In Rochester, N.Y., teaching 10-year-olds to see what's been built in their city and to understand what they see.

BY CHRISTINA Le BEAU

Royale Simmons is impish, inquisitive, topped with snug cornrows, and given to flirty sideways glances and grins. Sometimes his enthusiasm lets loose in a spastic dance of gyrating hips and rototilling arms, making him look like a miniature Elvis channeling a miniature Joe Cocker. Royale and the other fourth graders in Khieta Davis? cluttered but homey classroom at Flower City School in Rochester, N.Y., are good students, alert and orderly when Ms. Davis demands it. But they also giggle, gossip, dance, sing, poke each other, nap. The girls pass notes, inquiring about their status as each other?s best friends. The boys vie for elbow space at the clustered desks. They are 10-year-olds.

Standing in front of these 19 kids, I wondered where in those crowded minds my lessons would register. I?d come to Room 206 as a volunteer for the Landmark Society of Western New York, and over the next month my teaching partner and I would give eight lessons in architecture, local history, and historic preservation. The students would learn the difference between Italianate and Second Empire, the lines of hip versus gable roofs, the identifying marks of entablatures and quoinwork. They?d discover where Col. Nathaniel Rochester built the first town square and learn that one of their city?s main streets used to carry boats as part of the Erie Canal. Royale and his classmates would witness not only the effects of demolition by neglect, but also restorations carried out with attentive hands.

But what would they remember tomorrow and next week, next year, and in 10 years? Would the children sitting there with Harry Potter books and light-up sneakers be future preservationists, historians, and concerned citizens? The goal of this exercise, which the local landmark society calls the Built Environment Awareness Program, is just that?to show children how the built and natural environments interact, and why historic preservation and a sense of place are crucial to Rochester?s identity as a city and as a community.

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