HOLDREGE — The Alma fourth-grade students lined up behind Janelle Jack, and each held a piece of a long rope in order to stay together while following her.
The exercise on the grounds of the Nebraska Prairie Museum was a re-enactment of what a Nebraska teacher, Minnie Freeman, did to save her students during a blizzard on Jan. 12, 1888. The Alma students only traveled a few hundred feet, but Jack explained how Freeman led 13 children the 1½ miles to safety.
Sydney Baker, 9, walks around on wooden stompers during a recess period Tuesday at ESU 11’s Rural School Activity at the Nebraska Prairie Museum in Holdrege. Sydney is a fourth-grader at Alma Public Schools and is the daughter of Jared and Michelle Baker.
“I don’t think they realize how lucky they have it. I think they are so used to being the way it is now with computers and everything instantly. They have to actually work,” Jack said about the realization today’s students have when they see what it was like for students in the 19th century.
The students recently were participating in Educational Service Unit No. 11’s Rural School Activity at the Nebraska Prairie Museum in Holdrege.
The program started four years ago at the suggestion of former Nebraska Prairie Museum Executive Director Dan Christensen. He approached Jack about wanting to bring the activity to the museum. Jack began creating the curriculum, and she attended a Rural School Conference where she had the opportunity to talk to teachers who taught in one-room schoolhouses.
The rural school is open to any of the member schools in ESU 11, which is based in Holdrege.
Cambridge, Alma, Axtell, Loomis, Southern Valley, Elwood, Wilcox-Hildreth and All Saint’s Catholic School bring students to participate in the activity at the end of August through early September. The rural school typically runs from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. over nine days.
Michael Dunse, 9, left, and Landon Wilhelm, 9, play tic-tac-toe during recess at the Nebraska Prairie Museum in Holdrege.
Jack and her administrative assistant, Destinee Steinke, prepare activities and lessons to keep the students busy throughout the day.
“We try to do things that they would have done back in the day,” Jack said. “We read the story of ‘The Schoolchildren’s Blizzard.’ They get a sheet of an actual book they would have read from in the 1880s. After this we will make butter.”
The students sat in old desks — some even had to share a seat — in the one-room schoolhouse on the museum’s grounds. This day was cloudy and cool, but Jack said there have been days in the past where it’s been really hot and other days where they had to turn on the heaters in the schoolhouse. Throughout the day, students made snow globes, wrote with a quill and ink, dipped candles, ran in three-legged and gunnysack races. Jack and Steinke even have added a STEM activity for the kids to try.
“We have a little wagon and a little oxen, and they get sticks and they have a big tub. They have to get across the Missouri to get to Nebraska to be able to homestead, to just kind of get some of that science and engineering component in there to bring some modern with the old in and to see if they can float across the Missouri without dying,” Jack explained.
The students also got a taste of what children did for fun in the 1800s.
Jack brought out a tub of old toys including Jacob’s Ladder, tic-tac-toe boards, spinning tops, stompers and the game of graces. Kids eagerly gathered around Jack and listened as she explained how each of the toys worked. Jacob’s Ladder and the stompers were a popular option as the kids spread out across the lawn taking turns using the games.
Alma fourth-grade teacher Ben Ellis received a flier about the rural school activity and thought it was a great opportunity for his students to learn about Nebraska history outside of the classroom.
Jack said, “It’s great to get the kids in and actually touch and experience. They learn so much more doing that way than they do just reading.”