About Blackwell

            The Blackwell History of Education Museum was named after Ruth and Harold Blackwell in recognition of their generous support.  Ruth Blackwell was a teacher and taught in one-room schools in South Dakota during the 1930s and 1940s.  Many of the museum’s first books and artifacts were donated from Ruth Blackwell’s own sizable collection.  Together with her husband Harold, a WWI veteran and lawyer, the Blackwells provided a significant endowment fund to the museum.

            Today, the Blackwell Museum has nearly 10,000 textbooks, a few of which, such as the Blackwell’s Latin books, are more than 400 years old.  The Blackwell Museum has a large collection of hornbooks, battledores, primers, readers, spellers, as well as many other texts and reference materials.  In addition, the Blackwell Museum has collections of slates, pens, inkwells, samplers, prints, student work, report cards, and a variety of documents.

 

The Mission of the Blackwell Museum:

¨      To collect and preserve educational artifacts and related materials for posterity.

¨      To exhibit its collection to the public in an interesting and informative fashion.

¨      To make the collections available to faculty and students for scholarly study and research.

¨      To collaborate with local schools and community groups in the study and dissemination of educational history.

Contact Information
The Blackwell History of Education Museum
The Learning Center
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, IL 60115
Phone:  (815) 753-1236
Fax:  (815) 753-1258

The Milan Township District #83 Schoolhouse

Dedicated in 1900, the schoolhouse of Milan Township District #83 replaced an earlier one built in the 1800s, which became too small to adequately handle the student enrollments.  Through the years, it was commonly known by several other names, including Tysdal and Berg School.  It occupied a small area on the northwest corner of what was originally the Osmund Knutson Tysdal farm at Perry and Tower Roads.  It was approximately thirteen miles southwest of DeKalb.

           The schoolhouse, a 24-foot by 36-foot structure, was built by farmers of the district at a cost of $850.  Soon after its construction, the State of Illinois designated this schoolhouse as the best schoolhouse in northern Illinois.  A coal-burning furnace in the basement heated the building. The heated air from the furnace rose through a single large grate in the classroom floor.  The school had no well or indoor plumbing so students used two outhouses behind the school.  Drinking water was provided by the neighbor across the road.

            During each academic year, a teacher provided education for students in grades one through eight in the large, central classroom.  Enrollment varied from year to year, but commonly totaled twenty or more.  In addition to taking reading, writing and arithmetic, students received instruction in geography, physiology, grammar, U. S. history and drawing.

Because of a decline in the school-age population in the district, the school was closed at the end of the academic year in 1942.  During its existence, over fourteen teachers taught in this school building, half of whom served just one year, and among which only one was a man.  Eight of the women received their teacher preparation at Northern Illinois Normal School renamed Northern Illinois State Teachers College in 1921.  Because of the school’s connection with Northern Illinois University and the university’s continuing commitment to teacher education, the Milan Township District #83 schoolhouse was reconstructed on Northern’s campus and dedicated on September 12, 1999, almost a hundred years after it was built.

This information was compiled by Rich Casey and is contained in various pamphlets handed out by the Museum.

Work on the schoolhouse reconstruction began early in the summer of 1999 with the completion of the Country School Committee’s successful fundraising campaign of $125,000.  The reconstruction followed the design of the original building and was planned with guidance from Ward Construction, with Jim Ward serving as general contractor and consultant.

The following components of the original school building were carefully removed and included in the new building:
 
ü      All interior woodwork (door trim, window trim)

ü      Signature sign on the front of the building

ü      Heat register from the floor

ü      Some construction beams

ü      Four interior hanging lights

ü      Water cooler stand

ü      Many desks from the original school

In addition, many original artifacts from country schoolhouses located throughout the Midwest are displayed in the building.  These items include the bell in the bell tower, the teacher’s desk, and the “hickory stick.”  The reconstructed building has a new bell tower, natural gas heating (so students today do not get to suffer the cold), and a cement ramp to allow access to the building to persons with disabilities.

This information was compiled by Rich Casey and is contained in various pamphlets handed out by the Museum.

The School, The Community and NIU

The Country School Committee, with members from both DeKalb County and Northern Illinois University, worked hard to reconstruct the school and provide a valuable resource to NIU pre-service teachers and local school children alike.  Since Northern was founded as a school to train teachers, many of whom would teach in rural, one-room schoolhouses, it seemed only fitting to have the reconstructed Milan Township schoolhouse on campus.

The history of one-room schools has much to offer contemporary teachers, teachers-in-training, and educational researchers.  That history may give us insights that can help us deal with the challenges we face today.  One-room schools had what several new, more sophisticated education models are suggesting we need today: small classrooms, individualized instruction, programs that allow students to proceed at their own rate, peer tutoring, and the close involvement of committed parents and community members. By looking to the past, we can see how effective these methods were and how to improve them for use today.  We can also investigate how rural communities handled modern day problems such as local control, school funding, values in education, and curricular concerns.

NIU and the larger DeKalb community are committed to preserving this legacy.  The Blackwell History of Education Museum has developed programs and events for school children and adults that will bring them into contact with life as it was experienced in country schools.  As part of the Blackwell Museum, the Milan Township school will serve as a reminder of what education once was and offer educators, both young and old, the opportunity to touch their region’s past.  Many children will have the opportunity to learn about the way their grandparents went to school and learned. 

This information was compiled by Rich Casey and is contained in various pamphlets handed out by the Museum.

The School Building

          Many one-room schoolhouses were simple buildings.  The farmers who built them had little money to pay for a fancy school.  These little schoolhouses were built to accommodate the number of students in the area and could run anywhere from 16 by 18 feet to 30 by 50 feet.  Generally, the school was rectangular with three windows on each side and a door at the front.  The floor was either dirt or wood planks.  Many schools had little or no insulation, so they would get pretty cold in the winter.  The school was normally painted white, not red, because white paint was less expensive for the farmers. Schools built in the early 1800s did not have cloakrooms or bell towers.  These were added around the end of the 19^th century if the district could afford them. 

            Outhouses were also a part of the building process.  The number and size of the outhouses depended on the wealth of the farmers in the district.  Many of the poorer schools had only one outhouse that served both the boys and the girls.  If the farmers were wealthy, they built separate outhouses for the boys and girls.  Also, some outhouses accommodated only one child at a time.  However, if money was available, it was possible to build an outhouse to accommodate two or three children at once.  These outhouses were placed a distance away from the school.  Sometimes they were placed at separate corners of the school property, such as the girls’ facility on the northwest corner and the boys’ on the southwest corner.

            Each school had a different location for its water supply.  Sometimes, a pump was placed in front of the school so the children did not have to go far for water.  Other times, water would have to be carried over from the neighbor’s well in a large bucket. 

Myrna J. Grove gives a good description of one-room schoolhouses in her book, Legacy of One-Room Schools (Morgantown, PA: Mastof Press, 2000), beginning on page 29.

Equipment of a One-room Schoolhouse

            A one-room school had very little as far as modern equipment is concerned.  The teacher had the very basics.  The oak desks in the room were either one or two seaters, depending on how much the district could spend.  Each desk was bolted to the floor.  This practice did not allow for movement of the desks, which is common in schoolrooms today. These desks had a lid that lifted and a hole, normally at the front right side of the desk, for an ink well.  The desks ranged in size, as did the students.  The smallest desks were in the front of the classroom where the smallest children sat.  The desks gradually got bigger towards the back of the room to accommodate the older and bigger children.  The teacher’s desk sat at the front of the classroom.

