ADKX-tra Credit
ADKX-tra Credit
One Room Schoolhouses
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How many kids are in your school? Not your class, your WHOLE SCHOOL. In Indian Lake (that's the town our hamlet of Blue Mountain Lake is in) there are just over 100 Kindergarten-12th grade students. In an elementary school we visit in Utica, there are almost 500–and that doesn’t include middle or high school! But what if your school was so small that all the students could fit in one room? That was the reality for many kids in the early days of public school, especially in rural areas like here in the Adirondacks. For many years kids around New York state went to school in tiny One Room Schoolhouses. Listen to this episode of ADKXtra Credit to learn more about what it was like to attend a one room schoolhouse of the past.
It’s early September, and you know what that means! School is back in session here in the ADKS! I can’t wait to get back to visiting schools and bringing the Adirondack Experience into your classrooms. When me and my friends in School Programs visit ADK schools, we usually visit one classroom at a time. That’s because most of the classrooms we visit have about 20-25 students, and our fun activities work best with that class size or smaller. But what if you had less than 25 students in your whole school? And instead of dividing up the grades, all the students learned together in one room, pre-K all the way up to highschool?! That would be a lot different wouldn't it?
As a matter of fact, most schools in the Adirondacks used to be like this. They were called “One Room Schoolhouses.”
TRANSITION - ADKX Podcast Intro - Ready to earn some extra credit? You are listening to ADKX-tra Credit, a podcast for students about the history of the Adirondack Mountains and the people that have lived, worked, and played here. The Adirondack Experience, the Museum on Blue Mountain Lake, is located in the heart of the Adirondack Park of New York State.
CONTENT
In a one room schoolhouse many years ago there was no principle, no custodians, and no librarians. Instead, there would be one teacher, who did all the jobs in the school–with the help of some of the older students.
Edna West Teall, an Adirondack artist, wrote about her experience with one room school houses in the 1880s in her book, “Adirondack Tales.”
TRANSITION - another voice
Schoolteachers were usually the best-dressed young women of the community…At five dollars a week, even six dollars in some districts, their earnings were about double those of the young men who hired out to work for farmers…Teachers were expected not to be too frivolous…Generally speaking, the country teachers, unless they were frivolous, were respected. They had experienced educational opportunities beyond those of most rural people they came in contact [with], and knowledge was a worthy thing.
Once the school term began the schoolhouse was virtually given over to the teacher. What went on in it was her responsibility, not only to instruct the pupils, but keep it clean and orderly… There were few big boys in school then. They were the ones who were given over to taking the teacher out and setting him or her in a snowdrift, “just for fun.” In some instances teachers were locked out of school by the big boys. They lost their jobs if they couldn’t keep discipline.
There were two school terms each year, fourteen weeks each. The school hours were from 9am to 12pm, and 1pm to 4pm, with fifteen-minute recesses in the morning and afternoon. Fall terms began on September 1 and spring terms on April 1.
…The teacher was expected to instruct all ages, even 3 and 4 year olds, up to those in their late teens. Sleepy little tots were laid on one of the benches to nap, with a coat for a pillow.
TRANSITION - sounds
Wow! That sounds a lot different than most public schools today doesn't it? Do you remember being in Pre-K and taking a nap every day? Can you imagine if you had to take your nap on a hard bench while other kids kept doing school work in the same room? Or what if you had to do your schoolwork while a toddler was taking a nap right next to you? Or even worse, what if a couple teenage boys locked your teacher outside?? YIKES!
Public school has come a long way since one room schoolhouses were common. Teachers have a lot more resources today, and luckily they don’t have to run the entire school alone and teach every subject anymore! Plus, today you can get breakfast and lunch at school. In a one room schoolhouse you had to bring in your own food every single day no matter what.
Students in one room schoolhouses typically brought very simple lunches, including things like: Cold pancakes, a hardboiled egg, a cold baked potato, a chunk of cheese, a slice of bread, a piece of fresh fruit, a gingersnap or raisin cookie, or a sandwich. I bet a sandwich sounds like one of the better options right? Well, they weren't peanut butter sandwiches, or ham sandwiches, oh no. Instead, common sandwich fillings for school lunches were molasses(hm maybe..), jam (ok that sounds pretty good), sugar(mmm), or–BACON FAT? LARD? I think I’m all set, no bacon fat sandwich for me thanks, I’ll stick to BLTs. On the plus side, you could warm your food up on the woodstove in cold weather, but many common school lunches don’t sound very appetizing, even warmed up.
The woodstove was another responsibility of the teacher. It wasn’t the teachers job to cut and stack firewood, usually members of the community and some of the older boys in school would do that. But the teacher did have to keep the fire going in the cold weather. Since no one lived inside the school, it didn’t make much sense to keep the fire burning overnight, which meant that when the teacher and students arrived at school in the morning, it might not be much warmer inside than it was outside. BRRR! Sometimes, some of the older boys would come to school early to light the fire, so that when the younger students and the teacher arrived, it would be warm and toasty inside.
