One-room school

Prussia was one of the first countries in the world to introduce tax-funded and usually compulsory primary education for boys and girls. ^[1] For comparison, compulsory schooling in France or the United Kingdom was successfully adopted only in the 1880s. ^[2] The system, sponsored by the state, was introduced at the end of the 18th century and has since been widely distributed. The first Prussian schools were simple one-room schools, but as early as 1773, Friedrich Eberhard von Rokhov created a school with primary education for two age classes .

In Ireland, free primary education appeared in 1931, which led to the creation of many national single-teacher schools in rural areas, most of which originally used a room in an existing building. By the 1890s, there was a school in each parish . The best-preserved one- and two-room school buildings date back to decades after 1891, when primary education became compulsory. Most of those still in use today were expanded after merging with neighboring schools. Since 2002, any public school with more than ten students has the right to two or more teachers; The 21 schools that fell below this threshold are located on coastal islands . ^[3] In recent decades, an increasing number of schools have been created for parents who are not satisfied with the national school system. These include multi-religious schools (most Irish schools are controlled by one or the other of the main Christian churches). Although these schools ultimately qualify for state funding, they usually start with one teacher per room.

Many schools also served as a local chapel on Sundays, as well as places for events in the evenings and Saturdays. In rural areas in many schools there was no running water and sewage, so often wells were converted to toilets. In winter, water was obtained from the snow, and in the summer they asked for help on neighboring farms.

Teaching standards often varied from school to school, as the teacher was forced to teach children of all ages / classes within the same room and regardless of their core competencies.

Most of the buildings had a simple frame construction, some with a school bell on the dome . In the Midwest , turf , stone and saman were also used in areas such as the South-West , where there were few trees. In some places the school house was painted red, but most seemed to be white.

Mission Ridge School was one of the earliest schools in Mason County, West Virginia . Since then, it has been moved to the Museum of the West Virginia State Farm near Point Pleasant . Examination of materials in this building indicates that the boards and sawn timber were sawn by hand as well as manually. Square nails were used throughout the building. With the exception of the roof and a few boards in the floor, all the materials in this building are original. Boards are painted black. Only after that the slate was used for the boards, although the students often had separate slates for writing the practice.

Former pupils often became teachers of one-room schools. They are well described by a student from Kentucky in the 1940s:

The teachers who taught in the one-room rural schools were very special people. In the winter months, they reached the school early to light a fire in the stove. They often cooked soup or stew on the top of the oven. The teacher cared for the pupils, like a bird that cares for its newly hatched chicks.

A typical school day began at 9 and ended at 16:00, with morning and afternoon breaks of 15 minutes each and time for lunch. “Older students were responsible for bringing water, transporting coal or wood for the stove. Younger students were given responsibilities depending on their size and gender, for example, cleaning the blackboard, cleaning and other duties. ” ^[four]

Children who lived too far often went to school in horse - drawn carriages, which could travel a limited distance every morning and evening. Later, students began to ride bicycles .

The schoolhouse was the center of the center for thousands of rural communities, villages and small towns. Often there were city meetings and picnics.

The vast majority of one-room schools in the United States are no longer used, demolished, or converted for other purposes. However, in some rural communities, including among Amish , one or two-room schools are still used mainly for primary education , with pupils completing local or regional high schools.

Octagonal buildings

There are several historic one-room schools in the United States that were built in the shape of an octagon , instead of a more traditional rectangular shape. Most of them are located in the northeastern part of the country, some of which have been restored and placed on the National Register of Historic Places . ^[five]

The octagonal schools that still stand:

