Life in a One-Room School by Amy Kathleen Stafford

Notes - In this document, Amy Kathleen Stafford discusses her accounts of being both a student and a teacher in a one room school house. Many of her recollections are of her experiences as a teacher in the 1920s and 1930s. She describes school houses as usually being wooden buildings; although one account was given where she taught in one that was made of sheet metal. Also included in her description is the layout of the school house, including where the teacher's desk was and what it looked like, the children's desks, how the school was heated often by a Waterbury furnace and cooled by one wall of opening windows; as well as describing the school's contents. She recalls the many modes of transportation which children used to get to school. She also discusses the class sizes and grades which were present in the one-room classroom. A classroom may have contained children aged 6 - 16; which meant a lot of work for one teacher. Ms. Stafford also describes the many games the children played in the school yard at both recess and lunch, such as tag and hunting games. She remembers many of the special events that the school held, such as Arbor Day, Fall Fair, the Christmas Concert, and the end of the year picnic. Agriculture played an important part in the student's education. In the spring the Department of Agriculture would give the school seeds which were then dispersed to the students. Students were expected to plant and tend gardens both at home and at the school. Students competed for recognition for the best produce and school work. Ms. Stafford also describes how teachers gained their education by attending Normal School and their daily standard of living (10 pages)