Lessons From a One-Room Schoolhouse

Years ago, when visiting family in Iowa, my wife, Michelle, asked if we could go by an old one-room schoolhouse. She wanted to take a few pictures.  Being a history nut, I was all in.  That trip sparked a lasting fascination in me that continues to be fueled by the dual passions of education and nostalgia. 

So this summer, while again visiting family in Iowa, I asked Nanno (my wife’s grandmother), if we could go by that old schoolhouse again.  My intention at the time was to take a photo that I could hang in my office.  But as I walked around the simple white schoolhouse and stared into the restored interior, I found myself thinking of what teaching in such a school must have been like.  

Education has changed a lot since the old school bell by the back door was used to call students into class.  In those days, students would settle into rows of desks and perform their work on pieces of slate.  Today, students gather in pods huddled over laptops completing their assignments.  Instead of eight grades sitting side-by-side in a bare classroom listening to the same teacher, we have elementary, middle, and high schools where students are taught by certified teachers that specialize in their grade level and content. And most importantly, when nature calls, the students of yesteryear would head outdoors, while we head down the hall.  

Yes, much has changed in the 100 or so years since this school house was last used.  But looking through that dusty window also made me think of why we preserve and study history.  This schoolhouse reminds us to hang on to the roots of education and good teaching.  And that is where this blog was born.  

So what lessons can we take from an old one-room schoolhouse on an Iowa hill? 

We have to make education about individuals

First, we don't teach classes, we teach individuals.  Sometimes it’s easy to look out at a sea of faces and think of them as a homogeneous group.  But the truth is that every student is unique and we have to treat them as such.  

I bet the word differentiation was never uttered in that white clapboard building, but the teachers who taught here probably could have led a professional development breakout session on the topic.  When you teach first- through eighth-grade in one room, you have to differentiate.  

Beyond differentiation, though, making education about individuals means...

We have to know our students

At the heart of every school, across space and time, is a teacher building a relationship with a student.  The old adage, “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” may be trite, but it’s true.  Teachers can’t help students fulfill their dreams if they don’t know what those dreams are.

In the golden days of single classroom schools, teachers knew their students, their families, and their stories.  That’s because the teachers didn’t just teach the student, they shopped with them, worshipped with them, and sometimes, lived with them.  And while I don’t suspect we’ll go back to days of families boarding teachers (though with pay like it is, teachers could use the help), we do have to make sure we are making a concerted effort at all levels of education to get to know our students, their families, and their stories.  

As we, teachers and administrators, get to the know the families in our classrooms and schools, we can make better-informed decisions.  That's why...

We have to keep education local

The schoolhouse pictured above was erected in the 1860’s by the local farmers.  Across the country, other small communities also came together to build, maintain, and run their local schools.  This sense of shared responsibility is what instills the sense of school pride that still flows through communities across the country today.  However, more and more, the community is losing control of their local schools.  Just like much of our shared history, we can either work together to preserve it or watch it decay and disappear.  

The quaint one room schoolhouse largely died out by the 1940’s.  However, it’s legacy and lessons live on.  And we can best uphold that legacy by applying the lessons of history in our classrooms and communities today.  

Join the conversation by commenting on other lessons we can learn from the one-room schoolhouse.