The Rocket

Issue date: 5/4/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Nate Daymut Hickory Corners Schoolhouse sits between Miller Auditorium and McKay Education Building and is open for students and the surrounding community to view. The Schoolhouse helps link SRU to the 1960s when it was built and used in the Slippery Rock community. [Click to enlarge]

The Hickory Corners Schoolhouse is SRU's own connection to the history of education. Acquired by the university in 1988, the schoolhouse now serves as a classroom and museum. It was divided into pieces and reassembled here on campus when it was moved from its original location near the Unionville firehouse. What now serves as a link to the past was a functioning schoolhouse until the 1960s.

"This is the symbol of the college of education," said Mark Mraz, secondary education professor and curator of Hickory Corners. "Slippery Rock has a rich history of progressive education from when it was founded as a normal school in 1889."

Mraz said the schoolhouse is used as a museum for the public as well as a hands-on classroom for university students.

Through examining the interior of the schoolhouse and learning about the daily routine of its students and teachers, Slippery Rock education majors are able to learn about the progression of teaching methods and classroom dynamics.

Sophomore secondary education English major Matt Godissart said he once had a class in the Hickory Corners Schoolhouse.

"I learned a good bit," he said, "We learned about different things taught in schools at different time periods."

The teacher would teach the different sections of the class in different ways, he said.

"Back then, the teachers would have to teach eight different grades in one classroom and today teachers have classes full of 30 or so kids and have to teach different types of learners," Godissart said.

Continued...

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