hut with water running right under it, the same way Bend’s done it since the early 1900s,andquot; she said. andquot;In the winter the snow’s so high they have to enter the hut through a window instead of a door.andquot;

Impressed, one student, on the final day of the course, told McWilliams that andquot;I now know more about Bend than I do about the place I actually live.andquot;

The approach may require some extra shoe leather, but it andquot;makes you feel more rooted and a part of where you are,andquot; McWilliams said. Quoting Bend author Jarold Ramsey, she said that andquot;any landscape is full of lost treasures and marvels just waiting to be rediscovered.andquot;

McWilliams is learning a new skill to help her express the appreciation she feels for the places she visits: she’s taking watercolor lessons.

She’s illustrating a trip she and her husband took to Ireland last year by interspersing small paintings in her journal with bits up cut up maps, pieces of postcards and other keepsakes.

andquot;It’s my way to tell a story of a particular place,andquot; she said. andquot;What was my impression? What got me about that place? I won’t share it with anyone else,andquot; she said of her newfound hobby. andquot;It’s for me to enjoy. But it’s great fun.andquot;