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One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections from Wisconsin
From 1791, when the first school was established in what is now Wisconsin, to the 1960s, when consolidation was finally complete, the one-room school’s history has been one of growth and change. In One-Room Country Schools , this history along with unique memories and shared recollections from the people who learned and taught in the one-room schools of Wisconsin tell the story of these institutions of learning.
240 pages, Paperback
First published December 27, 2004
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397 people want to read
About the author
Jerry Apps
96 books89 followersJerold W. Apps, born and raised on a Wisconsin farm, is Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of more than 30 books, many of them on rural history and country life. His nonfiction books include: Living a Country Year, Every Farm Tells a Story, When Chores Were Done, Humor from the Country, Country Ways and Country Days, One-Room Schools, Cheese, Breweries of Wisconsin, Ringlingville USA (History of Ringling Brothers circus), Old Farm: A History, Barns of Wisconsin, Horse Drawn Days: A Century of Farming With Horses, and Campfires and Loon Calls. His children's books include: Stormy, Eat Rutabagas, Tents, Tigers and the Ringling Brothers, and Casper Jaggi: Master Swiss Cheese Maker. He has an audio book, The Back Porch and Other Stories. Jerry has published four novels, The Travels of Increase Joseph, In a Pickle: A Family Farm Story, Blue Shadows Farm and Cranberry Red. Jerry is a former publications editor for UW-Extension, an acquisitions editor for the McGraw-Hill Book Company, and editor of a national professional journal.
Jerry has won awards for his writing from the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Library Association (the 2007 Notable Authors Award), American Library Association, Foreword Magazine, Midwest Independent Publishers Association, Robert E. Gard Foundation, The Wisconsin Council for Writers (the 2007 Major Achievement Award), Upper Midwest Booksellers, and Barnes and Noble Bookstores, among others. In 2010 he received the Distinguished Service Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Check www.jerryapps.com for more information.
Jerry has won awards for his writing from the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Library Association (the 2007 Notable Authors Award), American Library Association, Foreword Magazine, Midwest Independent Publishers Association, Robert E. Gard Foundation, The Wisconsin Council for Writers (the 2007 Major Achievement Award), Upper Midwest Booksellers, and Barnes and Noble Bookstores, among others. In 2010 he received the Distinguished Service Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Check www.jerryapps.com for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 27, 2021
Yet did you know Wisconsin was one of the 1st States to offer free public school in? You can learn many other things about 1 Room schoolhouses in this book. Jerry apps is a brilliant writer in my opinion.
October 18, 2021
Wisconsin author Jerry Apps presents an informational and nostalgic look at Wisconsin’s one-room school houses from their inception to their decline. He relies on his personal experiences as well as stories from others to portray the way young people in Wisconsin were educated in some of the most rural areas of the station. App’s colorful writing style takes us into the classroom for a look at everything from the curriculum to the way students of all ages were taught in a single classroom, often by a teacher who may have only completed her studies just months before her first assignment. While teachers were mostly women, a male teacher was usually paid a premium.
Among the things I found most interesting in the book:
Each school district had its own school board, which was elected by the citizens in the district. At the time when one-room schools flourished, these little school boards were the smallest form of government,
Wisconsin had one-room country schools for nearly 200 years, from French trading days to the 1960s. Early one-room schools were crude structures, generally constructed of logs and heated with a wood stove.
Teachers who could handle disorderly pupils were wanted in many districts. Young women received $1.25 to $2.00 per week for teaching. Men received up to $20.00 per month. Board and room was often provided by the community.
In 1870, more than seventeen percent of Wisconsin’s adult males were illiterate. Between forty and fifty thousand Wisconsin children did not attend school at all in 1870. Thousands of others attended a few weeks during the year, generally when their parents did not need them for work on the farm.
It wasn’t until 1907 that a more stringent compulsory attendance law was passed. This law said children seven to fourteen, who lived in first class cities, must attend school during the time that school is in session. The only excuse was if they were “regularly and legally employed.”
The average teachers’ tenure in the middle 1800s was two years. Only a handful had more than five years experience.2 Because young women couldn’t continue teaching when they married, this became the main reason for short teacher tenure.
The teacher should not wear bright clothing in the classroom, and skirts must be near the ankle in length. Any teachers who smoked, used liquor in any form, frequented pool or public halls, were required to give reason to the superintendent as to why he should not suspect the teacher’s worth, intention, integrity, and honesty.”
Even though some saw no need for teacher preparation, many state leaders did. In 1849, when the state of Wisconsin was only a year old, the legislature made plans to create a normal department for teacher training within the state university. The thinking then was that a normal department at the university, plus a series of teacher in-service institutes would meet teacher training requirements. But the legislature didn’t make funds available for such a normal department. Finally, university regents, in 1855, found $500. This normal department was to focus on “professional instruction in the art of teaching,” and be available for five months each year.
If students were doing exceptionally well in a particular subject, they were allowed to sit in with the next highest class. Likewise, if a student was having difficulty with a subject, he or she might sit with a lower class.
At the completion of seventh grade, many rural school children were expected to pass a county-wide examination before they were admitted to eighth grade. Usually, this examination was for only two or three subjects such as reading and arithmetic. To graduate from eighth grade, all country school children had to pass a county-wide standard examination that was given on one long day at the county seat.
