Fourth-Graders Impressed by Supreme Court's Architecture, Inner Workings

A year's worth of classroom study came to life Friday for Middletown fourth-graders, when all three classes at Macdonough Elementary visited to the state Supreme Court.

Buster Nelson, fourth-grade teacher, said 59 students took part in the field trip. In preparation, Nelson said, "we discussed the three branches of government — how they balance each other out and what each branch's specific functions are."

They did that with a hands-on lesson plan.

"We did a little exercise in class in which we broke up into two different groups. The people sitting closest to the board would get less homework, so of course those sitting furthest from the board objected" and each had to present supporting arguments.

"They learned how our process of making laws works," Nelson said, with equal representation in the Senate and proportional representation in the House of Representatives.

This works best, Nelson said, because of the "emotional component of remembering. It's one thing to read something but when there's an emotional connection, it sticks better in their memories."

One of the highlights of the day, Nelson said, was the court's magnificent design — inside and out.

"There was a lot of reaction to the architecture the we were seeing," Nelson said.

"We got to see the big room and got to see the paintings; there were 13 of them there — the Supreme Court Justices," said fourth-grader Selena Daniels, 9, Nelson's student at Macdonough.

Wood is a major component of the high-ceilinged chambers, as is the marble interior. There is a balcony of carved oak over the courtroom entrance, and the wood paneling in courtroom comes from white oak — the state tree — and Connecticut's familiar vine-and-tree motif is carved into each chair.

"They had 12 gold candles all around. And then we visited the Museum [of Connecticut History]. They had all the guns and we got to see them and see all the pictures of people with the guns," Selena said excitedly.

Nelson was impressed the fourth-graders had a lot of questions for Sen. Paul Doyle, D-Wethersfield. And not one was too timid to ask.

"Intimidated? They certainly weren't."

"They were impressed by people they had read about showing up in memorials at the Capitol, like Prudence Crandall the state heroine and Nathan Hale the state hero," Nelson explained.

The whole experience, Nelson said, "definitely encouraged their curiosity and wonder about their world and how they fit into the work of the Legislature."

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