Students break bread with history

Newport fourth-graders go native in food-based project to study colonial life on California’s early 19th century missions.For her class project on life in the California missions, Melia Spooner-Heath decided to cook an authentic mission meal, circa 1800. And that meant forsaking Betty Crocker.

Nine-year-old Melia, a fourth-grader at Newport Elementary School, baked corn bread and served it to her class last week. She and her older brother had ventured to the San Bernardino Mountains to pick acorns, then cracked them with bricks, leached the tannin from them and ground them into dust with a Native American pounding stone.

In the end, Melia said, the dish came out fine -- even if it took days to make.

“Everyone thought it was pretty good,” she said. “It’s sweet.”

On Thursday, Melia’s bread was among the projects lining the multipurpose room for Newport Elementary’s Mission Walk, an event that capped a month-long unit on California’s colonial history. The school’s three fourth-grade classes created models of the 26 missions and also cooked, painted pictures and made other crafts that evoked the West Coast of two centuries ago.

The world of the California missions was a complex one -- and one that has divided historians for years. On one hand, the Spanish padres who founded the missions paved the way for modern-day California society; on the other hand, they did so at the expense of the Native Americans by converting them, sometimes harshly, to Western ways of life.

Teacher Nancy Lester said the mission unit didn’t shy away from the darker parts of the past, but didn’t dwell on them, either.

“It’s reported in our social-studies books that the Indians were mistreated, that they were expected to wear different clothing, eat different food, have a different religion, and they weren’t allowed to leave,” she said. “We told them the facts, but that’s not the focal point of our lessons.”

Culture clash notwithstanding, the missions were an essential part of California history, and the three fourth-grade teachers at Newport Elementary -- Lester, Bruce Olander and Kathleen Wingerd -- gave students a thorough tour of their heritage. On Friday, the classes visited Mission San Juan Capistrano; over winter break, many students had gone on their own to missions around the state.

Across California every year, fourth-graders participate in the Mission Project, which opens itself to different kinds of creativity. Newport Elementary student Heidi Fults, 9, baked a cake for her class in the shape of Mission San Francisco de Asis -- with crackers for the roof, a white-chocolate front porch and a licorice cross on top.

Despite the impeccable artistry, she said, the class intended to eat the cake after the Mission Walk.

Marco Bruscia, 9, made a clay statue of Father Junipero Serra, the founder of the California missions. Despite the austere conditions of mission life, Marco said he found it fascinating.

“It looks like an interesting life, to live on a mission,” he said. “The food is different. It’s amazing how good it tastes, though.”

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot education writer Michael Miller visits a campus in the Newport-Mesa area and writes about his experience.

20060214iumyg6nc(LA)A replica of the San Diego mission created by student Levi Chang is on display during Mission Walk at Newport Elementary.20060214iumyfhncPHOTOS BY DON LEACH / DAILY PILOT(LA)Wyatt Walton, Marco Bruscia and Eric Williams sit behind Marco’s sculpture of Junipera Serra as part of the Mission Walk, a study of California Missions by Newport Elementary School fourth-graders.