Well, actually maybe not warm and toasty, one room schoolhouses weren’t very well insulated, and could be very drafty and chilly, even with the fire in the adirondack winter.
TRANSITION - sounds
Today students use lots of different tools to help them learn. Classrooms are often full of pencils, pens, markers, crayons, paint, paper, notebooks, cardboard, glue, posters, maps, white boards, dry erase markers–I could go on but honestly I'm running out of breath. Plus many students have their own chromebooks or laptops, each teacher usually has at least one computer and nearly every classroom has a smartboard or screen. We have so many resources now!!
Of course, in a one room schoolhouse many years ago, school supplies looked very different. For starters, things like chromebooks and smartboards hadn’t even been invented yet. And while pencils, pens, and paper existed, they were expensive, easily damaged, and you could use them up really fast.
So what did kids and teachers use instead? Well instead of a smart board, the teacher would use a blackboard, and instead of paper and pen or a chromebook, students would use slates with small pieces of soapstone, which worked like chalk and a chalkboard. Slate is a very durable and hard dark grey rock, while soapstone is very soft (as far as rocks go) and comes in many colors. It’s almost hard to believe, but you can write on slate using light colored soapstone, and then erase it with a cloth, it's super cool!
School buses definitely didn't exist in the 1880s when Edna West Teall was a child, but even if they did, there were some places in the Adirondacks that a school bus just simply could not go! On Raquette lake in the early 1900s students were taken to school in a boat! But more commonly students just walked to school, sometimes multiple miles away.
Students many years ago had to take tests just like students do today. Today, much testing is done online, but in the days of one room schoolhouses, tests were all done by hand with paper and pen. Though students studied many of the same subjects, some of the test questions from over 100 years ago sound pretty strange to us today.
Here are some examples of funny questions from a 1906 test.
“Why is so large a part of our bodies made up of muscles?”
“Why is bathing necessary for good health?”
“How many bushels of grain will a bin hold that is 10ft long, 4ft wide, and 5 feet deep.”
“Where is each of the following produced in large quantities: (a) Wool, (b) coffee, (c) oranges, (d) rice, (e) tea?”
Want to test your knowledge? Check out the questions we pulled from an 1891 2nd and 3rd grade test by following the link under the “connecting to curriculum” section on this podcasts webpage, found on our website, theadkx.org
TRANSITION -
You’re probably thinking “wow, I bet there are no more one room schoolhouses still open in NY.” But there actually are a few, however, they don’t work the same way they did long ago.
One example of a modern one room schoolhouse is Little Red, a public one room schoolhouse in Troy NY that teaches K-2nd grade. There are three teachers at Little Red, one for each grade. Once students finish 2nd grade they move to one of the larger public schools nearby to finish their education.
The Amish communities in NY build another more common example of one room schoolhouses. Sometimes they walk to school and sometimes they drive a buggy. It’s the responsibility of the older kids to keep the younger kids safe on the way to and from school.
TRANSITION - sounds
Did you know we have a one room schoolhouse here at the Adirondack Experience? The Reising Schoolhouse was located in Herkimer county in the township of Ohio NY, at the very bottom of the Adirondack Park. The Reising schoolhouse was built in 1907, and ran until 1945. The schoolhouse never had running water or electricity. In 1932, the teacher was paid 25$ a week, that's about $590 in today's money, and usually boarded with one of the students' families.
Lawrence Caldwell attended the Reising schoolhouse from 1932 until it closed in 1945, with his 12 siblings, at times the Caldwell children made up the entire school! Can you imagine if you went to school with all of your siblings and nobody else? A few of Lawrence's school chores included collecting water, and gathering and splitting firewood. To keep warm in cold weather, the boys sometimes split the firewood inside the schoolhouse in the boys coat room! To this day you can see the knicks and gashes in the floor from exuberant swings of the hatchet.
The Rising schoolhouse was moved to the ADKX in 1987. Today it’s a great place to learn more about one room schoolhouses in the Adirondacks. It’s also a great spot for our younger visitors to play with some historic and modern toys, read some children's books, or test out slates. Plus, the Reising schoolhouse is right next to our kids cabin! A kid-sized cabin full of fun activities and games.
Since starting my job in school programs here at the ADKX, I’ve learned A LOT about schools. We’ve never visited a one room schoolhouse on outreach, but you could visit ours on a field trip! If you get a chance to visit the Adirondack experience this fall, be sure to check out our Reising schoolhouse to learn even more about Adirondack one room schoolhouses.
TRANSITION - ADKX Podcast conclusion - Thank you for joining us for an episode of ADKX-tra Credit. Ask us a question, or tell us what you thought by clicking the link above the episode description. This podcast is brought to you by Adirondack Experience, the museum on Blue Mountain Lake. Our mission is to expand understanding of Adirondack history and the relationship between people and the Adirondack wilderness, fostering informed choices for the future. If you want to learn more fun Adirondack history visit our website theadkx.org