By Abigail W. Adams
Juniper Hill School’s “sprouts” attend class at Alna’s Center Schoolhouse Friday, April 17 as the culmination of a months long learning project about Alna’s history. (Abigail Adams photo) |
Juniper Hill School’s “sprouts,” or 8- to 10-year-olds, traveled back in time Friday, April 17 to attend school at Alna’s Center Schoolhouse, as the culmination of a months-
long learning project focused on Alna’s history. The Center Schoolhouse is the second-oldest one-room schoolhouse in Maine, according to the National Register of Historic
Places.
A message on the chalkboard, dated Friday, April 17, 1895, asked students to take their seats quickly and quietly. Seven students sat at the wooden school desks in
period costume with a single sheet of paper and a pencil. They stood up when they asked questions of their teacher.
After a lesson in arithmetic, students were joined by Center Schoolhouse alumni Cally Aldrich, Tom Albee, and Gerry Steele.
Students asked the “elders” what it had been like to attend school at the Center Schoolhouse, how a single teacher taught the three grades that attended school there
simultaneously, and whether they had a lot of homework.
Steele traveled from Searsmont to attend the event. “It brought back a lot of memories,” Steele said. Steele graduated from the Center Schoolhouse in the 1950s. She
reunited with classmate Cally Aldrich at the event – the two had not seen each other since the eighth grade.
The Center Schoolhouse was built in 1795. It closed in the 1960s when most Alna students began attending school in Wiscasset. The building has since become Alna’s
history museum, run by the Committee for Alna History.
Due to a shortage of volunteers, the museum was closed for most of last year. The committee and Juniper Hill School are currently discussing letting students
operate the museum for a couple of days a week as a continuation of their inquiry into Alna’s history.
The Juniper Hill School opened in Alna in 2011 to provide students with a “place-based education,” an educational model that teaches students through their immediate
environment. The 47 preschool through fourth-grade students at Juniper Hill School have used Alna’s natural environment and community to develop academically, socially,
physically, and emotionally.
The preschool and elementary classes at Juniper Hill School draw their curriculum from the world that surrounds them, founder and director Anne Stires said. Alna’s
natural landscape and community are the window through which students learn about science, geography, social studies, mathematics, language arts, and history.
Juniper Hill School draws from the work of David Sobel, a professor of education at Antioch University, to create a developmentally appropriate educational
curriculum for its “roots,” or 6- to 8-year-olds, and its “sprouts,” or 8- to 10-year-olds. The educational model has been coined place-based education and focuses on teaching
broad academic concepts through a child’s immediate environment.
Juniper Hill School’s early childhood education program for 4- to 6-year-olds, the school’s “seeds,” is a nature immersion program modeled after the forest
kindergarten movement popular in Europe, which stresses outdoor exploration and play as key to early childhood development.
“The idea is as the child’s world expands, so too does the curriculum,” Stires said. The school’s “seeds” and “roots” focus primarily on the here and now, Stires
said. As the students grow and develop, the curriculum develops with them. Children are introduced to abstract concepts through a concrete element of their environment they
have already become familiar with.
The elementary education at Juniper Hill School is aligned with Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards, Stires said. “We meet the
standards, but we meet them when it’s developmentally appropriate,” Stires said.
The school recognizes the importance of teaching students about the universe, part of the Next Generation Science Standards. However, the subject is not taught to
students in the second grade when they will have very little understanding or connection to it, Stires said.
When students at the Juniper Hill School learn about the universe, they will be in a better position to understand not only the concept of the vast expanse of space,
but also their place in it, Stires said.
The “sprouts” of Juniper Hill School have expanded their understanding of the world around them by turning their focus back in time. Through Alna, students are
learning about history.
The study of Alna’s history began in January, Stires said. Students wrote to Alna’s municipal officials and community members to ask about their jobs, how Alna’s
local government worked, and what Alna was like in years past. Students also wrote stories from the perspective of a student in Alna in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The history project culminated when students attended the Center Schoolhouse for a day and relived the experience of the school’s former students. “It was
wonderful,” Steele said. “I think the kids really enjoyed it too.”
When students return from April vacation, they will choose an aspect of Alna’s history to pursue as an independent research project. “We teach our students to be
learners,” Stires said.
Due to popular demand, the Juniper Hill School plans to expand in the 2015-2016 school year to incorporate fifth-grade students.