            Along the wall near the teacher’s desk was the recitation bench, a plain wood bench that served as seats for the students reciting their lessons.  Often at the front of the class were pictures of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, a blackboard with the alphabet above it, a United States flag and a clock.  If students were thirsty (or antsy), they would go to the back of the room for a drink out of the large earthen container called the water cooler.  Sometimes, students would bring their own cups to get a drink out of the container.  In poorer school districts, the entire class used a community dipper to get a drink out of the container.  This community dipper spread germs, which meant that many of the children were sick at the same time.  Sometimes, when a particularly bad illness was passed around, the school would close until most students were healthy again.  (And we tell children not to put their mouths on the drinking fountain!)  By the 1920’s, the communal dipper was deemed unsanitary and no longer used.

            Slates and slate pencils were very handy in one-room schools.  Children were able to do their work on slates and show the teacher, then correct the mistakes without using any paper.  Paper was expensive.  Either children did not have any or tried not to use the little they had.  The slate boards made it easy to teach a lesson, erase the work and move on to another lesson without any waste. By the 1930s, slate boards had largely been replaced by paper and pencils.  Today, some teachers use small dry-erase boards during their classes.  These dry erase boards are about the same size as slate boards and serve a very similar purpose.  Slate pencils were still produced and used in the early 1900s but were replaced by chalk by the 1930s. In many classrooms today, white boards and dry-erase markers are replacing chalk and chalkboards, which were predominately made out of slate from the late 1800s until the 1960s. 

One of the more famous (or infamous) pieces of equipment in the one-room school was the pot-bellied stove.  Many former students have written about their experiences with the pot-bellied stove which was normally placed in the middle of the classroom.  They alternately loved it and hated it.  Usually students sitting near the stove in winter roasted while those far from the stove froze.  Most schools were not well insulated, so cold air would leak into the building.  Schools started replacing the ill-suited potbelly stove as early as 1900 with a better heating system. The Milan Township District #83 Schoolhouse was built with a basement that housed the heating system and a grate that allowed the heat to rise into the schoolroom and heat the building.  With this method, there were no unlucky children who roasted.

Much has been written about the equipment of one-room country schools. Information about desks was gathered from http://www.pbs.org/kcet/publicschool/evolving_classroom/furniture.html (accessed 15 March 2004) and from page 3 of Jerry Apps’ One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections from Wisconsin (U.S.: Palmer Publications, 1996).

Information about the recitation bench was found on page 50 of Myrna J. Grove’s Legacy of One-Room Country Schools (Morgantown, PA: Mastof Press, 2000).

Information about items found at the front of the room can be found on page 3 of Jerry Apps’ One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections from Wisconsin (U.S.: Palmer Publications, 1996).

Information about the community dipper was found on page 15 of Good Old Days Remembers the Little Country Schoolhouse (Berne, ID: House of White Birches, 1999) edited by Ken and Janice Tate; page XVIII of Luther Bryan Clegg’s The Empty Schoolhouse: Memories of One-Room Texas Schools (U. S.: Texas A&M University Press, 1997); and at the website http://www.mapmaker.rutgers.edu/NorhtBrunswick/oldnorthbrunswick.html (accessed 15 March 2004).

Information about one-room school libraries can be found on page 60 of Myrna J. Grove’s Legacy of One-Room Country Schools (Morgantown, PA: Mastof Press, 2000).

Information about slates and slate pencils was found at the website: http://www.pbs.org/kcet/publicschool/evolving_classroom/slate.html (accessed 15 March 2004) and at http://www.pioneerscholesschool.org/pages/manual/copybooks.html (accessed 29 March 2004). The latter website also contains information about copybooks. Also, http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/toys/crayons.html (accessed 16 March 2004) contains information about slate pencils, chalk and Crayola crayons. The dates mentioned about chalkboards were found at http://www.cnn.com/2002/fyi/teachers.ednews/06/02/chalkboard.history.ap/ (accessed 15 March 2004).

Information about the potbelly stove can be found on page 14 of Raymond Bial’s One-Room School (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999).

Expectations in the Classroom

Children in one-room schools were expected to behave and be productive. They were to be silent while they worked unless they were reciting lessons. They would read a story or poem and memorize part or all of it and recite it to the teacher during recitation. The idea was that the only way a student learned was through memorization, so this was stressed in the one-room schoolhouse. The students memorized much of their work, not only stories and poems, but the multiplication tables, geography and many other lessons. The students were also expected to work on their lessons and nothing else. They would be punished if they were caught doing anything but their work. Also, they were taught to be respectful to the teacher and to other students. These expectations are very similar to those of today’s students, who may not memorize as much, but are still expected to do their work and be respectful to the teacher and other students.

However, there were expectations for the students in the one-room schoolhouse that are not expected of students today. The older students had particular duties. Some had to bring in wood for the fire, and some even had to start the fire in the morning. Others had to get the water and bring it in, clean the floors, chalkboard and erasers. Sometimes they were even given the duty of helping the younger students with their studies. If they did not do their duties properly, the whole class would suffer.

Much information has been written on student expectations in the one-room schoolhouse. For this section, I have used Walter E. Fuller’s The Old Country School (Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), pages 11-12; Myrna J. Grove’s Legacy of One-Room Schools (Morgantown, PA: Mastof Press, 2000), page 65; and Jerry Apps’ One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections from Wisconsin (U.S.: Palmer Publications, 1996), page 57.

Punishments

When students got out of line (were not doing their work, were distracting the class, passing notes, whispering, being disrespectful, etc.), a teacher would punish them as she saw fit. Some teachers preferred the “hickory stick” and gave the disobedient scholar a swift spanking. Sometimes the teacher used a ruler to rap the child on the knuckles or spank them. Other times the teacher made the child stand in the corner facing the wall, hold a heavy book, or stand on one leg for as long as she felt was necessary. Obviously corporal punishment was not yet outlawed.

Many parents did not complain that their children were punished. They were angry with the child for misbehaving, not at the teacher for punishing. These parents were often embarrassed that their child had misbehaved and some punished the child further once he/she got home. Such parents saw no problem with the teacher keeping order in the classroom however she/he saw fit.

There are many books about one-room schools that contain information on punishments students received. For this section, I have used Raymond Bial’s One-Room School (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999), page 25; Myrna J. Grove’s Legacy of One-Room Schools (Morgantown, PA: Mastof Press, 2000), pages 65-69; and Luther Bryan Clegg’s The Empty Schoolhouse: Memories of One-Room Texas Schools (U. S.: Texas A&M University Press, 1997), page XIX.

The Teachers

Clothes

Teachers’ dress was very similar to that of the children they taught. They wore simple clothes, perhaps something they themselves had made. In the early 1900s (link to pictures from the 1900s), female teachers wore long skirts with petticoats and blouses with puffy sleeves. Sometimes they would wear jackets matching the skirts. They wore stockings and dark, ankle high lace-up shoes to complete the outfit. The male teachers wore suits with ties and dark, ankle high lace-up shoes with dress socks to match.

