Britton Middle School held its annual 19th Century Tea on Thursday, May 25, with eighth-grade teachers Tim Ahlin, Nancy Altman, Madeline Alexander, Joanne Doell, Ken Decher, John Bremis and Ron Woolf arranging the elaborate event focusing on history and manners.
Created by Doell, a social studies teacher, it is designed to give students a taste of what it was like to be a wealthy, upper-class American of the late 1800s.
The school’s library is decorated as a tea room, and good manners, proper decorum and good food are the focus of the day. Students are given lessons in the clothing, manners, hairstyles and do’s and don’ts of young ladies and gentlemen of the times.
Lessons include how to handle introductions, how to seat ladies at tables and how to behave in a formal setting. All students are required to create their own “backstory” about the person they would be, complete with information about their family’s wealth and circumstances.
Because the students are studying the Civil War (1861-1865), many choose to be plantation or factory owners, a banker or an officer in one of the armies, an abolitionist, an author, a wealthy entrepreneur, a freed slave, or the wife or daughter of one of these. Integration of curriculum is an important feature of Britton’s tea.
Parents help prepare and serve the food during the event and gather costumes. All staff are invited to go by the library and take tea sometime during the day.
