THE LITTLE RED SCHOOL HOUSE
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
The Home Front The Little Red School House By William E. Bohn IT REALLY WAS RED. And it certainly was little. But in my imagination it stands as one of the greatest educational institutions in...
...There were no chur/:hes and no preachers...
...We needed no traffic cops to protect us against the horses and cattle which populated these fields...
...The school program was infinitely flexible...
...One oJ,*'"~ lessons we learned there was that the v was not such a bad place...
...But outside our little building we had a whole gorgeous world...
...All my life I have been defending whatever sort of teaching was called modern or new or progressive or experimental at the time...
...BUT THERE IS AN ARGUMENT to be put up for the old way, for having the big and the little learning their lessons together...
...But as I look back on the total effect of our life together in that one-room red brick building, I feel sorry for the boys and girls who nowadays get so much lass in .their expensive and elaborate instutions...
...She loved them all and liked being their teacher...
...But she was well acquainted with every child in the district...
...The people all knew one another...
...The youngest would be tots of six...
...There are obvious advantages in having every grade by itself with its suitable equipment and • teacher trained to meet its special needs...
...On one side our school-ground bordered on a forest...
...WHEN I FIRST PUT MY HAND into that of my big sister and walked the mile to our temple of learning, our teacher was a girl named Georgia Thorpe...
...The oldest were strapping young nten and women of eighteen or twenty...
...On the other side we could jump the fences into pasture lands...
...There was, of cou no hydrogen bomb in those days...
...In the games and athletic sports they would instruct and encourage...
...The hard words-pf psychology would have alarmed and puzzled her...
...The fact that we were all about alike and that we all knew one another, greatly lightened the teacher's task...
...Air-fth-aa-Lxci^-reca'l no one went to church, there were no drunkards Hnd no criminals...
...Out tiny district school amohg the farms out there in Ohio had one great advantage...
...There was only one good-for-nothing fellow in the whole countryside—and he was a bachelor, so nobody had to worry much about him...
...The families all owned their farms...
...Two blackboards, a globe and an awe-inspiring dictionary completed the outfit for which the school directors periodically voted expenditures...
...thm «lap» pim4 w«tt ^hort, theM v/pf firvquest filtc^niptloinll The urgencies of the very young might Interfere with the intellectual interests of the older pupils...
...Along with my picture of it, there always comes to mind a saying of Emerson's, to the effect that every gain is accompanied by a commensurate loss...
...On a fine day in the fall when the pawpaws were ripe in the g«IK.j^ we could play for what seemed endless hours in that warm and friendly wood...
...The big just naturally took for granted that it was their bu.siness to help the little...
...The names of our neighbors were Smith and Clark and Kittridge and Thorpe...
...It made for pleasant and natural growth...
...She could picture what went on in his home...
...Nearly everybody had come from New England...
...It encouraged affection, thoughtfulness...
...The setup promoted mutual understanding...
...She was it...
...But in my imagination it stands as one of the greatest educational institutions in the world...
...There was no principal or superintendent over our little teacher...
...We could do just what we wanted to do—adapting our activities to the season or to our whims...
...She was a neighbor's daughter who had .spent a couple of years in a high school in some not-distant village She had no idea of what is called pedagogy...
...I can see theoretical objections to having all twtnty'five of our pu()il* lp the wnu^roamjuidUttghl by the apn* t)»c)Mr...
...That was something...
...The claas that was reciting would, naturally, distract the attention of pupils trying to perform their tasks at their desks...
...We had no experience with any judge or policeman or sheriff...
...It was in the heart of a community of people who knew who they were and what they were and what they wanted...
...All of them worked hard and behaved themselves and helped one another...
...Another great advantage was that our tiny educational system was autonomous...
...And often enough older pupils would turn teacher in order to show off their learning...
...We were a big family...
...Everything was going on ^raultaneously...
...In stormy weather they miyht carry them to school...
...In the modern sense of the word we had no playground...
...Th§re were no outsiders, none of these terrible minority groups...
...In winter a big, old, potbellied stove consumed great quantities of wood and kept us unevenly warm...
...Our equipment was most primitive...
...The whole way of living was a natural one...
Vol. 33 • March 1950 • No. 10