In the 1930s, female teachers wore short-sleeved, long dresses that went to about the mid-calf. They also wore skirts of the same length and button shirts, sometimes with a jacket and scarf to make a suit. They either wore slip-on high heels (only really about an inch high) or lace-up or buckle shoes that did not cover the ankles. They normally wore hose rather than socks. The male teachers wore dark suits with vests and ties and dark, lace-up dress shoes and dress socks.

Much of the description of teacher’s clothes of the 1900s came from Jonesborough-Washington County History Museum’s Oak Hill School Heritage Education Center: An 1886 One-Room Schoolhouse Teacher’s Resource and Curriculum Guide (Tennessee: East Tennessee State University Press, 1999), page 13. This information was confirmed by observation of photos of teachers from the 1900’s on various websites and books. Teacher dress from the 1930s was observed from photos on various Internet websites and in various books. (Observation by Rebecca A. Edwards, NIU, April 2004).

Rules to Live By

Each school district set up rules for the teacher to follow. Some of them were very strict, but they were important to the farmers in the district and made sense to them. Following is a list of rules for a teacher in 1872:

1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.
2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s session.
3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church.
5. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.
6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
7. Every good teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not be a burden on society.
8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity, and honesty.
9. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.

Obviously there was a double standard for male teachers and women teachers.
(This list of teacher rules can be found on page 29 of Raymond Bial’s One-Room School (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999).)

Following is a list of rules for a teacher in 1915:

1. You will not marry during the term of your contract. You are not to keep company with men.
2. You must be home between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. unless attending a school function.
3. You may not loiter downtown in any ice cream stores.
4. You may not travel beyond the city limits unless you have permission of the chairmen of the board.
5. You may not smoke cigarettes.
6. You may not under any circumstances dye your hair.
7. You may not dress in bright colors.
8. You may not ride in a carriage or automobile with any man unless he be your father or brother.
9. You must wear at least two petticoats.
10. Your dresses must not be any shorter than 2 inches above the ankles.

(This list of teacher rules can be found on page 29 of Jerry Apps’ One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections from Wisconsin (U.S.: Palmer Publications, 1996). The rest of this information can be found on pages 28-30.)

These rules were to be followed very strictly. If a teacher broke any one of these rules, she/he was dismissed immediately.

The reason for the rule against marriage is that it would normally be followed by pregnancy, and the farmers did not want a pregnant woman teaching their children. Also, the teacher would most likely be unable to finish the term if she were to become pregnant and it would be difficult to replace her. As for the other rules, the farmers felt it was improper for a teacher to behave that way, so they made rules prohibiting that type of conduct.

The farmers expected teachers to be models to hold up for their children. If they did not want their children to do certain activities, they would forbid these activities for the teacher. For example, the farmers did not want their children smoking, so they did not allow the teacher to smoke. They were also very careful to ensure that the teacher was respected. They did this by forbidding any actions that could call the teacher’s honor into question. For example, a female teacher spending too much time in the company of a man alone would call her honor into question and so was forbidden unless the man happened to be a male relative. The farmers wanted to avoid controversy, and they did so by instituting these rules.

Duties

The teacher had many duties. As well as teaching the students, she was responsible for the upkeep of the school. She was the school’s janitor. She had to sweep the floor every day after school and scrub it with hot, soapy water every week. She had to clean the chalkboards and erasers everyday as well. She also had to make sure that, during winter, the fire was started well before the students arrived. Many times, she gave these jobs to the older students.

She also had the responsibility of preparing for school events such as the popular Christmas pageant. She not only had to decide what to include in the program each year, she had to teach each student what his or her part was and decorate the building for it. There was no rest for the country school teacher!

Page 29 of Jerry Apps’ One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections from Wisconsin (U.S.: Palmer Publications, 1996) and page 28 of Raymond Bial’s One-Room School (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999) contain pertinent information on teacher’s duties at the one-room schoolhouse.

Living Accommodations

The living accommodations for teachers differed from district to district. Many times, the teacher would board with a local family until she was able to buy a house of her own (which was rare) or by marriage (which would disqualify her of teaching for the next term). Another possibility was that she only boarded with the family until she moved on to another district, which was a frequent practice.

The teacherage was another possibility. It was a room added to the one-room schoolhouse to serve as living accommodations for the teacher. Occasionally school districts added this room to the schoolhouse itself rather than boarding teachers in the home of one of the farmers in the area. Teacherages were rather convenient for teachers since they would not have to walk to school. They could just roll out of bed and prepare the school for the day.

Information about teachers’ living accommodations can be found in a story written by Mary Boydstun contained in Luther Bryan Clegg’s The Empty Schoolhouse: Memories of One-Room Texas Schools (U. S.: Texas A&M University Press, 1997) on page 52. Other information about teacher accommodations can be found on page 43 of Myrna J. Grove’s Legacy of One-Room Country Schools (Morgantown, PA: Mastof Press, 2000).

A Typical Day in the Milan Schoolhouse

In the winter, the teacher, and sometimes the older children, would arrive at the schoolhouse much earlier than the others to start the fire and prepare for the school day. The younger children of Milan Township would arrive and warm themselves by the large vent. The teacher would greet the scholars as they came. The day would begin at about 9 a.m. The teacher would ring the large bell in the bell tower to announce the beginning of the day and to hurry along any students still trudging to school. The class would stand by their seats, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and then would either sing a song or listen to a moral story from the Bible read by the teacher. On cold winter days, the teacher may allow the students to sing and march because their feet would be tingly and itchy from being nearly frozen and then warming quickly.

Once these activities were done, the morning lessons would begin. The day normally started with a reading lesson. During this lesson, each grade would have a turn to come up to the recitation bench and recite a passage for the teacher. Other grades would be busy working at their desks preparing for their turn at the recitation bench or doing other assignments. Following the reading lesson would be a writing or spelling lesson, depending on the day. During the writing lesson, the children learned good penmanship, a very important skill. After this, there was a short break. During the break, the children had a chance to use the privy, or outhouse, and get something to drink or just move around. After the break the children would begin their arithmetic lesson. The children would do their work on slates. The teacher would check the younger children’s work and would have the older children recite drills. Once the arithmetic lesson was over, it was time for lunch. If the weather was nice, the children could eat and play outdoors. If not, they would have to eat and play indoors.

After lunch and recess, the children would be back at work. The afternoon lessons generally consisted of history, geography, civics, language and maybe some nature study on nice days. The teacher would decide which lessons would be appropriate. The day would end around 4 p.m.. The students would file out of the school and walk the mile or two home. The teacher, and possibly a few older children or someone who had gotten into trouble during the day, would stay behind and clean the building in preparation for the next day.

