Public board says goodbye to Victorian era
School board will transition Victorian classroom at Suddaby Public School back into a regular classroom
It’s the end of an era for a historical classroom in Waterloo Region; the Victorian era, that is.
After nearly three decades, the Victorian Classroom at Suddaby Public School in Kitchener will no longer take students from around the region back in time to the days of slate boards and cast-iron decks.
The Waterloo Region District School Board has elected to transition the classroom back to regular instruction, a move it says was not financially motivated, with the funding for the program traditionally coming from outside the board.
“The Waterloo Region District School Board is always working to best support the achievement and well-being of all the students we serve, which includes an assessment of the physical space we have available for student learning, as well as the programs that are offered,” said board spokesperson Ross Howey.
“In the case of the Victorian Classroom at Suddaby Public School, this is a space that has been deemed necessary to support student learning as a regular classroom.”
Created in 1996 by retired teachers Margaret Dickson and Helen Koepke, the classroom has hosted thousands of students from across the board over the last 28 years, giving them a glimpse of what school would have looked like in the region over 100 years ago, when the city was still known as Berlin.
The former teachers founded the concept from donations that they asked be donated to the project instead of receiving retirement gifts for themselves.
The room was like a time capsule, with antiques specifically selected to replicate an oldworld classroom, and other throwbacks like hand-carved wooden toys, stereoscopes and checkers boards.
Students would wear pinafores and vests over their clothes, and were required to stand while answering questions, as would have been required in the Victorian era. Paper was always salvaged, with students instead writing on slate and graphite boards when learning how arithmetic and math used to be taught.
Despite the closure, the boards says it may not be an official end to the project.
“As a district we look forward to supporting the Victorian Classroom Society as they work to determine another appropriate space to continue their work,” said Howey.
In the meantime, students will continue to learn about the Victorian Era as part of the curriculum, said Howey.