The One-Room Schoolhouse
BY: Kaila Butler
The Students
The students would start their day off walking to school and playing games to pass the time, so the walk wouldn't be as boring. The students were children of farmers, and taking care of the farm was the families main priority. If the farm had to be attened to alot then the oldest kid(s) would stay home and work on the farms and the little kids would go to school and teach the older kids what they learned that day. The age range of the students would be 5-16 and the grades would be from first grade to eigth grade, each school had 6-40 students. The students would sit in hand made deks and write on slates with slate pencils, and help their friends if they had any trouble with their work. The studnets would have certin responsibilities. The older students would have to get water from the well since the younger kids can't carry the water and the liitle kids would beat the chalk out of the erasers. The students would bring their lunch everyday in a pail. The students had a very hardworking life from going to school and always having a job to do on the farm.
History of the One Room School Houses
The pne room school houses started in 1869 by the welsh in North America. When the Welsh immagrated to north america they needed educstion for the kinds, and the schools were made by the church, to educate the children about North America. The schools would be made of sod, but later on is being built with wood and brick, because the wood and the brick were more durable.The schols were origanaly two stories, but everyone thoughth that the north winds would tear down the top story so they consalidated to only 1 story building. The school was very patriotic, they always started the day off saying the pledge and singing a patritic song. One interesting fact is that in 1872 a school was built before the church, so we know that this town major priority was education for the children which you didn't find alot back in those days. 1890 was the start of a huge immagration period, and brought 50 different ethnic groups to North America. There were lots of difficullty in that time, but the schools brought them together.
Teachers
There was only one teacher for very school and they had very little training. They would either teach rigth out of school or only have one year of training. She had to be single, be involed in her church, live close to the city so that the school board could keep an eye on her and many other expectations. She had to be everything an, artist, musicain, nurse and a physical educator. They were expected to do alot. In 1931 a new radio station got put on air, that helped teach the kids about writting and drawing. They taught the kids to have an imagination when it came to fine arts, and thought that the kids could color, draw, or write anything they wanted, becuase they didn't want all the kids to be same, but to be different. The teachers had to very hard on the kids, and were judged on how well they were teaching by how well the Holloween and Christmas shows went. If they went well then she was a good teacher, but if they went bad they were bad teachers. The teachers did not have a very good cirriculum and didn't have a lot of resouces to choose from either. There was even a quote that a Kansas homesteader said, "No charts, no maps, no pictures, no books, just spellers."
Drawbacks
Inefective teachers, that would not disipline the kids and would not teach the circulum right. Attendence of the teachers is a very big thing and if thye didn't show up you did't learrn. and if you didn;t show up you didn;t learn as well. The schools didn't have alot of money, so they didn't have good libraries which made the cirriculum bad. The main things that made the schools close was that they were very unorganized and unsanitary. Consloadating was a big move for the one room schools, but many people belivesd that these schools produced better citizens.