I followed the general schedule suggested for one-room school teachers found on page 8 in the Aids to Teachers and School Directors of The One-Teacher School written by the Illinois State Superintendent of Schools in 1927. The rest of this information was fleshed out from what I had written in this book before this section. (Rebecca A. Edwards, NIU, April 2004)

1. Ask historical questions about schools in the 1900s or depression era and seek out the answers via a trip to a one-room schoolhouse. (Standard 16A1b)
2. Describe how people in your area viewed the world in the early 1900s or depression era compared to today. (Standard 16A1c)
3. Learn how one-room schools impacted the social environment of the local community in the early 1900s or the depression era. (Standard 16D1a)
4. Describe how the local environment has changed since the early 1900s. (Standard 16E1a)

Late Elementary

1. Ask historical questions about schools in the 1900s or depression era and seek out the answers via a trip to a one-room schoolhouse. (Standard 16A2c)
2. Learn how the Great Depression affected children and gain a better understanding of how that affected later politics, economical decisions, etc. (Standard 16C2c)
3. Describe the various roles of men, women and children at home and at school in the 1900s or the depression era. (Standard 16D2a)
4. Describe ways in which the one-room school was vital to those who participated in the westward movement. (Standard 16D2b)

Junior High

1. Gain a better understanding of the characteristics of rural America during the early 1900s. (Standard 16D3a)
2. Describe characteristics of different kinds of families in America during the early 1900s and how they affected their social environment. (Standard 16D3b)
3. Describe how the largely rural population of the United States adapted, used and changed the environment in the early 1900s. (Standard 16E3b)
4. Describe the impact of urbanization and suburbanization on the one-room schoolhouse and how this has impacted the lives of those who chose to stay in rural areas since the depression era. (Standard 16E3c)

Geography

Early Elementary

1. Identify ways people of the early 1900s or depression era depended on and interacted with their local environment compared to today. (Standard 17C1a)
2. Identify the changes in the geographic characteristics of our region since the early 1900s. (Standard 17D1a)

Late Elementary

1. Use a map to better understand the location of one-room schools and how this affected people in the area. (Standard 17A2b)

Social Systems

Early Elementary

1. Compare the roles of individuals in a one-room school and on a farm in the early 1900s or 1930s to those of today. (Standard 18B1a)
2. Learn why the one-room school was a major social institution in a community in the 1900s. (Standard 18B1b)

Late Elementary

1. Describe interactions of individuals, groups and institutions in the community in the early 1900s or depression era and compare to today. (Standard 18B2a)
2. Describe the ways in which one-room schools met the needs of society in the early 1900s or depression era. (Standard 18B2b)

Junior High

1. Analyze how individuals and groups interacted with and within institutions like the one-room schoolhouse during the early 1900s and the depression era. (Standard 18B3a)
2. Explain how the one-room school was a social institution and contributed to the development and transmission of culture. (Standard 18B3b)
3. Describe ways in which the one-room schoolhouse maintained common beliefs among a diverse U.S. population during the early 1900s. (Standard 18C3a)
4. Explain how diverse groups have contributed to U.S. social systems during the 1900s or the depression era. (Standard 18C3b)

I used the Illinois State Standards found at http://www.isbe.state.il.us/ils/ under the social science category. I selected the standards (16, 17 and 18) that a visit to the Milan Schoolhouse would meet. (Rebecca A. Edwards, NIU,April 2004)

Before You Visit

Watch a Video

The Blackwell History of Education Museum has two videos for teachers to rent and view in their classrooms. They are One Room, One People (running time 32 minutes) and A Day in the Life of a One-Room School (running time 11 minutes).

One Room, One People is a documentary about life in one-room schools in DeKalb County. A Day in the Life of a One-Room School describes a typical day in a one-room schoolhouse. Either of these videos would give students a good background on one-room schoolhouses before visiting the Milan Township District #83 Schoolhouse.

View Pictures

Viewing pictures from the 1890s to 1900s and 1930s will help students prepare outfits for their visit to the Milan Schoolhouse. These pictures are contained in the Appendix. Many others can be found on the Internet. As a pre-visit activity, you can have your students view these pictures and imagine what the children must have been thinking. Also, you can have students search on the Internet for pictures to print.

Discussions

Note: Pick the era your students are to interpret and tailor the discussion for that time period. Many topics to discuss were similar in the 1900s and 1930s, but conditions were not exactly the same.

To help your students understand the kind of life children led during the 1900s and 1930s have them discuss farm life. They can talk about the different kinds of animals on a farm, how to care for these animals and their importance. Also, they should discuss the kinds of chores children might have had to do before and after school. Additionally, students can identify/describe the purposes of a farm, the seasonal changes on the Midwestern farm, and major buildings and their functions. For a fun, hands-on activity, the children can do a farm word search and label a picture of a farm. (These worksheets will be provided.) Another topic to discuss that relates to life on a farm would be a child’s schedule for the day. Students can discuss what would be required of them before they head off to school. What do they think farm children would have to do before school? Once they have discussed this, have them consider the duties they have at home before they go off to school. How are their duties today different from duties of children in the 1900s or 1930s? Which do they like better and why?

Getting to school in the 1900s and 1930s was different from getting to school today. In 1900, there were few cars in rural America, so children walked to school, hitched a ride on a neighbor’s wagon or, if they were very lucky, rode their horse. Some schools actually had a stable area behind the schoolhouse to house horses during the school day. This was rare as most schools could not afford stables.

In the 1930s, some families or teachers had cars. If children were lucky, they could get a ride to school from their parents or an especially nice teacher. There were no school buses for these children either. Most of the time children walked to school. Children had to walk to school in all kinds of weather - in rain or shine or when it was below freezing and the snow was drifting higher than their heads. This would have been especially bad if it was windy. (Wind chills, brrr!) Have the children imagine what it would be like to walk a mile or so to school, since that is the distance most students had to walk. Also, have them imagine how they would feel if they had to walk through a snowstorm. For fun, have the children decide how they would like to go to school and have them write a little story about the things they might see on the way.

If the children arrived at school early, they would play with their friends who had also arrived early. This was like a recess before school had even begun. The teacher would ring a bell to signal to children dilly dallying on their way to school that they were to hurry or risk being late. If a school had a bell tower, this bell would be rung as a signal. If the school did not have one, a handbell would be used. After that, the teacher would ring the handbell to signal that it was time for school to start. The children would file into the classroom, girls on one side and boys on the other and stand by their desks ready for morning exercises such as saying the Pledge of Allegiance and singing a song or two.

Students can discuss what kind of games they would have played before school officially started and how these activities would be different from or similar to activities of students in the 1900s and 1930s. Also, students can discuss the similarities of the beginning of classes today and in the 1900s or 1930s. In both times, bells are rung to signify the beginning of school. To start the day, many classes today still say the Pledge of Allegiance. Show the students that although many things have changed over the decades, some things have remained the same. Also, your students should discuss the duties, expectations and punishments of students in one-room schools. Have them imagine how they would feel if they had to do all the things that students once had to do. Duties, expectations and punishments are discussed in fuller detail earlier in this book. Refer back to the sections entitled Duties at Home, Expectations in the Classroom and Punishments for more information.

Discuss the time of year and how the seasons or weather would affect the students. In the fall, they might have an enjoyable walk to school looking at all the changing leaves and harvested fields. In the winter, it would most likely be a cold and difficult walk to school, depending on how much it had snowed. If the weather was very bad, many students would probably have missed school that day. If sickness was spreading, it was possible that the school would have closed until the sickness passed. In the spring, children would probably have a nice walk to school unless it was raining or had rained. Since many of the roads in the 1900s were still made of dirt, rainfall would have made them very muddy and, depending on the amount of rain, nearly impassible. Some older children may have stopped coming to school because they were needed to help out on the farm during planting season. These children would attend school only during the winter session and then work on the farm from spring to fall. Some schools had summer sessions that would mostly be for the younger children that could not help much on the farms. They would go to school to stay out of the way of their busy parents and older siblings and to get as much education as they could before they had to help on the farm.

