“Can you tell me what this is a map of?”
Claudia Wolen, a teacher and volunteer with the Stamford History Center, posed this question to a class of second graders at Hart Elementary School, who sat around an enlarged map spread out on the classroom floor.
The students’ answers started big, and Wolen guided them to hone in on the topic of the day: the City of Stamford.
“The US!”
“Connecticut!”
“Stamford!”
At this last point, Wolen confirmed this, saying, “That’s where we all live—in Stamford, which is in Connecticut, which is in the US, which is in the world!”
So began Wolen’s Time Travelers program.
This program focuses on the development of Stamford dating back to 1699. The program covers both the developments of Stamford through the ages on a broad scale, taking the students on a journey as Stamford developed from a rural to suburban, and suburban to urban city. At the same time, Wolen weaves in the specific story of Stamford’s first house, the Hoyt-Barnum House, and it’s status and preservation amidst these grand changes. With topics ranging from larger trends in urban development to local community activism, from the shifting landscape of primary education spanning centuries, Time Travelers brings many complex topics into focus for young learners, using visual aids and dramatic reenactments to connect them to Stamford’s rich, colorful past and present.
Before fully diving into new lessons of Time Travelers program, Wolen reviewed with the students a lesson already familiar to the group—the lesson of different “communities,” the differing features of rural, suburban and urban communities. The students, reviewing the lesson from their previous classes, set the groundwork for everything that was soon to follow.
This concept—the distinguishing features of rural, suburban and urban communities—is a mainstay of Time Travelers. One of Wolen’s key tools for this demonstration is a set of painted blocks, containing images of trees, farm animals, houses small and large, and public buildings such as a school, the police and fire departments, and town hall. Each student plays a part in the Time Travelers story, telling the story of Stamford together, placing and moving the blocks along the enlarged map of Stamford to represent the City’s development circa 1699.
As Wolen passed out three blocks to each student, and as they sat and compared, the excitement in the room grew, as the students wondered what could possibly come next.
Soon, the group began a flurry of activity, listening to Wolen’s story of Stamford’s history while taking turns placing their blocks on the map before them. To begin, Wolen painted broad strokes of Stamford’s earliest Native American inhabitants and their use of Stamford’s many natural resources in its earliest days. Wolen subsequently called on students with blocks of trees on the map, and soon after placing the blocks of small houses down as the Wolen’s story continued on to the early settlements of the pilgrims. With this, Wolen began the discussion of what a social community looked like back then, emphasizing how this early society, lacking modern transportation, grocery stores, paved roads and the like, led people to rely upon each other. As Wolen explained to the students, “in those days, neighbors had to help each other out,” outlining the trading culture, telling students about frequent exchanges of goods, trading milk for bread, corn for horseshoes, and the like.
Now came the time for Wolen’s check-in with the students—based on the set-up before them, was Stamford now rural, suburban, or urban? The group confirmed that this version of Stamford was rural. Now, before moving on to the next segment of Time Travelers, documenting Stamford’s shift from rural to suburban, Wolen had a lesson to teach the young students about their counterparts in these early days.
Wolen took this chance to tell these second graders how rural life shaped the day-to-day of children in such times. She walked the students through these children’s hard work necessary to help their families, themselves helping with milking cows, cleaning animal stables, chopping down trees for the fire, and more. This meant, Wolen explained, that the children’s education was limited to the winter season, with the rest of their time dedicated to physical work.
“Who do you think was smarter?” Wolen posed this question to the group, and after a few minutes of group discussion, she suggested to the students that both groups possessed different types of intelligence. That is, Stamford’s earlier young learners were likely more skilled in manual labor, while today’s group, with their education spanning fall, winter and spring, benefited by being better readers, mathematicians, and the like. With this, Wolen, perhaps without the students fully realizing it, taught a broader lesson on the impact and benefits of today’s more thorough educational program for young students.
