Lincoln Graded School, East Rosiere, Kewaunee Co.
B. Chisholm photo
Wisconsin has
been a leader in public education since entering the Union in 1848. Provisions
for education in the Northwest Ordinance found their way into the laws of
Wisconsin when land in each township was set aside for public schools.
As Wisconsin’s counties were created, county school
superintendents were among the first officials. County supervising teachers
came later. Superintendents oversaw the curriculum as set by the state, and
county book committees chose textbooks to be used in all schools. Teachers kept
registers listing the names of the children and attendance history. At year’s
end, the registers were used to determine aggregate days of attendance,
generating reports used to determine state aid. Kewaunee County Historical Society’s
school registers predate 1900. Registers also contained teachers' comments
about their charges. One Kewaunee County teacher noted that the boy was passed
because he couldn't learn anything anyway. Another was passed because he was
too big for the desks. There were other such comments over 100 years ago.
Kewaunee
County’s schools began opening in the 1850s, just a few years following the
county’s creation. There were village schools and the rural schools which had
an enormous impact on the county before they passed out of existence nearly 125
years later.
One-room
schools operating as late as the 1960s looked much the same as they did 100
years earlier. Schools were generally small with a main room. A hallway or
coat/cloak room ran across the front of the room and was serviced by two doors,
one at each end of the hallway and originally either the boys' entrance or the
girls'. An exterior door opened into the hall, or in some buildings into a
small entry hall, with perhaps three or four steps leading to the main coatroom
hall. Larger one-room schools often had a small stage or raised platform,
originally for the teacher’s desk, and used for programs and meetings. Children
either sweltered or froze in the early buildings where the center of the
buildings had a wood stove serving as the heat source of heat. Oil burners came
later, and eventually furnaces were installed in schools with basements.
State graded
schools were two-room buildings arranged much like the one-room schools with
the halls and coat room. The state graded schools usually had a third room
located behind the main classrooms. It was used for a variety of purposes, and
sometimes as a teacher’s winter living quarters.
Outhouses were
a part of the early rural schools although by the 1930s and ‘40s, some
buildings had indoor chemical toilets in the basement. Water for drinking,
washing hands, and cleaning was carried in from a pump. Running water was long
in coming and, often, flush toilets followed. Early teachers were responsible
for the heat and cleaning. In later years, teachers were often helped by
students as they did the day-to-day upkeep. By World War ll, most schools had a
cleaning woman who came once a month to wash floors and take care of other
cleaning needs.
It was the
county college, or normal school, system that was a part of the same land grant
policies that gave us the University of Wisconsin, UW-Oshkosh, UW-River Falls,
Stevens Point and the others once known as normal schools. Door-Kewaunee County
Normal School in Algoma never made it to university status, but it did become
Door-Kewaunee County Teachers’ College. Though the school closed during the
1970s, it was there that most – to that point - Door and Kewaunee County
elementary teachers were trained. In its early years, teacher training was a
one-year program. Later, it became a two-year program. Before about 1920, it
was possible for students to take a teacher training program during their final
year of high school, thus female
teachers often began their career at age 18, frequently having intimidating
16-year-old boys in their schools. Most normal school graduates continued their
education working toward a four-year degree by attending summer courses at
various colleges, and then continuing to earn Masters of Education and PhDs.
About 20 years
ago, this blogger interviewed Clare, a teacher who graduated from D-K Normal
School having just turned 18. She felt having gone to a rural school for grades
5 – 8, following her family’s move to Door County, taught her how schools “ran”
and thus helped her adjust to teaching. Most one-room schools had over thirty
students in the 8 grades with “beginners” coming for 6 weeks in the spring
before they started first grade. Teaching all 8 grades was not easy, and there
were new teachers who threw up their hands and quit after a brief time.
Teachers needed
to keep an eye on the clock. With eight grades, classes were limited to 10-15
minutes at most. If classes ran over, the following class was shortchanged. Efficiency
was the name of the game, and teachers had to keep on schedule to get
everything in, something those with rural experience felt the graduates of the
early 2000s had trouble with while teaching a single grade.
Grades 3 and 4,
grades 5 and 6, and grades 7 and 8 were combined for classes such as social
studies. A 3rd grader in a 4th grade social studies class year found it
difficult, but the following year the same student, then in 4th grade,
would have an easy time with 3rd grade social studies. Some children were lucky
in their rotation and were always on their own grade level. Others never were.
There were poems, stories, and picture studies for every month in the school
year. They were part of a state curriculum and taught as part of language arts.
Clare’s first
teaching job in the 1930s was at Tornado School, which she thought was a nice
building. Entry halls for boys and girls were like other schools, but the
classroom was huge. Though the school had outhouses, it also had a furnace. It
was Clare’s responsibility to bank the furnace with ashes at night and fire up
with wood during the day. Water was carried to a 10–15-gallon earthen jug
attached to a bubbler. The school had adequate blackboards and was equipped as
well as any school for the time, having a jelly roll duplicator* and then a
jelly roll duplicator with a crank. Schools often had upright pianos, but
Tornado had a baby grand which was all but unheard of.