Discuss lunch. Tell them about lunch pails and the kind of food students would have taken to school in either the 1900s or 1930s. Normally, in the 1900s, children would bring leftover food from home such as cornbread or biscuits, cold meat and cheese, raw vegetables, fruit or whatever else they could afford to bring. Their food was normally homemade rather than store bought and they would very rarely have peanut butter and jelly. In the 1930s, children may have brought jelly sandwiches, sugar cookies, and maybe a piece of fruit such as an apple. Other fruits, like oranges and bananas, were rare. Since they could not be grown in the area, they would not have been packed in the children’s lunches. Lunch could also include fresh milk from the cow. Sometimes chocolate syrup was mixed with the milk so the children could enjoy chocolate milk. In both time periods, the children would carry their food in lunch pails. These pails were normally whatever they could find at home such as old syrup cans, coffee cans, or lard cans. Rarely, some lucky children may have had manufactured lunch pails. It did not really matter what these pails were as long as they had a handle and could hold the children’s lunches.

For more information on cars in the 1900s and 1930s, see the Antique Automobile Club of America’s website, http://www.aaca.org (accessed 5 April 2004). One woman mentioned in a story that her school had a little shed to house horses. This can be found on pages 30-31 of Luther Bryan Clegg’s The Empty Schoohouse: Memories of One-Room Texas Schools (U. S.: Texas A&M University Press, 1997).

Much information about the beginning of the school day and morning exercises can be found in Jerry Apps’ One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections from Wisconsin (U.S.: Palmer Publications, 1996) beginning on page 57.

Information concerning the bell tower and entry into the school can be found in Raymond Bial’s One-Room School (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999) beginning on page 13.

Much of the information about lunch pails and food taken to school in the 1900s was found in Jonesborough-Washington County History Museum’s Oak Hill School Heritage Education Center: An 1886 One-Room Schoolhouse Teacher’s Resource and Curriculum Guide (Tennessee: East Tennessee State University Press, 1999) beginning on page 31. A good discussion of lunch pails and food brought to school in the 1930’s can be found on pages 63-65 of Jerry Apps’ One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections from Wisconsin (U.S.: Palmer Publications, 1996).

Permission Slips

The Blackwell History of Education Museum requires parent permission forms for trips, pictures and possibly for the use of inkwells and ink. Pictures of the children will be taken throughout the day. These pictures will be put in a scrapbook for people to view in the museum and on the museum website (http://www.cedu.niu.edu/blackwell/). Students studying the 1900s may use ink and inkwells depending on the age of the students, the teachers’ judgement and parents’ permission.

Maps and Nametags

The Blackwell History of Education Museum will send you maps of the campus, bathrooms near the schoolhouse, and directions to and from Northern Illinois University. Also, the museum will send nametags for the children to wear on their visit. Nametags will help the docent, the teacher for the day, greet the children at the beginning of the day.

Half-Day Visit

For a half-day visit, teachers may choose which activities they would like their class to do: what they feel their students will enjoy the most or what will best fit their teaching. The Blackwell History of Education Museum will work with teachers to develop a lesson plan appropriate for the teachers’ needs.

Full Day Visit

To begin the day, separate the students into 2 groups, one boys and one girls, and then separate them further by their birthdays:

1. June, July, August (Oldest)
2. September, October, November
3. December, January, February
4. March, April, May (Youngest)

The children will then form two lines - one for boys and one for girls, youngest to oldest, to file into the schoolhouse. While the children file in, the teacher rings the bell in the bell tower. Students then stand at their desks until the teacher is at the front of the room. A time-appropriate copy of the Pledge of Allegiance will be provided for the class to recite. The Pledge of Allegiance went through various stages and was different in 1904 than in the 1930s. It finally was adopted in its current form in 1954. Children can sing a song or two after which the teacher should ring the small handbell (the tardy bell). These activities will take up the first fifteen minutes of the day.

Sample Lessons Plans for the early 1900s

These lesson plans are my own creation. I developed them from information about one-room school curriculum that can be found in Jerry Apps’ One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections from Wisconsin (U.S.: Palmer Publications, 1996) on pages 57-88, and Wayne E. Fuller’s The Old Country School (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1982) on pages 1-24. (Rebecca A. Edwards, NIU, April 2004)

More information on the Pledge of Allegiance can be found at http://www.homeofheroes.com/hallofheroes/1st_floor/flag/1bfc_pledge.html (accessed 19 March 2004). I got the idea to make a string ball from a story on page 63 of Good Old Days Remembers the Little Country Schoolhouse (Berne, ID: House of White Birches, 1999) edited by Ken and Janice Tate. A string ball is also mentioned on page 98 of Luther Bryan Clegg’s The Empty Schoolhouse (U. S.: Texas A&M University Press, 1997).

The games “Bear in the Pit,” “Rachel and Jacob,” and “Pom-Pom-Pull-Away” were found on pages 201-208 of Jerry Apps’ One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections from Wisconsin (U.S.: Palmer Publications, 1996). The games “Hide the Thimble” and “Statues” were found on pages 14-15 and page 31 respectively in May C. Hofmann’s Games for Everybody (New York: Dodge Publishing Co., 1905). A good discussion of the McGuffey Readers can be found on pages 72-77 of Jerry Apps’ One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections from Wisconsin (U.S.: Palmer Publications, 1996). This book also contains a good discussion of handwriting on pages 77-78.

A wonderful and detailed explanation of fountain pens can be found at http://www.luttmanns.com/pens/intro.html (accessed 16 April 2004). This explanation also includes the date of patent. A good discussion of spelldowns can be found in Jerry Apps’ One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections from Wisconsin (U.S.: Palmer Publications, 1996) on page 13.

Note

The following is just a sample lesson plan of activities that can be done during a visit to the Milan Township District #83 Schoolhouse. The Blackwell History of Education Museum will work with each group coming to the schoolhouse to develop a lesson plan that meets the teacher’s expectations and gives a representation of the activities that would go on at a one-room schoolhouse in either the 1900s or the 1930s. If you have any ideas or reservations about the activities described below, please discuss them with the Blackwell staff when you are planning your trip.

Goals

1. Students will obtain a better sense of what a typical day was like in a multi-grade, one-room rural school of the 1900s.
2. Students will gain an insight into the differences in the way students were taught in the 1900s compared with today.
3. Students will learn about the differences in subject matter and content taught in the 1900s compared with today.

Geography Mixed with History

The children will begin their lessons by learning about the geography of the Milan Township District #83 Schoolhouse. Four groups of children will be given a map of the township showing where the school, farms and farmhouses were located in the 1900s. They will be given a specific farmhouse, and each group will draw a trail that they might take to get to school. This path can be drawn across fields and streams and anywhere else so long as it appears to be the shortest route to school. Once the groups have finished with this activity, they will present their maps to the rest of the class. The teacher will have a large map that will have each route on it. The children can see where they would meet other children on their walk to school on the large class map. They will learn about the distance from home to school, how children got to school and what kinds of adventures they might have had before and after school. They may also want to point out any difficulties that may have arisen from their choice, such as difficulty crossing a creek. This activity should last from 9:15 to 10:05.

