Learning for Brentwood Students Goes Old School

boiling springs academy brentwood tn
photo from City of Brentwood

You may have driven by the two-story brick house along Moores Lane and wondered what takes place there. The Boiling Spring Academy is a restored, one-room schoolhouse built in 1832 located in Primm Historic Park. This year, more than 500 second-graders from Brentwood elementary schools will step back in time for “A Day in 1845.” The Brentwood Historic Commission developed a classroom program taught by retired teachers which includes penmanship, arithmetic (using slates and slate pencils), reading from the McGuffey Reader, reciting of maxims, history, and a spelling bee.

Historic Commission member and community volunteer, Carole Crigger, has been helping coordinate this education program for 13 years and is so excited to teach the children. Crigger said, “It really is a neat opportunity for a child to sit in a classroom, built in 1832, with no distractions and learn like children did back so many years ago. They just don’t get this experience in many places today.” More than 20 educational field trips are scheduled with schools throughout the months of April and May.

Anyone can visit the Boiling Spring Academy on each third Sunday of the month through October from 2-4pm. May 19 is the next open house.

Primm Historic Park contains some of the most important historical and cultural resources in Tennessee as Native Americans lived and left mounds as relics of the Mississippian Period. In 2003, the Primm family donated the two acres around the academy to the City of Brentwood. The city later obtained additional acres around the academy and mounds to buffer the site from future development.