Big Springs Museum partners with local schools

   Imagine sitting at the original wood desk taken from a one-room schoolhouse that once taught students in Caledonia. Or how about looking at a real kitchen, circa early 1900s, and learning that you got water by pumping a big black thing up and down; no faucets here. It’s hard for youngsters to believe, but farming was once done by plow horses pulling large iron implements behind them. History becomes real, it comes alive when children can see, feel and experience first hand, the things that define the past.

   Big Springs Historical Society and Museum is partners with Caledonia-Mumford Central School to bring an awareness and understanding of the unique history of the community and the people who settled it, to elementary age students. The museum is also host to exhibits created by high school students in digital photography and mixed media art classes.

   First graders are usually in awe when they have their first visit to the museum. Their eyes are wide as they are met by a collection of early 20th century dolls and toys that children once used to pass the time. No electronic games here, no computers.

   By far, the room that gets the most attention is the one-room schoolhouse. The students are seated in one of the original wood desks donated from one of the many schoolhouses once located in the Caledonia area.

   Historical Society President Susan Deragon is the "teacher" and she asks the students to identify the objects in the classroom one by one. They are amazingly well behaved for being in school, she laughs.

   "What do you think this is?" she asks as she holds up a covered tin pail.

   "How do you think the students wrote their assignments?" is a question that keeps most of the children guessing.

   Upstairs, a museum volunteer shows a group of students what the rooms in an average turn of the 20th century home might have looked like. They are amazed at the starkness of the children’s bedroom and wonder where the fridge and microwave are located in the farm kitchen.

   Though the Cal-Mum community has retained much of its agricultural character, the youngsters are amazed to learn that the farmers used horse-drawn plows and other iron machines to do the field work. The children in the family often worked alongside their parents, putting in a long and physically demanding day on the farm.

   Program Coordinator Jean Guthrie and Deragon both say that inviting the students to make the museum their classroom is a good way of demonstrating to them that history is not only the past, it is their today and tomorrow.

   "Many times the kids go home and tell their parents that they want to come to the museum. We have parents come in here all the time with their kids saying, ‘I’ve never been in here,’ or ‘I remember this or that,’ or ‘I never knew that about Caledonia.’

   Their goal is to make the Big Springs Historical Society a classroom for learners of all ages.

   The museum’s collection spans three-stories and 10,000 square feet. It is open to the public on Sundays from 1p.m. to 4 p.m. and on Mondays from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. or by appointment. For more information about BSHS, you can visit their newly designed website at www.bigspringsmuseum.org or call 538-9880.