Reenactors with BarnArts, an arts education nonprofit, speak with students outside the Waldoborough Historical Society on Friday, May 9. The performers — who played, in the course of one morning, a schoolmarm, shipbuilders, quarry workers, a music teacher, and a troublemaking truant student — brought a vintage classroom experience originally developed on Mount Desert Island to Waldoboro for the first time this May. During the program, students learned about life in 1888 Waldoboro while singing songs, reading stories, and playing historically accurate games. (Molly Rains photo)
In early May of this year, for the first time in decades, Waldoboro children flooded into the one-room Boggs Schoolhouse, sat down beside their friends, and absorbed a lesson they won’t soon forget.
“Stand right up … focus on your elocution,” said actor Wendy Littlefield, who portrayed a no-nonsense schoolmarm in the Waldoboro production of “Vintage Classroom,” an immersive history lesson for grade school children.
Clad in bonnets and pageboy caps, Miller School second and third graders gripped slates and bits of chalk, hanging on to Littlefield’s every word. On the blackboard at the front of the schoolhouse, the date was written: May 9, 1888.
“Vintage Classroom,” a program that takes children back in time to experience a school day in the 1800s, was the product of a collaboration between The Waldo Theatre; BarnArts, an arts education nonprofit based in Mount Desert Island; and the Waldoborough Historical Society.
Mia Branco, The Waldo’s director of education, first saw the show on MDI, where it has run for decades, and was inspired to bring it to life in Waldoboro. Andrew Simon, artistic director at BarnArts, which had taken over the show on MDI, was enthusiastic about bringing the production to another town, Branco said.
To localize the show, the group made some tweaks to the performance, like changing two characters’ jobs to shipbuilders rather than the cod fishermen who visit the schoolhouse in the MDI production and naming the stern superintendent character Mr. Bullfinch, after a real 1880s Waldoboro superintendent of schools. The development process took two years. Then, the week of May 9, Miller School second and third grade students arrived at Boggs Schoolhouse on Main Street, ready to travel through time.
Sitting at their desks in the small classroom, the students were usually tense at the start of the show, which ran four performances for different classes that week, Branco said. But as the students realized that they were, in a sense, part of the performance, they loosened up and began to experiment and have fun in their roles as 1880s schoolchildren.
A show that involves students themselves at every turn provides a peek into history that resonates deeply with learners, Branco said.
“The immersive side of this project encourages kids to reach out and touch history,” she said.
The students’ days started at the schoolhouse’s historic desks, where they learned to always raise their hands, stand, and address the schoolmarm as “ma’am” before speaking in class. The group answered questions and took turns reading aloud from an 1800s-style reader, which contained a story about the perils of truancy and the importance of attending school.
“At the time, laws had just been enacted saying every kid had to go to school,” Branco said.
This element of the story was driven home by an unexpected visit from Sam Slick, a troublemaking truant student, who, to Miller School students’ delight, appeared in a window during their lesson, spreading shrieks and mayhem through the classroom.
This was not the only time that Littlefield’s reading lesson would be interrupted. A music teacher, played by Kaitlyn Miller, arrived in the classroom to lead the students in song, before two shipbuilders stopped in to talk about their work on the five-masted schooner currently under construction in Waldoboro.
The Governor Ames, the world’s first five-masted schooner – and, at the time, the world’s largest cargo vessel – was completed at Waldoboro’s Leavitt-Storer shipyard in 1888. The friendly shipbuilders who joined the morning lesson at the Boggs Schoolhouse told their rapt listeners all about the vessel and their work to complete it.
Later, the children would discuss other timely events from Waldoboro’s history, debating whether to construct a shoe factory – which, in 1888, the town did choose to invest in, hoping the move would diversify the local economy – and learning from quarry workers about the kinds of jobs available to laborers at the time. Students also learned about how some families settled in Waldoboro from overseas, hearing from a Scottish character about his decision to leave his homeland to pursue work in America.
The day ended with outside play, complete with era-appropriate games played with wooden hoops and sticks.
Branco said she hoped an immersive history lesson would make the past more tangible for the students who participated, informing the way they interpret today’s world.
“History is often seen as in the past, as ancient. In a lot of ways, that’s true, but it’s also still pervasive in what it has led us toward, and why things are the way that they are,” she said. “What might happen in the future? We can learn from the past.”
Another important element of the immersive history lesson, she added, is simpler: “It’s just really fun,” Branco said.
On May 9, the Miller School second graders in the Boggs Schoolhouse were completely engaged in their lesson. Students leapt up from their seats to answer the schoolmarm’s questions, shrieked with joy at the production’s many twists and turns, and sang along to the music teacher’s songs.
Hosting the show in the one-room schoolhouse is an important part of the production, Branco said, as it helps students place themselves in historical children’s shoes. Additionally, it helps introduce students to the historical society museum and its extensive collections, she added.
Bill Maxwell, president of the Waldoborough Historical Society, said he was glad to have welcomed the group to the Boggs Schoolhouse, which the society runs as a museum.
“We’re just fortunate that we were able to work with them,” he said. “And we’re looking forward to continuing it in the future.”
This year’s “Vintage Classroom” production was offered to Miller School free of charge, thanks to grants and funding from private donors, Branco said. She hopes to continue acquiring funding that will keep the cost down and allow the collaborative show to reach more local students.
Branco certainly hopes to continue “Vintage Classroom” in Waldoboro in the future, although the show will continue to evolve: Next year, Branco hopes to bring on local actors to bring the show even closer to home.
“What we’re hoping for is a connection to other community resources, to connect students to this place,” Branco said. “I think this is hopefully the beginning of many more things along these lines.”