Reading

A typical school day in a one-room school began with the first of the three R’s, reading. Therefore, this school day will be no different. To show how difficult lesson plans were for teachers in the 1900s due to the different ages and abilities of the children, each age group of children will read different stories or poems at different times and will be required to do different activities appropriate for their age group. The oldest children in the schoolroom will go first. They will be required to read aloud to the teacher at the recitation bench, while the other age groups will be working quietly at their desks. The next oldest age group will be required to read a poem and memorize a stanza or two, then come to the recitation bench and recite it from memory to the teacher. The next oldest group will read a story and locate a few sentences that they believe give the meaning of the story. They will then come to the recitation bench and read the sentences they have chosen and give their reasons (making sure to be short and to the point since they do not have much time). The youngest group will read a different story and memorize a paragraph (more than one or two sentences) to recite from memory when called to the recitation bench. Each group will be assigned their tasks at the end of general exercises and will have ten minutes to complete them. Because of this, some groups will have more time than others will. The assignments are arranged so that the easiest assignment goes to the group with the least time, and the hardest assignment goes to the group with the most time. This activity will last approximately forty minutes. If students have any questions, they may ask them when each group has had a chance at the recitation bench. There will be ten minutes allowed for discussion. This activity should last from 10:05-11:00.

Project

After the break, the children will begin to make a string ball like the ball children used to make to play with during recess. The children would gather up as much spare string (or twine) as they could find and wrap it around anything round such as a rock or a marble, and then cover it with fabric. The children made this kind of ball because baseballs were hard to come by.

To make a class string ball, each student can bring a small amount of string from home, or the teacher can bring yarn and cut each student a length of it. To save time, the Blackwell staff will provide a fabric cover pre-made for the string ball. The students can play with this ball during recess (if weather permits), and the class can take it back to school as a souvenir of their day. This activity should last from 11:00 to 11:30.

Lunch and Games

During lunch, the children can eat outdoors if it is a nice day or indoors if it is not. When they finish eating, they can play games. If they are outdoors, they can play with their new string ball, or they can play some games which students once played and maybe still do:
v Bear in the Pit – The children form a circle and hold hands to create a barrier. One child is inside the circle and is designated the Bear. The Bear tries to get out of the circle anyway he/she can. Once the Bear escapes, all the children chase after him/her until one child catches him/her (tag, do not tackle!). The child that catches the Bear is the Bear in the next game.

• Rachel and Jacob – For this game, the children form a ring and hold hands. Two children are in the center of the circle, one designated Rachel and the other Jacob. Jacob is blindfolded and has to find Rachel in the circle. To do this, Jacob asks Rachel questions, which she has to answer. These questions are asked to help Jacob locate Rachel by sound. They are not meant to be personal and embarrassing. To help the children stay in character, they can ask each other questions about what kind of chores they did that morning or how the walk to school was. To avoid being caught, Rachel may answer the question and then quickly move away. She can bob and duck and do virtually anything to avoid being caught by Jacob, but she must remain in the circle created by the other children. Once Jacob catches Rachel, Jacob can return to the ring. Rachel then chooses a new Jacob, and the game begins again. The more talented Rachel is, the longer the game will be.
• Pom-Pom-Pull-Away – To begin this game, one player is designated ‘It.’ The other players break up into two groups and stand about fifty feet apart. Whoever is It then yells, “Pom-Pom- Pull-Away, come away or I’ll pull you away.” The players run to opposite sides while It tries to tag as many people as he/she can. The tagged children have to stay in the middle of the field with It and become Its. They also tag the other children as they run from one side to the other. The game is over when everyone has been tagged and a new game can begin. The last person to be tagged is It for the next game.

If the children must stay inside for the lunch break, they can play other games like:

• Hide the Thimble: One child is designated ‘It’ and hides a thimble or other small item in the schoolroom while the other children have their eyes closed (No peeking!). After the item is hidden, the children can open their eyes and begin to wander the room seeking the object. Once a child sees the object, he/she leaves it there and goes back to his/her seat and sits quietly until everyone else has found it and returned to their seats. The first child to see the object cannot help anyone else find it. As soon as everyone has found the object, the child who found it first is designated It and must hide the object again.
• Statues: One child is designated ‘It’, the rest either sit on a bench or they can stay at their desks. The recitation bench would be a very good seat for this game. ‘It’ begins with the child at the end of the row or in the last desk. It either pulls the child out of his/her seat or describes a position for the child to get into, such as an Angel. The child must then stay in that position until the end of the game. If the child was pulled from his/her seat, he/she must stay in the position he/she landed in. It continues to do this until all of the children are out of their seats. It then picks the child that he/she considers to be in the best, funniest or most awkward position. This child is then designated It for the next game.

Lunch and games should last from 11:30 to 12:15. The teacher will ring a handbell to signify that lunch is over and the children will return to their seats.

Arithmetic

When the children come back to their seats, one math problem for each age group will be written on the blackboard for each child to copy on his/her slate board. By 1900, chalk had mostly replaced slate pencils. However, the chemical company Binney & Smith were still producing slate pencils in 1900. They were also manufacturing chalk, and since chalk was easier to write with than slate pencils, chalk became more common.

Each group will be called up to the recitation bench to show the teacher their work. The problems will be made to fit the age and ability of the children and will most likely be a story problem related to the farm. Many textbooks included arithmetic lessons that involved farm problems because the children would most likely come across them at some point in their lives and would need to know how to do them. Also, children understood farm life, so it was easier for them to understand a problem if it applied to farm life. The goal of this exercise is to let children experience using slate boards and chalk. This exercise should last from 12:15 to 12:30.

Spelling

Every child will be given a list of spelling words taken from the McGuffey Eclectic Speller appropriate for the class rank. The McGuffey Readers, originally written by William H. McGuffey in 1836, and the McGuffey Spellers (with the earliest edition in the Blackwell’s possession being 1846) were very popular until the 1920s. The children will work at memorizing the spelling of these words and then can demonstrate their learning at the end of the day with a spelling bee. To help with memorization, the children can write the words three times each on their slates. This activity should last from 12:30 to 12:45.

Penmanship

Penmanship was emphasized in the one-room schoolhouse. People believed it was very important for children to have good penmanship skills because poor handwriting made a bad impression on those who read what the children had written. Many times, children used pen and ink from an inkwell to learn proper handwriting before moving on to handwriting with a fountain pen (patented in 1884 and available in the 1900s). Pen and ink, however, set the foundation for good penmanship.

If the teacher and parents approve, students will have the opportunity to use pen and ink to practice their penmanship. If the teacher and parents do not approve, students will learn proper penmanship with a fountain pen. If time allows and students have some skill at proper penmanship, they will be allowed to write a short letter to a friend. This exercise helps students understand the importance of penmanship and how difficult it was to learn. This activity should last from 12:45 to 1:15. After this, the children can have a short break until 1:30.

