Students Measure Centuries by the Foot
May 5, 2008

The timeline installation crew

It started as a class gift to the school from the sixth grade class of 2007, and like Clifford, it grew and grew and grew. Now it’s a one hundred fifty-four foot reality, as the first half of our Timeline of World History (1 A.D. through 2000 A.D.) has been completed.

Because history is the central organizing element of the curriculum in classical Christian schools, we are always looking for ways to enhance our study of history, as well as visually demonstrate its significance in our curriculum. When buildings Two and Three of our campus master plan were completed in 2005, their long, unbroken facade was a dramatic reflection of the unusually linear and narrow shape of our school property. Wondering what we could do to improve the aesthetic appearance of this “face” to the community (on an extremely busy arterial street), someone suddenly realized that long spaces are ideal for posting time lines!

The crew installing one of 460 tiles

From there the idea grew. The idea of making a permanent timeline out of ceramic tiles utilizing our newly purchased art room kiln was a natural. Teachers quickly came on board, because they realized that this timeline would be big enough and dramatic enough to give students a better conception of the broad sweep of history than the reduced scale timelines they had been using in their classrooms. We were all excited about a project that would combine historical research with artistic production.

The contribution of the school-leaving class of 2007 was to raise the funds for the initial purchase of tiles. Mrs. Susan Rosenberg, their room mother organized a “healthy dog food” sale and the students contributed ingredients, mixed and baked gourmet dog food biscuits, selling enough to raise over $500 toward the purchase of tiles for the project. Before leaving the school in June, 2007, these sixth graders also measured the entire building, devised the scale which would be followed for the timeline in years to come, and selected the initial events to be depicted for the twentieth century section of the timeline.

So excited were these students that even though they had been promoted to middle school, they continued to meet in students’ homes over the summer to design and paint the first twenty-three tiles to complete the twentieth century section. By the time school resumed in the fall of 2007, Mrs. Kristen Haynes, a parent of a sixth grader in the class of 2007, and younger students a CCA as well, had devised a plan for completing the project. All students would have an opportunity to work on and paint the “spacer” tiles which mark the years when no specific events are marked, but a group of volunteer students with a special interest in art would meet after school to sketch and paint the event tiles for each century. So the Timeline Club, under the leadership of Mrs. Haynes and art teacher Kathy LeMay, was born!

During fall, 2007, the Timeline Club met once every two weeks for an hour after school, but in eager anticipation of being able to finish the A.D. section for Building 2 by the end of the school year, they increased their meetings to weekly starting in January of 2008. At various times about fifteen different students were involved in the sketching and painting of the years 1 – 1900 A.D., as well as four different moms.

Mrs. Becky LaMear lends a helping hand

By Saturday, April 19, 2008, the tiles were ready to mount on the facade of the building. A group of four dads and an older brother spent about seven hours mounting the timeline into place. The finished product is comprised of 460 tiles depicting one hundred ten discrete events of the years since Christ’s birth, beginning with the crucifixion in 33 A.D. and ending with the founding of Cornerstone Christian Academy in 1998.

Aside from the intrinsic benefits for those who participated the most, the remainder of the school is benefiting, as well. A “timeline game” has been created in which pairs of students compete to be the first to locate certain historical events on the face of the building. Since this involves a lot of running, it is sure to become a favorite among the students.

Future plans include: (1) a B.C. timeline for Building Three; (2) the Seven Days of Creation timeline for our kindergarten building; and (3) the Twenty-first Century Timeline for the administration building. We anticipate that former students will be coming back for many years to show friends the permanent evidence of their history study in the form of these beautiful tiles.

Crew Chief, Doug Haynes sets the final tile