Phased Out of Existence: One-Room Schools

 

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 4^th 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, 8^th 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., WI

who 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.