SCHOOL

   School for prairie children was usually a one-room schoolhouse. The little kids and the big kids were all in the same room at the same time and there was only one teacher!  How many teachers are in your school? 

How many teachers do you have for classes each day?

Does this classroom look like yours?  What do you see that is the same? (clock, blackboard, flag)  What looks different?  (stove, kind of clock, desks, no computers, no bulletin board)

The youngest children sat in the benches nearest the teacher’s desk and the older kids sat behind them.

Look at the school desks.  Do they look like your desk at school?  These desks are wooden with cast iron legs. Each desk is connected to the seat in front of it.  The teacher has the biggest desk in the schoolhouse. 

This teachers desk is made from a pump organ.  Many schools did not have enough money to provide new desks, chairs and materials so they had to be creative.  The guts of the organ were taken out and a writing surface and drawers added!

Like schools today, schools 120 years ago had rules students and teachers needed to follow.   What are some of the rules your school has? (No running in the halls, don’t tease your classmates, raise your hand and wait for the teacher to call on you…)    Here are rules that students 120 years ago had to follow: Do any of them sound familiar?

1.     Respect your teacher.  Obey your teacher and accept any punishments.

2.     Do not call your class mates names or fight with them.  Love and help each other.

3.     Never make noise or disturb your neighbors as they work.

4.     Be silent during class.  Do not talk unless it is necessary.

5.     Do not leave your seat without permission.

6.     No more than one student at a time may go to the washroom.

7.     At the end of class, wash your hands and face.  Wash your feet if they are bare.  (Why do you need to do this?)

8.     Bring coal into the classroom whenever the teacher tells you to.

9.     Go quietly in and out of the classroom.  If the teacher calls your name after class, straighten the benches and tables, sweep the room, dust and leave everything tidy. (Do you do this?  Who in your school does this now?)

Teachers also had rules to follow if they wanted to keep their job.  Listed below are the teacher’s rules.

1.     Teachers will fill the lamps and clean the lamp chimney every day.

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 individual tastes 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 regularly.

5.     After ten hours in school, the teacher may spend the remaining time reading the Bible of other good books.

6.     Women teachers who marry or engage in improper conduct will be dismissed.

7.     Every teacher should lay aside from each day’s pay a goodly sum of his earnings.  He should use his savings during his retirement years so that he will not become a burden on society.

8.     Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, visits pool halls or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop, will give good reason for people to suspect his worth, intentions, 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.