Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Students work to preserve historic buildings
COATESVILLE » Students at the Coatesville Area Intermediate High School have an opportunity to make history, as well as restore it.
For the first time in school history, students are enrolled this year in a Historical Research and Preservation course that will lead to the restoration of a significant piece of history in Coatesville.
Coatesville High School social studies teacher Lisa Doan-Harley spent much of last year researching and developing a course that will eventually lead to the restoration of the historic Gardner-Beale house located on the Coatesville Area Senior High School Campus.
The Gardner-Beale House, built on the first tract of land purchased in the area by original settler Pierre Bizellion, dates to 1811. The home was a major stop on the Underground Railroad, harboring slaves on their escape to the north. The basement at one point contained an escape tunnel. The next stop after Coatesville was Phoenixville, with Canada as the ultimate destination.
The Historical Research and Preservation course is a career technical education program that requires field trips and field experiences outside the traditional school field trip model. A field trip in this program might include a visit to an art museum, not view the exhibits, but rather to meet with curators and conservators to tour the back rooms where cleaning, preservation and storage are managed. Field experience might include photography, creation of plot plans, and detailed descriptions of design, architecture and site management. These experiences will help students explore the career possibilities that exist in a course of study like historical preservation. The course will also require students to meet with skilled craftsmen like smiths, stone masons, brick makers and finish carpenters. These individuals may come into the school or open their workshops to student tours. Other individuals who may meet with students include lawyers, architects, college professors, archivists, preservation consultants and structural engineers.
Students will be able to build a portfolio for career planning through contacts with these offices as well as through contacts with busi-
nessmen, skilled craftsmen, and academic leaders.
In year four of the program, students will be expected to undertake some form of internship related to a preservation field and perform at least 10 hours of unpaid service.
This historical preservation course benefits students of the Coatesville Area School District and also links the district and its constituents with a wider network of community resources focused on preserving history and conserving resources and culture.
“This program is very interesting and beneficial to my knowledge of not only the rest of the world, but it focuses on the historical background of my community and city,” said ninth grader Jack Hadfield. “This class has already helped further my knowledge on
things I’ve always seen around me, but have never actually known the history behind it. I also love this program because after you learn about old buildings with so much history behind them, you learn how you can preserve them so that many generations to come can also become familiar with it. After learning all about the buildings and how they helped make this community the way it is today, I couldn’t wait to learn how to keep them around.”
The students understand the importance of preserving historic buildings.
“The preservation aspect of this class is a new experience to me and I’ve come to learn that these old buildings we are going to preserve are important to us in the present and to the future generations to come,” said ninth-grade student Jeremy Ramos. “I’ve learned many things about my community and city so far and I hope to learn more in the future classes to come.”
The course currently has 16 students, which are comprised of 15 ninth-grade students and one tenth-grade student. It is designed to be a four-year program. Students recently made their first class visit to the GardnerBeale House where DoanHarley encouraged students to use observation skills to assess what materials were used to build the house and pointed out architectural evidence of it originally being a one-story building subsequent additions. She also discussed local history and the surrounding land during the visit.
The goal of the course is to create The “Gardner-Beale House Heritage Center,” which will be owned and maintained by the Coatesville Area School District as a teaching museum for history and architecture. The Heritage Center will offer educational services for students and include programs offered to local and visiting public school students at a nominal cost.