Ellen DeWitt

Centennial Day Reflection

On Wednesday, the second graders at Trace Crossings came and visited us at

Samford. It was Orlean Bullard Beeson School of Educations one-hundredth
anniversary. The second graders came to celebrate this occasion with us. To prepare, each
Samford student chose which decade or room we wanted to be in to teach a simulated
lesson from that time period. The rooms were games, music, 1915, 1955, and the future.
There were five or six students per room, including a room leader. There were five
second grade classes, as well as five leaders to take each of the classes around to the
different time periods. I chose to be in the 1955 classroom, where we would teach a
simulated lesson. On Tuesday, we had the day to decorate our classrooms and prepare our
lessons. For our lesson, we decided we wanted to teach a Dick and Jane book and have a
nuclear fallout drill just like they would in the 1950s because of the war. To decorate our
classroom, we had posters of president Eisenhower, Walt Disneyland, a chalkboard, an
American flag, brown paper over the desks, and a map of the United States. On our door,
we had a sign that said Welcome to the 50s, records, music notes, and a soda-shop
milkshake.
The students arrived at 9:00 am on Wednesday, and we began in our main
classroom with a speaker. Dr. Francis Carter, former educator and dean of education,
spoke about her experiences as a teacher. After she spoke, all of the Samford students left
and went to our perspective classrooms. Each class came in every room once, so we did
our lesson five times. We read a story from Dick and Jane, did a repeated reading with it,
taught the students about president Eisenhower, did the pledge of allegiance, taught the

students about Disneyland, and did the nuclear fallout drill. The students all got under
their desks and put their hands over their heads when they heard a siren. The students
loved it! With the last group of students, we had ice cream and party hats to celebrate the
100th anniversary. We took the students back downstairs and went outside to take a
picture before they left. They seemed to have a really great time and it was awesome
seeing the Trace students not at Trace Crossings! They learned a lot on Wednesday and
loved being at Samford.