Schools were
not equal. Another one room school in which Clare taught was a beautiful
building with a furnace and indoor chemical toilets. The large basement area
provided a spacious play area during inclement weather, and the classroom had a
stage plus an adjoining room which served as a library. The school, however,
lacked what others had. A dipper and pail served drinking water needs. Chalk
would not work on black painted walls serving as blackboards. There were no
bulletin boards and while there was the room used as a library, the library
books were stored in orange crates.
That school had desks with drawers that opened to the right
under the seats. Drawers were so small that students found it necessary to
stand books on end, thus leaving the drawer partially open. Since the writing
surface of the desk was also on the right side, students had to exercise
caution while reaching for a book and had to get up carefully. It wasn’t
unusual for a desk to tip over, sometimes with a student in it! Frequent
tipping brought uproarious laughter and embarrassment to the pupil stuck in the
desk on its side on the floor. Getting and keeping a teacher finally prompted
that school board to improve and modernize the learning environment.
When Clare taught in a two-room state
graded school, she had 25-30 students in grades 1-4. About the same number of
students were in grades 5 – 8 in the “upper” room. She felt the school was
genuinely nice with its third room in addition to the chemical toilets and a
furnace in the basement. The male teacher who taught the upper grades served as
principal and was responsible for the care of the furnace.
Teachers and
expectations were as different as the buildings themselves. There were teachers
who wanted to be well liked and gave all As and Bs. If there was a new teacher
the following year, there were problems with parents who felt their children
were not learning with the new teacher who was less generous with high grades.
It was not
unusual for teachers to work preparing “seatwork” until 11 or 12 nightly,
typing stencils on a standard typewriter to be copied on the jelly roll. Other
“seatwork” was made using carbon paper. Workbooks were nearly non-existent and
teachers used coloring books to develop seatwork activities for the younger
children. It was not unusual for a teacher to spend $10.00 a month on supplies.
That came from the $75.00 late 1930's paycheck.
Eighth graders
took exams before they could graduate, requiring Kewaunee County teachers to
exchange buildings during exam days so they did not test their own students. In
some counties, 8th graders went to county centers for the
tests.
Traditional
school days were divided into four blocks separated by recess and lunch.
Reading was taught early in the day, followed by math after recess. Language
arts followed lunch and social studies or natural science came at
the end of the day. Little science was taught and there were no science books
before World War ll. Students put together butterfly and bird nest collections
or made leaf or tree bark booklets. They recorded interpretations from such
experiments as the action of a milk bottle cap when a glass milk bottle was
filled with water and allowed to freeze overnight. Fuzzy caterpillars were
always interesting and cocoons brought in during the fall provided excitement
when they hatched into moths in spring.
By the 1940s,
most schools had radios, and Wisconsin Public Radio offered a host of programs.
Curriculum was enriched when students listened to Science School of the Air,
Wisconsin School of the Arts, Professor Gorden and the music programs, Mrs.
Fanny Steves and more. Weekly Reader, a children’s newspaper, was
an important part of all schools for years, however there were schools that
were not able to afford the subscriptions.
Television in
rural schools was almost unheard of even as rural schools were being phased
out, but, on occasion, television was used for educational purposes. In one
instance, a farm family near school in the Town of Ahnapee owned a television
and the family invited the children to watch Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration,
the first presidential inauguration ever to be carried. The children brought
their lunch buckets and watched the festivities until 3:30. As a follow-up at
school, each child drew a part of the inaugural parade on 12" x 18"
paper which was attached to the other drawings to form a roller movie that took
first place at the county fair.
Kewaunee County
fair offered children exhibit space for their finest artwork, poetry, booklets,
and collections. A collection of 35 bird nests, including the nest of a chimney
swift that was found when the oil furnace was blocked, was one of the more notable
collections in the 1950s. By then, it was not unusual for a one room school to
win $30 or $35 in fair prize money. The prize money enabled teachers to
purchase supplies for the school.
Children in
state graded schools had opportunities those in one room schools did not. On
Friday afternoons during the 1930s, the first four grades were dismissed early
to give upper grade students additional classes. Clare was one who taught home
ec to the older girls. Using the kerosene stove in the third room,
she taught such things as pickle making and baking. One lesson was taught each
week. When the home ec cooking period ended, the girls made a dinner for the
older boys. Skills learned in cooking and baking, setting a table, serving
food, folding and placing napkins, and more were put to use preparing for the
dinner. While the girls had home ec, the male teacher - who served as principal
- taught the boys manual training in the basement. Looking back, home ec and
manual training classes in the rural schools seems strange as rural kids had
family chores and responsibilities as soon as they could manage them.
Religion in
public schools was not an issue 70 or 80 years ago. One school in which Clare
taught was in a Catholic community. All students were Catholic and on November
1, a Catholic holy day, the entire school population walked to a nearby church
to attend mass. In other schools, it was customary to offer a meal prayer
before the noon lunch.
