Three dozen sixth-graders have been learning history and other lessons from the inside out this fall, from the occasional booming cannon to the paddlers stroking down the Mississippi River from source to mouth.
They're inside Historic Fort Snelling, where two classrooms from Upper Mississippi Academy have been meeting since Labor Day in a barracks inside the reconstructed bastion that commands the junction of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers.
"What an experience," said teacher Kelly Grucelski, who compared the feeling of teaching inside the fort to a one-room school. She's a humanities teacher at the fledgling charter school, and she teams with Sarah Oppelt, who is a science and math specialist.
The academy, in its first year, didn't set out to hold classes inside the reconstructed fort's walls. The school, which consists of sixth- and ninth-graders this year, drew more students than anticipated — too many to fit in the modular building most of its students occupy elsewhere in the Fort Snelling complex. Then the Minnesota Historical Society offered space in the actual fort, half a mile away.
The arrangement is temporary, ending Friday. The school has rearranged its other quarters to allow its two classrooms to return to the mother school. It plans to move to a permanent home in the fort's Upper Post, across from Officers Row, sometime during the next school year.
But that's in the future. This fall, the kids reveled in reading on the shaded front porch of their barracks or holding recess on the parade ground. In their classrooms, which were partly renovated by the Minnesota Historical Society for its programs, the past is as present as the crinkly leaded glass in the windows that supply much of the illumination on sunny days, and the present is evident in the wireless laptops the students plug into to complete assignments.
Fireplace alcoves at each end of the room offer cozy nooks for readers who curl up on oversized pillows. "We have a better deal than the other classrooms," said Julian Branden, whose only previous exposure to the fort was when his former school in Minneapolis took a 90-minute field trip there. He's an avid reader on fort history.
Joe Haupt, another student, feels a personal connection with the fort. Not only did he often bike by the fort on his way to his former school in Mendota Heights, but his great-grandfather passed though the Snelling post during Army Air Force training.