The Spelling Bee

After a short break, the students will come back into the school and have a spelling bee. The students will line up in the front of the room with the teacher near the back. The teacher will then call out the words from the spelling list that the students studied earlier in the day. If a student gets a word wrong, the next student in line must spell it correctly. If the next student gets the word correct, this student “turns down” the previous student who misspelled the word. (“Turn down” was a phrase used during spelling bees in the early 1900s to indicate that a student had spelled a word incorrectly and was out of the bee.) The student who spells the word correctly moves one place closer to the head of the line. The student at the head of the line when the bee is over is the winner and gets “head mark.” This student will start at the end of the line in the next spelling bee. Getting “head mark” in the one-room school was something for a student to be very proud of because that student was the best speller in the school, at least until the next spelling bee.

During this reenactment of a spelling bee, the students move up in line as they “turn down” other students. The bee will be finished when the spelling list that the students studied is completed, or the students can continue the spelling bee with words that the class had been studying during their regular schooling. The students that are left standing can all receive “head mark” since they learned their words so well. This spelling bee is not designed to be hard for the students. It is just an activity they will hopefully enjoy. This activity should last from 1:30 until about 1:55, or later if preferred.

Group Picture

After the spelling bee (in good weather), the children can go outside for a group picture. This picture will be included in the scrapbook that the Blackwell Museum plans to make of all the groups that visit the Milan Schoolhouse. The children can be arranged by age or by height. Once the class picture is taken, the school day is finished and the students can return to school in the present day.

Sample Lesson Plans for the 1930’s

This lesson plan is also of my own creation (with guidance from Rich Casey). The beginning of the day (“Greetings” through “Lunch”) follows the state of Illinois’ suggested lesson plan laid out in the 1927 edition of Aids to Teachers and School Directors of The One-Teacher School on page 8. (Rebecca A. Edwards, NIU, May 2007). The second half of the day (“Geography Mixed with History” through “Clean-up”) is a schedule that I have made up by myself (upon the approval of Rich Casey). A good discussion of opening exercises (“Greetings” and “General Exercises”) can be found on pages 60-61 of Jerry Apps’ One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections from Wisconsin (U.S.: Palmer Publications, 1996). For further discussion of curriculum in a one-room school, see pages 57-88 of his book will be very helpful. The games discussed were found in Jerry Apps’ One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections from Wisconsin (U.S.: Palmer Publications, 1996) on pages 201-208. If you would like to learn more about games, refer to this book. A good discussion of spelldowns can be found in Jerry Apps’ One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections from Wisconsin (U.S.: Palmer Publications, 1996) on page 13.

Note

Punishments are discussed many times throughout this section. These are meant to educate the docent on possible punishments so that he or she can better explain to students why they would receive a punishment and what that punishment might be. They are not to actually be implemented, but can be discussed to add to the students understanding of education in one-room schools in the 1930s.

Goals

1. Students will obtain a better sense of what a typical day was like in a multi-grade, one-room rural school of the 1930s.
2. Students will gain an insight into the differences in the way students were taught in the 1930s compared with today.
3. Students will learn about the differences in subject matter and content taught in the 1930s compared with today.

The Schedule

The Museum

The students will begin their day with a tour of the Blackwell History of Education Museum. They will have the opportunity to browse the artifacts (such as old textbooks, slates, pencil boxes and many other neat things) and hear a little about the history of the Blackwell and the Milan Township District #83 Schoolhouse. Also, students will get to go on a scavenger hunt in the Museum. They will be separated into groups (by birthday, as they will be at the schoolhouse) and given a list of items to locate in the Museum. Each item will have a packet with slips of paper describing the item that students will gather to show that they found the item. To ensure that students do not get too excited and damage any of the artifacts (by running around and being careless trying to win the game), each student will be given a small prize when they complete the hunt. If the teacher approves, students may walk to the schoolhouse as an example of what students would have had to do in the 1930s. This activity should take up the first 45 minutes.

Greetings

The first ten minutes of the day at the schoolhouse are for greeting the students, getting everyone organized into their proper seats and describing the day’s activities. At this time, the children should be separated according to their age. Once everything is organized, the children can play outside for a short while and then the bell in the bell tower can be rung to “hurry along” any students engrossed in “nature study” on their way to school. Then, after a few more minutes to allow the “stragglers” to get to school, the teacher can come outside and ring the handbell. The children then line up, girls on one side and boys on the other, in order of their birthdays, youngest to oldest, and file into the school and stand next to their desks.

General Exercises

The next ten minutes can be devoted to the morning exercises such as the Pledge of Allegiance, singing, story telling, discussing current events, nature study, or general information about the Milan Township District #83 School. There is a piano available for anyone who knows how to play it to make singing more festive and enjoyable.

Reading

A typical school day in a one-room school began with the first of the three R’s, reading. Therefore, this school day will be no different. To show how difficult lesson plans were for teachers in the 1930s due to the different ages and abilities of the children, each age group of children will read different stories or poems at different times and will be required to do different activities appropriate for their age group. The oldest children in the schoolroom will go first. They will be required to read aloud to the teacher at the recitation bench, while the other age groups will be working quietly at their desks. The next oldest age group will be required to read a poem and memorize a stanza or two, then come to the recitation bench and recite it from memory to the teacher. The next oldest group will read a story and locate a few sentences that they believe give the meaning of the story. They will then come to the recitation bench and read the sentences they have chosen and give their reasons (making sure to be short and to the point since they do not have much time). The youngest group will read a different story and memorize a paragraph (more than one or two sentences) to recite from memory when called to the recitation bench. Each group will be assigned their tasks at the end of general exercises and will have ten minutes to complete them. Because of this, some groups will have more time than others will. The assignments are arranged so that the easiest assignment goes to the group with the least time, and the hardest assignment goes to the group with the most time. This activity will last approximately forty minutes. If students have any questions, they may ask them when each group has had a chance at the recitation bench. There will be ten minutes allowed for discussion.

Spelling

Each age group will be given a list of words appropriate for their age to memorize for the spelling bee at the end of the day. To help with their memorization and to improve their writing skills, the students will write their list of words three times on their slate boards, making sure to use their best penmanship. Once the teacher approves and answers any questions they may have about the words they are copying, they must erase the board and begin again. The students will have about fifteen minutes to complete this exercise.

Break

After the students complete their spelling exercise, they will have a short, ten-minute break to get some fresh air, use the facilities, play, or just rest their minds. The teacher will ring the handbell at the beginning and the end of the break. Weather permitting, the students will either file out of the building to get some fresh air or to use the facilities. Otherwise, the students will remain indoors. Once the teacher rings the bell a second time, the students must return to their seats immediately. Any dilly-dallying will result in a punishment such as standing in the corner or standing at the chalkboard with his/her nose in a circle drawn on the board.

Writing

After the break, students can read letters written to Mrs. Roosevelt in the 1930s during the Depression. Children of the Depression had very few things. Many times, they would write to Mrs. Roosevelt to ask for something that would help them with their work or schooling. Once the students have read a letter, they can write their own persuasive letter to Mrs. Roosevelt asking her for something they think would have been very helpful to them during the time of the Depression. They cannot ask for anything frivolous, and they must give their best argument to convince Mrs. Roosevelt that they need this item. They must put themselves in the shoes of children during the Depression who had next to nothing and could not purchase even the smallest of things. Remember, there were no video games or DVD players during the Depression and these items would not have been necessary to children in that time anyway. This activity should take another fifteen minutes.