• School Sheldon Jackson; Sitka, Alaska
• Octagonal School; Kaugilla Corner, Delaware
• Birmingham School; Chester County, Pennsylvania
• School Oak Charter; Schuline, Illinois
• School Watkins Mill; Lawson, Missouri
• Modern School; Brentwood, New York
• Consil Rock School; Bucks County, New York State
• Octagonal School; Drydene, New York
• Octagonal School; Essex, New York State
• School of Florence Corners; Florence Corners, Ohio
• Oktangl Rock School; - Canaan, Pennsylvania
• School of Sodom; Montandon, Pennsylvania
• Hood Oktangl School; Newtown Township, PA
• Diamond Rock School; Valley Forge, PA
• Wrightstown Oktangl School; Wrightstown, PA

Teacher's Residence

The house provided by the teacher was often attached to the school or was very close to it, so the teacher’s family was an integral part of the school's management and support system. Lonely female teachers are most often hooked up to a local family in order to comply with social norms that require social supervision of single women.

Consolidation

In the 1920s, motorized school buses could cover long distances, so one-room schools in most parts of the United States soon merged into several schools, where classes could be held separately for different classes. Gradually, most one-room schools were replaced by larger schools during World War II . However, they are still common in rural Australia and Alaska.

Building Security

In Calvert County, Maryland , Port Republican School No. 10 closed its doors in 1932 and has not been used for more than 40 years. Then, in 1976, the Calvert Teachers' Association of Pensioners decided to restore the one-room school on the project “Bicentennial Year”. On July 24, 1977, after several months of hard work by teachers and volunteers, the old school bell rang again, and a small one-room school house, filled with memories and memorabilia, was ready for visitors. ^[6] Now it is one of the attractions of the city. A similar project was carried out in Queen Enns, Maryland, by retired teachers and volunteers. The renovated schoolhouse is located opposite Queen Anns County High School. In Iowa, more than 125 small one-room school houses have been turned into local museums. In some places they were transformed into houses.

The Flowerfield School is located in Harrisburg, Nebraska. This is a living museum where students from Nebraska can spend the day in 1888. ^[7] In this museum, students can learn different aspects of the life of those years.

In Vandalia, Indiana, there is a one-room school in which children from Lafayette, Owen County, studied from 1868 until its closure in 1951. The building, restored by a group of volunteers in 1976, is currently maintained and maintained by the Vandalia Community Preservation Association ^[8] .

The One Room School House Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas collects information about schools across the state. At the moment, the list includes 880 schools. History of schools, photographs and various information were collected by researchers and historians from all over America.

• Abraham Lincoln , President of the United States ^[9]
• Herbert Hoover , President of the United States
• Robert Menzies , Australian Prime Minister
• Joyce Carol Oates , Pulitzer Prize Winner
• Laura Ingles Wilder , who later wrote Little House on the Prairie and other children's novels

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  The one-room Abraham Lincoln in 1822.

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  The Knick School in Darke County, Ohio in 1996.

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  St. John the Baptist Church (1841) and a one-room schoolhouse (1845), Canberra, Australia.

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  Port Republic School # 7 in Calvert County, Maryland.

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  The Eureka Schoolhouse in Springfield, Vermont, was built in 1785 and in continuous use until 1900.

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  The Felta Schoolhouse in Sonoma County, California was built in 1906 and closed on November 27, 1951.

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  The one-room adobe schoolhouse in Lochiel, Arizona.

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  The Copper Harbor Room School.

• Granite, Colorado one-room school, 1954.jpg

  One-room school in Granite, Colorado in 1954

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  The Harvey One-Room School in Bucyrus Township, Ohio, built in 1876.

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  Vandalia, Indiana, Owen County, Lafayette Township District # 2 Schoolhouse was completed around 1868 and closed in 1951. It is preserved and maintained by the Vandalia Community Preservation Association.

• Jonathan Zimmerman. Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory. - Yale University Press, 2009.

• Audio interview with a student at a one-room school in Fishkill, New York (55 min.)
• One-room school in the Ottawa Valley
• NOPOSH (CSAA) National One-Room School Support Organization
• One of the projects of one-room school Southwestern College
• University of Northern Iowa - one-room school museum