Wooden Old Stone School experience takes Tecumseh students back in time

In the pastoral reaches of Cambridge Township, students from Tecumseh Acres Elementary School got off their school bus and walked into history — a 19th century Michigan education, to be precise.

Fall colors burst from maple trees overhead and the lowing of cows and their calves were carried on the breeze as the students made their way down a hill to the Wooden Old Stone School at the corner of Stephenson Road and Hawkins Highway.  Like students in the 1800s, they hauled metal pails of water.

Jackie Freeman, author, local historian, and community volunteer for the one-room school, led the way in a black cotton prairie skirt and high-necked, long-sleeved blouse. A black straw hat shaded her head from the sun as she began describing what life was like for the second-graders of 1850, when the school was first built by Rev. Robert Wooden.

Freeman has been working on these programs for the last three years, but it was her involvement with the Tecumseh Bicentennial Committee that brought these elementary students to the school.

“When they get off the bus, I ask them to close their eyes and imagine what this would have looked like 100 years ago,” she said. “Imagine, there was no road, just a forest and maybe a little path through the woods to the school. Then we fill the pails about one-third with water from the Pelham’s well and carry the pails down to the schoolhouse.”

Even at one-third full, the second-graders found the pails heavy burdens.

“It was a lot for them to carry,” Freeman said.

Once inside, she begins her lessons. The students each receive a pamphlet with lessons, a slate, and a piece of chalk. They take seats at century-old slant-top desks made from pine and cast iron. Freeman goes through math and spelling lessons. She shows them a typical student lunch of meat, bread, and celery packed into a quart Mason jar.  Recess was a tour of the 19th century version of a Porta-Potty—an authentic outhouse located behind the schoolhouse that provided each student with an opportunity to see how their 19th-century counterparts handled a restroom break. A visit to the woodshed with its horse stall and farming implements provided additional educational experiences. Historian and volunteer docent Ron Ryan introduced them to the many tools farmers used and demonstrated how they functioned.

On the lawn, the group was split into two teams and played Annie-I-Over, a game involving a soccer-style ball that is pitched over the top of a building—in this case, the shed. The students enjoyed the challenge and the opportunity to run unencumbered around the schoolyard. Michelle McLemore, a retired teacher and historian, assisted Freeman with the students’ activities.

Inside the one-room schoolhouse, students again gathered and this time, Freeman explained how a typical schoolteacher taught several grades at the same time. She recruited a pair of volunteers to act as first-graders and worked with them to recite their lessons. Meanwhile, the rest of the class wrote their first names on their slates then filed outdoors once again to line up for a class photo.

“I like to focus on immersing the students in the experience,” Freeman said. “It needs to be relevant. From the time they leave the bus, we are in the 19th century and learning as those students learned.”

Prior to the field trip, Freeman visited the classrooms of second-graders at Tecumseh Acres and talked to them about the one-room school and what life was like when the school building was new and surrounded by hardwoods. She showed a short video of interviews with people in the area who went to school in the Wooden Old Stone School and talked about what things are different today as well as the things that are similar.

“Getting involved in the bicentennial celebration planning really helped get interest going in the school from Tecumseh teachers,” Freeman said. “Kathy Smith and Mary Tommelein were very interested in bringing students into this experience. it’s enticing and the children are immersed in it.”

Dee Wagoner, one of the second-grade teachers at Tecumseh Acres, said her students really enjoyed the field trip.

“They had a fantastic time,” Wagoner said. “Being able to immerse themselves into what learning was like as a child in the mid-to-late 1800s was wonderful. They were able to see how groups of children were divided up into grade levels and then brought to the front of the school room for their recitation lessons.”

Wagoner said her class spends “a great deal of time in second grade learning about our community.

“We focus on the community that we live in today, as well as what our community looked like in the past,” she said. “This was definitely a hands-on way for our students to be able to have a few hours to travel back in time and experience being a student of the 1850s. They are still talking about their school experience.”

Wagoner’s class was one of four who enjoyed the field trip, with two classes on Monday and two on Tuesday. The Kiwanis Club of Tecumseh provided the funds for the buses, which made the field trip possible.

Kiwanians Mary Tommelein and Ron Publiski, were on hand for the experience.

“It was an amazing journey back to a different time,” Tommelein said. “We learned so much.  It’s a nice continuation of our town’s bicentennial celebration and the trip fits into the school’s Michigan History curriculum.”

Publiski said the school is a “wonderful place to visit and go back in time.”

“I love that Kiwanis was able to make a field trip like this possible for the kids,” he said. “It’s a great opportunity for them to go back in time and see what life was like then.”