Moving onward, the group worked through Stamford’s development from rural to suburban, marking the advent of increased interest by outsiders, particularly the passage of New Yorkers via train through the area, and the subsequent use of Stamford’s resources to build and expand with more houses, the first official schoolhouse, and more, to accommodate an increasing population. Wolen called on students throughout the discussion to place any blocks picturing medium-sized houses, and the monumental block for Stamford’s schoolhouse, to show each new development in action. This soon led to Wolen once again checking in with the students, now confirming as a group that Stamford had shifted from the rural to the suburban.
As the development of Stamford advanced from suburban to urban, the rapid addition of blocks, ranging from municipal buildings (town hall, fire department, post office, larger school) to commercial buildings (grocery store, pet store movie theater) gained further excitement from the students. Wolen and the students took this moment to recognize the emergence of buildings serving “wants” versus “needs,” a topic they had begun discussing in previous classes, taking a magnified look at the puzzle pieces making up a developing city. In a way, the students became swept up in the excitement of the City’s expansion, an excitement driven by an increasingly busy and diverse environment set in motion right at their fingertips.
Wolen then turned their attention back to the micro scale, specifically the impact this rush of development had on the all-but-forgotten Hoyt house. Just as the students had felt the excitement of the newfound bright lights of the big City of Stamford, they soon connected emotionally to the distressing story (albeit one with a very happy ending) that followed. Through showing the students images from the picture book The Little Red House, Wolen showed the students how the Hoyt-Barnum House faded into the background amidst Stamford’s bustling development, and how it almost was lost completely in the rush of development.
As Wolen explained to the students, in 2016 the police chief told mayor they needed a bigger police station—but as the then-police station was next to the Hoyt house, he made the case to demolish the Hoyt-Barnum House for expansion. It was at this point that Wolen led the students through the subsequent process of social activism on the local scale. Wolen demonstrated how a group of concerned citizens petitioned to the mayor to save the Hoyt-Barnum House through an engaging dramatic reenactment with each student’s participation. As she told the story of the group going up to the 11th floor of the Stamford Government Center, she asked the students to get up on their feet as Wolen said “let’s take a trip up to the 11th floor”—the students then “marched” up the stairs with Wolen and, in unison, reenacted the group by saying, “Save the little house!” Wolen then told the students that the petition worked—“the mayor said yes!” The children sat back down, and Wolen explained the powerful impact of this moment of community activism--how the city came together, with the mayor, police, fire dept, engineers, electric company, and more, to help move the house safely across the city, to preserve it and move it to where it stands today.
It was now time for Wolen to bring the students’ perspective back from the micro to the macro, asking students to “turn and talk” (an activity already familiar to the students from their classes) to decide whether the Stamford before them was now rural, suburban, or urban. While the groups varied in their answers, Wolen surprised the class by explaining, “here’s the cool thing: Stamford is all three!” This elicited a big reaction from the children, who looked on as Ms. Wolen pointed to the different blocks, showing how different parts of Stamford tend toward the different categories.
In wrapping up Time Travelers for this group, Wolen called on the gathered students one-by-one to walk along the Stamford map, pointing out specific Stamford landmarks for each student to find. Many of the buildings were very familiar to the students, and encouraged an excited dialogue exchanging their own knowledge and experiences.
Time Travelers taught many new ideas, told through the story of Stamford’s centuries-long history, to the assembled group of second graders from Hart Elementary School. What made this program particularly helpful for this group was how Time Travelers met the students halfway based on their current studies, reinforcing lessons covered in the classroom already. As the group’s homeroom teacher, a historian himself explained, his students had already been learning about communities in the classroom, and after watching his students engage in the program, he spoke about how the program clearly reinforced these lessons. He saw this in action as he watched his students become excited throughout the program as they connected their current knowledge with Wolen’s activities. By reinforcing the students’ ongoing studies, while expanding their knowledge through the history of Stamford, the lessons learned will certainly stick with the group of young learners, as they continue their lessons and proceed with their education going forward.
For more information on Time Travelers or any one of our programs e-mail info@stamfordhistory.org or call 203-329-1183.
Stamford History Center
1508 High Ridge Rd.
Stamford, CT 06903