Arithmetic

Each age group will have different arithmetic exercises to show how classes functioned in the 1930s. Many activities in the one-room schoolhouse were competitive, and arithmetic was no different. The teacher will give the youngest group a simple math problem to do on the board. Each student will be competing to finish this problem first, and the one who does so correctly will be the winner for the round. There will be a set of ten problems and the student who wins the most rounds (gets the most problems done correctly in the fastest time) wins the competition. The winner does not get any specific prize other than bragging rights. The second group will be reading a story problem and answering it on their slate boards while the youngest group is at the board. Once the teacher is done with the children at the board, she/he will come and check the other group’s work. The next oldest group will be memorizing their multiplication tables. They will form pairs to quiz each other with flash cards and then will write down a list of which problems each got right that will be handed in at the end of the activity. The oldest students in the classroom will have a few difficult arithmetic problems to work out on paper. Once they are finished with these problems, they can help the “younger” children with their arithmetic. They are only to help with the problems. They are not to give any answers, nor are they to use this time to talk about anything other than arithmetic. Any students caught doing either of these will be punished. Before the youngest children use the chalkboard, the teacher will write a few difficult arithmetic problems on the board to be copied by the oldest students. The oldest students will hand in their work to the teacher at the end of the exercise. The teacher will have time for questions once she/he is done with the youngest children. The youngest children can listen to others work or finish other work once they are done at the board. This exercise should take about 25 minutes.

Lunch

After students complete their arithmetic exercises, it is time for an hour-long lunch break. After they eat, they can play games that they create themselves, or those that would have been popular in the 1930s:

Games to be played outdoors:

• Kick the Can – This game is much like hide-and-go-seek. A can is placed at “home base.” One person is designated as “It” and another is the “Can Kicker.” To start the game, the Can Kicker starts to kick the can away from home base and It has to chase after him/her and recapture the can. While It is trying to recapture the can, the rest of the children are running and hiding. Once It has the can back at home base, he/she can start searching for the other children. If a player can get back to home base without being caught and start kicking the can again, It has to retrieve the can and start all over again while the children run and find new hiding places. The last player to be caught is It for the next game.
• Fetch the Bacon – To begin the game, one person is designated leader, normally the teacher, and everyone else separates into two teams about twenty feet apart. The players on each team are then numbered beginning with one. An object, perhaps an eraser, is placed in the center of the field. The leader then calls out a number and the two players with that number race to capture the object. The team who captures the object the most wins the game.

In inclement weather, children may play indoor games such as:

• Clap in, Clap out – The children break into two groups. The groups get as far apart as they can in the room and each numbers off, careful not to let the other group know their numbers. The children then line up, one group sitting and the other standing at the opposite side of the room. They try to mix up the numbers as much as possible. A designated leader calls off a number. The child from the group that is standing walks over to the sitting group and stands beside the person he/she thinks is the same number. If he/she is wrong, then the child who is sitting claps. The child must continue searching for his/her matching number. Once he/she does, the child will not clap to show that he/she is the same number. When the two numbers are matched, the leader calls out another number and the next child tries to find his/her matching number. The game is over when everyone find their matching number.
• Hide the Chalk – The children designate a player “It.” They then show It a small object, such as a piece of chalk, that will be hidden somewhere in the room. It leaves the room and the object is hidden. Once the object is hidden, It comes back in the room and starts searching for the object. The children clap softly when It draws nearer to the object’s hiding place. They clap louder as It draws nearer the object or softer as It gets farther away. Once It finds the object, a new child is designated It, and the game begins again

The teacher will ring the handbell to signify the end of lunch and recess and the children will return to their desks to begin the next half of their lessons.

Geography Mixed with History

Four groups of children will be given a map of the township showing where the school, farms, and farmhouses were located in the 1930s. They will be given a specific farmhouse, and each group will draw a trail that they would take to get to school. They can draw it across fields and streams so long as it appears to be the shortest route to school. When the groups have finished, they will present their maps to the rest of the class. On a large map, the teacher will place each route the children have chosen. This will allow the class to see where they will meet each other on their walk to school. The teacher may ask them to imagine adventures they might have had on their trip to and from school. This activity will teach students about the distance from home to school, how children got to school, and what kinds of adventures they might have had before and after school. This activity should take up the next 20 minutes.

Spelling Bee

After a short break, the students will come back into the school and have a spelling bee. The students will line up in the front of the room with the teacher near the back. The teacher will then call out the words from the spelling list that the students studied earlier in the day. If a student gets a word wrong, the next student in line must spell it correctly. If the next student gets the word correct, this student “turns down” the previous student who misspelled the word. (“Turn down” was a phrase used during spelling bees in the early 1900s and was still used in the 1930s to indicate that a student had spelled a word incorrectly and was out of the bee.) The student who spells the word correctly moves one place closer to the head of the line. The student at the head of the line when the bee is over is the winner and gets “head mark.” This student will start at the end of the line in the next spelling bee. Getting “head mark” in the one-room school was something for a student to be very proud of because that student was the best speller in the school, at least until the next spelling bee.

During this reenactment of a spelling bee, the students move up in line as they “turn down” other students. The bee will be finished when the spelling list that the students studied is completed, or the students can continue the spelling bee with words that the class had been studying during their regular schooling. The students that are left standing can all receive “head mark” since they learned their words so well. This spelling bee is not designed to be hard for the students. It is just an activity they will hopefully enjoy. This activity should last about fifteen minutes, or longer if preferred.

Group Picture

After the spelling bee (in good weather), the children can go outside for a group picture. This picture will be included in the scrapbook that the Blackwell Museum plans to make of all the groups that visit the Milan Schoolhouse. The children can be arranged by age or by height. Once the class picture is taken, the school day is finished and the students can return to school in present day. If there is any extra time in the day, students are free to play games that they learned at lunch or any other games that they would prefer.

After Your Visit

The Evaluation Form

After your visit, you should fill out an evaluation form. This assessment lets us know what you and your class liked about your visit and what might be improved at the Milan Township District #83 Schoolhouse. You can let each of the students make a list of their likes and dislikes and discuss them in class. Then you can send their lists along with your evaluation form to the Blackwell History of Education Museum. Constructive criticism is always welcome. We try to make the day as enjoyable and educational as possible, and we love hearing what everyone likes about our program.

Discussion

You may want to follow your visit with a discussion of the day. Some discussion questions could include:

1. How was life and school in the 1900s or 1930s different from today?
2. What neat things did you learn?
3. Would you like to have lived during that time? Why or why not?

Also, students can draw what they thought was the neatest thing they did or saw at the schoolhouse. Students could also write thank-you letters. Remember, one of the important things one-room teachers tried to teach were proper manners. Include in your discussion anything that you think is relevant to your visit and that you feel needs to be discussed.

Graduation Award

Each student who passed the eighth grade received a graduation certificate. After completing a day at the Milan Township District #83 Schoolhouse, students will receive a certificate (much like one given to eighth grade graduates) stating satisfactory completion of a day in the life of a 1900 or 1930 scholar. The certificates will be given at the end of your visit to be handed out on the following school day. This is a fun reminder for students to keep and to show their parents.

On pages 84-87 in Jerry Apps’ One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections from Wisconsin (U.S.: Palmer Publications, 1996), there is a wonderful discussion of eighth grade graduation.

Pictures from the 1900s

These pictures came from the Blackwell’s “Historical Images of Education” CD.