Teachers taught
music in addition to academics. Until at least 1940, the state required each
county to enter a state music festival. In one Belgian community school, the
children researched Belgian clothing, music, and dance to plan their program.
Wearing traditional Belgian clothing and carrying Belgian flags, the students
performed the songs and dances for the county. Winning first place, they went
to Wisconsin Teachers’ Convention where they performed and stayed overnight.
The trip was long as the roads were still gravel. The male teacher and a parent
both provided transportation. In the late 1930s. female drivers were still not
thought to be capable of driving.
7th & 8th Graders, Roosevelt School, Misiere, Door Co., WIwho demonstrated Belgian folk dances at the 1939 Wisconsin State Fair
Prior to the
end of World War ll, rural children walked or were often transported to school
by horse and sleigh during the winter. School was rarely closed for harsh
weather even though town roads were not often plowed. Until the 1940s,
many teachers boarded at homes near school during the winter and
sometimes for the entire year. At a time when teachers were paid $75.00 per
month, board was $20 per month from Monday night to Friday’s noon lunch. If the
school had an additional room, teachers would often board themselves there.
Those who boarded with families lived as far as a mile from school. Clare got
her first snowsuit when she boarded with a family who lived ¾ mile from school.
The $15, all-wool, two-piece snowsuit had a cap that extended over the shoulders
to enclose all but the face. It kept her warm during the long, cold walk.
The dedication
of teachers is apparent in one of Clare’s experiences. As she left school for
her family’s home in her Model A Ford on Friday afternoon, snow was just
beginning. Everyone spent the weekend snowed in and by Monday morning, town
roads were still not plowed. As she drove to school, Clare's lightweight Model
A rode the crust of the snow and she had no problem getting through. Hearing
the put-put of the engine, those who looked out their windows were amazed to
see the teacher driving to school.
Although rural
school children lacked the experiences of today’s children, they were usually
polite and most were accustomed to demanding work. While students did not have
a gym, they did have a great deal of physical exercise working at their chores
and walking to school. Baseball was the most popular playground game during
most of the year though they also played dodge ball, Red Rover, and tag.
Christmas
programs were anticipated community events and each school was filled as the
children offered recitations, readings, singing, dances, plays and even baton
twirling by the 1950s. To the delight of one audience, an Algoma barbershop
quartet was part of the show. Santa Claus was there to pass out bags filled
with peanuts, a popcorn ball, and candy. In most schools the
children had a gift exchange although it was difficult to keep secret the name
drawn when some families had 5 or 6 children in school.
The school
picnic was another eagerly awaited event for children and parents alike.
Although the meal was potluck, the teachers usually supplied ice cream and
lemonade out of their small salary. They also provided the prizes for games
which included all kinds of races, including the 3-legged race and burlap bag
races. Of course, there were always baseball games. There were school boards
that even expected the teachers to buy them a case of beer when he or she was
hired.
Not all
students spoke English and some were bi-lingual. Families often included
grandparents who spoke little or no English so other family members
accommodated them by speaking in their native language, usually Belgian. Clare
told the story of a little boy learning to read and speak English. When he read
sentences such as “See Spot. See Spot run. Run, run, Spot,” he would say Spot
but use the Belgian words for “see” and “run.” The boy did not learn enough
English to pass the grade, however he was fortunate in having a bi-lingual
teacher who could teach him English the following year.
The normal
school day was usually from 9:00 to 4:00 with an hour for noon. In later years,
when schools had 30-minute lunch periods, school was dismissed at 3:30. To have
started the day before 9 would have been too early in a rural community,
especially in winter. There were chores to be done.
Married women
did not teach before World War ll, however the newly wed Clare took a position
so a school could open. A state graded school had a teacher for the upper
grades, but not the lower. On Labor Day, when it looked as if the school would
stay closed, the board was happy to award the job to a married woman.
Teachers
continued to be in short supply during the 1940s and early 1950s. Clare taught
for the next 30 years after going back to “help out” a second time. Eleven
years after receiving $85.00 per month, she was paid $175.00. Three years
later, she was making $225.00. While her 1937 salary was $75.00, she took a
$5.00 cut in taking a job at a state graded school following that. Her salary
was raised $10 for the second year. Clare felt fortunate to receive $85.00 a
month in another school, but it was only that it was Labor Day and the school
was in a demanding situation without a teacher.
Education, and
schools themselves, have certainly changed. Although one-room schools have
disappeared from Wisconsin’s landscape, they were an important part of rural
life and even identity. Students educated in one-room schools have gone on to
make their mark in all walks of life. Hearing older adults desiring a return to
an emphasis on the Three R’s, we think nostalgically of the one room schools in
a day that was.
Sources: The interviewof along-time teacher.
Photos: Gelatin duplicator was fround on Heyer Co. website; photos were in the collection of the interviewed teacher.