Students Reliving History by Studying Death Records

Cardboard tombstones line the walls and every sixth-grader tucks a stack of death certificates inside his or her desk.

But the classroom setting isn’t morbid to Madera teacher Bill Coate and his 30 students as they resurrect memories of the Chinese immigrants buried beneath the defunct town of Borden.

By digging through original government records, the youngsters are “doing” history instead of just reading about it, Coate said. They are detailing the modest lives of Chinese workers who helped build Madera and the once-thriving town of Borden in the 1870s.

“These kids are breaking new ground. No one has done this before. It brings the hair up on your arm,” Coate said.

The Daughters of the American Revolution named Coate the nation’s top history teacher in 1988 for having his sixth-grade classes research the lives of local pioneers. Coate has directed similar class projects at James Monroe Elementary School each year since 1985, when he developed what state education officials have dubbed “The Madera Method.”

One class sifted through letters to trace the life of a Civil War veteran. Another year, they detailed a Gold Rush miner’s life through diaries culled with the help of students in other states.

“The love for the past has always been with me,” Coate said. “I’ve taken my love and turned it into a tool to integrate the curriculum and give the students a reason to learn.”

In the process, he said, the students provide “a tremendous contribution to the county’s history.”

For example, this year’s project has piqued the interest of Chinese-American historians from San Francisco 160 miles northwest. Some believe as many as 100 Chinese workers are buried beneath seven tombstones that had been ignored for generations until the children started their research.

“They’re going through death certificates, leases, censuses. It’s tedious work and it’s amazing what they’ve come up with,” said Albert Cheng, representing the Chinese Historical Society of America.

Coate’s students are writing a small book recounting the lives of everyone they believe is buried in the cemetery. Their aim is to have the tiny cemetery declared a state historic site.

“They were here before we were, and they were forgotten just like that,” said sixth-grader Christina Alcala. “They were treated real bad, they died, got buried and were left alone.

“We’re going to bring them back to life.”

Fellow student Deleon Andrews pulled out the death certificate of Yeng Sing Wah, a Chinese cook who died in 1912 when a restaurant caught fire.

“He burned to death, and all the newspaper article said was how much money was lost,” Andrew said.

The students will continue the rest of the school year weeding through stacks of 19th-Century census reports, marriage records, death certificates and faded newspaper clippings to trace dozens of other lives.

“It leads into grammar, critical thinking and writing. It just opens up the entire curriculum,” Coate said.

“Teaching, besides being a performing art, has to have discovery at its core,” he said. “If the kids are not doing that, then you’re not teaching.”