LOVELAND, Colo.—Wearing a long skirt and shawl, Teri Johnson rang a hand-held bell Monday morning as she stood on the front step at Lone Tree School. Johnson asked her nine pupils to line up, girls on one side and boys on the other, before entering the one-room schoolhouse in North Lake Park and starting their school day as if it were 1889.
“Come in and stand at your desk until I invite you to sit down,” Johnson said.
First, they must say the Pledge of Allegiance, then she takes roll before starting the day’s lessons.
Johnson is playacting teaching in a rural school during a one-week summer school program sponsored by the Loveland Museum/Gallery.
“I just have a passion for history,” said Johnson, a retired teacher of 29 years from the Thompson School District who has been teaching at Lone Tree School for the past 25 or 26 summers.
“I love sharing that passion with younger children.”
Lone Tree School was cleaned up from a vandalism incident in time for the summer session.
In mid-February, vandals broke into the school and stained the walls and desks with ink, covered the blackboard with graffiti and did other damage, estimated at $13,000.
The city of Loveland hired a contractor specializing in historic buildings to remove the ink stains, repaint the walls, replace the wallpaper and rebuild broken window frames.
“I was very devastated when I heard about the vandalism,” Johnson said, adding, “I was thankful it didn’t get damaged beyond repair. … The destruction was something that could have been permanent and could have destroyed some local history.”
Johnson pointed to the books on her desk, telling her pupils—the proper word at the time for students—that she was glad the vandals did not touch those.
“I was afraid they were gone, but they didn’t damage these,” Johnson said.
The school, which was built in 1883, remained in use until 1920, when several rural schools were combined into the Loveland school system.
In 1976, the school was moved to North Lake Park from County Road 21 five miles southwest of Loveland and was fully restored.
Johnson explained to her pupils the layout, along with the rules of the pioneer classroom.
She spoke from behind her desk, which sits on a raised platform facing four rows of desks, on loan from the Colorado Historical Society.
To her right, as she faces her pupils, are two recitation benches for students to use for readings out of their McGuffey readers, reprints from the originals.
Johnson wants her pupils to experience a typical school day with the three R’s, old-time games during recess and crafts of the era, she said. She encourages them to wear pioneer clothes, though only two girls wore old-fashioned dresses, hats and bonnets that day.
Another two girls asked to borrow bonnets, including Akaila Jeffries, who is 10.
“I just like history a lot, what they did before and stuff,” she said.
Nine-year-old Teagan Turk is taking the class for a second time this summer, she said.
“It’s fun,” Teagan said. “You get to learn about pioneers and how they lived. … You get to learn how to make a lot of stuff (they) made.” During the week, Johnson plans to have her pupils read from their readers, partake in a spell-down and do crafts, such as making journals, stenciling, braiding rugs and making corn husk dolls.
Other activities will include making butter using a hand-cranked churn, hand-squeezing lemonade and making homemade ice cream, she said.
“We try to be as authentic as we can,” Johnson said.
She requires her pupils to raise their hands to speak, and when she calls on them, to stand next to their desks. She asks them to do their “assignments,” which are not graded, on slates with slate pencils or to use pen and ink.
“Old one-room country schoolhouses did work,” Johnson said. “The older students end up helping the younger students. … They learn from each other.”
