Memories Of Country School
Perhaps I inhabit an alternative universe.
Volunteering as I do now at Noble Academy, a Hmong charter school in Brooklyn
Park, MN. Is a total contrast to the one room school I attended for eight
grades. At Noble there are multiple computers in the classroom plus a computer
lab with over thirty computers. The white board at the front of the classroom
is computerized, like a huge touch screen monitor. When I asked a class which
four countries border Thailand their first impulse was to turn to Google.
Contrasted with my current
universe was my elementary schoolhouse. Teaching aids were blackboards, a sand
table and a globe suspended by rope hanging in the corner. The alphabet, in
Palmer Method Cursive, was on cards above the blackboards. There was metal wall
locker with a few books. For my first eight years heat was from coal stove
which had to be stoked in the morning. The building was not insulated so no
heat was retained overnight. The last four years I was there we had an oil
burner so it could be turned down but kept a bit of warmth overnight. There was
electricity for the hanging lights but I never remember plugging anything into
a wall socket. Water was outside and came from a cistern which was replenished
from run off from the roof. Water was accessed via a long handled pump. For a
drink of water during school there was a five gallon Red Wing Crock with a
spigot at the bottom. Lunches were carried from home in lunch buckets or syrup
pails. Lunches were left in the entry room until noon and on the coldest days
sandwiches might be frozen. Two outhouses, one for girls and other for boys,
were behind the school. Old fashioned desks (think little house on the Prairie)
were screwed to wood runners in three rows with the bigger desks at the back.
Pictures of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington hung high on the front wall
between the Regulator Clock. The teachers desk was like a typical office desk
holding a brass hand bell for calling students in from recess and lunch. There
were two 15 minute recesses, one morning and one afternoon. Lunch hour varied;
if it was an hour we got out for the day at 4:00 but some years it was thirty
minutes and then school ended at 3:30 but school always began at 9:00.
The amenities outside made us count our blessings as
we compared our school with others. The school yard was quite large, two and
half acres (?) and was ringed by a double row of quite young fir trees, 6-15
feet high, which served very well for any games that involved hiding. There was
a hill, steep and long enough, for sledding. Below the hill was room for a ball
diamond. About my fourth grade year The horse barn was dismantled about my
fourth grade year (it had been many year since anyone had ridden horse back to
school) and the wood used to make a backstop for baseball.
The school has an interesting role in our family
history. My father, born 1883, was the first to attend as did his three
siblings. In 1927 my mother, a single woman began teaching there. Needing a
place to board she got a room with my father and his widowed mother. Dad liked
to kid that she came for a room and never left. While she taught there one of
her students was the father of her son’s wife. Two of my cousins attended
during the thirties, Leslie and Marjorie Negstad. Finally, my three siblings
and I attended. I was five when I began...no kindergarten...and didn’t turn six
until my October 28, birthday. My way was eased by a sister and two brothers,
which, I suppose was particularly helpful walking that mile to school and back
as a first grader.
Country schools were supervised by a county school
superintended elected by popular vote. Miss van Maanen was the first one I
remember. She drove some old car...not a Ford or Chevy...’20s vintage. During
our school day she would approach the school from the east which offered a
slight downhill decline in the road. Depressing the clutch she’d coast silently
into the school yard, exit her car quietly and noiselessly enter the entry.
From the entry she’d listen, none of us knew she was there, I suppose to
evaluate the teacher’s classroom management, before entering the classroom. At
the end of eight grade all the country school students would assemble in
Brookings for standardized testing before we passed into ninth grade.
The annual Christmas pageant was always a big thing.
With a wire stretched from wall to wall across the front third of the room and
wires from that to the front wall, curtains were hung creating stage left and
right. The opening in the center was the stage area. All the families came for
the evening production so the room was crammed with standing room only.
Naturally it all ended with eating Christmas cookies.
Teaching must have been a challenge. During my eight
years there was always at least one student in each of the eight grades. The
teacher would gather a class by her desk for instruction but of course everyone
could hear everything being said. Three teachers presided during my tenure; one
for my first three years, a different one for each of fourth and fifth grades
and one for the last thee. The final teacher, Bonnie Pierce, boarded with us
during the week and went home to Bruce, S.D., weekends.
Lost in the mists of time is much clarity about what
I learned. Obviously I learned to read, write and the basics of arithmetic.
Home was probably as educational as school. I do remember my mother teaching my
how to outline, a skill that has served me well over the years. My parents were
always grammatically correct which has been both helpful and not. On the one
hand, I can tell by hearing what is proper grammar. On the other hand, in
English classes when studying the finer points of grammar I didn’t pay much
attention and just relied on my ear. That came back to haunt me when I studies
foreign languages in college and finally had to learn the essentials of
grammar.
Evaluating my elementary experience is hard. At a
basic level it did what it was supposed to do. I graduated, finished high
school and graduated from college and seminary. It taught me the basics and I
learned much from the interactions with the other students both older and
younger. It is impossible to recover where I learned what I now know. Much of
had to have come from elementary school. At the least it retains a place in my
memory of a time long ago in a far different world that no longer exists.
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