In Putney, the Greenwood School has been educating boys with significant learning differences since 1978. And for most of those years, the boarding school has maintained a tradition of teaching their students to memorize and recite the Gettysburg Address.
Lincoln delivered the speech at the dedication of the Gettysburg battlefield more than 150 years ago. But the speech and the act of reciting it in a formal hall to hundreds of assembled adults has real significance to Greenwood’s modern-day students.
They are now the subject of a new documentary by Ken Burns, called The Address. The filmmaker’s crew spent three months at the school in Putney and the resulting documentary premieres tonight at 9 p.m. on PBS nationally, including Vermont Public Television (VPT).