Radio was in its infancy in the 1920s, but the University of Wisconsin’s 9XM, later to become WHA, was an early entrant to broadcasting, and particularly educational broadcasting. In 1917 university physics professors and students successfully transmitted music and voice using handmade vacuum tubes. By the 1920s WHA was broadcasting a homemakers show, market news and an agricultural program, and Edgar “Pop” Gordon’s music appreciation series, which became the foundation for the school of the air, beamed to the country schools scattered throughout the state. An early technical problem was how to provide access to the entire state with the school of the air programs. In 1947-48, the percentage of schools signed up for the school of the air ranged from ninety-one percent in Columbia County to no schools in Bayfield, Ashland, and Florence counties because the radio signal could not reach that far north. Eighty percent of the schools in Trempealeau County participated, eighty-three percent in Monroe County, seventy-eight percent in Green Lake County, and seventy-one percent in LaFayette County. With the advent of a statewide network for FM stations in the 1940s, programs became more available, but the challenge of providing radio access to all corners of the state was never completely met. Let’s Draw The critics were many. How could anybody teach drawing and art over the radio? Jim Schwalbach, a former high school teacher, who became a university professor, took up the challenge. In the introduction to the 1939-1940 School of the Air program, “Let’s Draw” was described this way. “This year, his fourth on the School of the Air, Mr. Schwalbach will emphasize instruction in basic art principles and the manipulative skill to be developed through craft work. By dramatization, music, story, or poetry, he interests the children in the subject of the program and gives them ideas for pictures.
Among the things I found most interesting in the book:
Each school district had its own school board, which was elected by the citizens in the district. At the time when one-room schools flourished, these little school boards were the smallest form of government,
Wisconsin had one-room country schools for nearly 200 years, from French trading days to the 1960s. Early one-room schools were crude structures, generally constructed of logs and heated with a wood stove.
Teachers who could handle disorderly pupils were wanted in many districts. Young women received $1.25 to $2.00 per week for teaching. Men received up to $20.00 per month. Board and room was often provided by the community.
In 1870, more than seventeen percent of Wisconsin’s adult males were illiterate. Between forty and fifty thousand Wisconsin children did not attend school at all in 1870. Thousands of others attended a few weeks during the year, generally when their parents did not need them for work on the farm.
It wasn’t until 1907 that a more stringent compulsory attendance law was passed. This law said children seven to fourteen, who lived in first class cities, must attend school during the time that school is in session. The only excuse was if they were “regularly and legally employed.”
The average teachers’ tenure in the middle 1800s was two years. Only a handful had more than five years experience.2 Because young women couldn’t continue teaching when they married, this became the main reason for short teacher tenure.
The teacher should not wear bright clothing in the classroom, and skirts must be near the ankle in length. Any teachers who smoked, used liquor in any form, frequented pool or public halls, were required to give reason to the superintendent as to why he should not suspect the teacher’s worth, intention, integrity, and honesty.”
Even though some saw no need for teacher preparation, many state leaders did. In 1849, when the state of Wisconsin was only a year old, the legislature made plans to create a normal department for teacher training within the state university. The thinking then was that a normal department at the university, plus a series of teacher in-service institutes would meet teacher training requirements. But the legislature didn’t make funds available for such a normal department. Finally, university regents, in 1855, found $500. This normal department was to focus on “professional instruction in the art of teaching,” and be available for five months each year.
If students were doing exceptionally well in a particular subject, they were allowed to sit in with the next highest class. Likewise, if a student was having difficulty with a subject, he or she might sit with a lower class.
At the completion of seventh grade, many rural school children were expected to pass a county-wide examination before they were admitted to eighth grade. Usually, this examination was for only two or three subjects such as reading and arithmetic. To graduate from eighth grade, all country school children had to pass a county-wide standard examination that was given on one long day at the county seat.
Radio was in its infancy in the 1920s, but the University of Wisconsin’s 9XM, later to become WHA, was an early entrant to broadcasting, and particularly educational broadcasting. In 1917 university physics professors and students successfully transmitted music and voice using handmade vacuum tubes. By the 1920s WHA was broadcasting a homemakers show, market news and an agricultural program, and Edgar “Pop” Gordon’s music appreciation series, which became the foundation for the school of the air, beamed to the country schools scattered throughout the state. An early technical problem was how to provide access to the entire state with the school of the air programs. In 1947-48, the percentage of schools signed up for the school of the air ranged from ninety-one percent in Columbia County to no schools in Bayfield, Ashland, and Florence counties because the radio signal could not reach that far north. Eighty percent of the schools in Trempealeau County participated, eighty-three percent in Monroe County, seventy-eight percent in Green Lake County, and seventy-one percent in LaFayette County. With the advent of a statewide network for FM stations in the 1940s, programs became more available, but the challenge of providing radio access to all corners of the state was never completely met. Let’s Draw The critics were many. How could anybody teach drawing and art over the radio? Jim Schwalbach, a former high school teacher, who became a university professor, took up the challenge. In the introduction to the 1939-1940 School of the Air program, “Let’s Draw” was described this way. “This year, his fourth on the School of the Air, Mr. Schwalbach will emphasize instruction in basic art principles and the manipulative skill to be developed through craft work. By dramatization, music, story, or poetry, he interests the children in the subject of the program and gives them ideas for pictures.
April 18, 2016
Jerry Apps nailed the 8 years I spent in a small country school. The work the teacher, and the older kids had to do to keep the physical school operating besides the "educating" part. Govt. Dept. of Education had a good side in providing Wisconsin School of the Air and the dumb side. The country schools provided with Safely patrol instructions, badges, and mandatory appointing a Capt, a Lt. and 2 Safety Officers for school crossing. OK in town but seldom did a car go by a country school at most locations, al dirt roads, some on dead end roads. Consolidation killed the country schools and a way of life gone.
September 14, 2019
A book that you can "skip around in". This was published in 1996 at the end of one room schoolhouses in Wisconsin. The author gathered the knowledge of hundreds of former students and teachers from one room schoolhouses and distilled the information into 16 chapters/themes. It is with nostalgia that we look back at that special way of learning: multiple ages and a spirit of cooperation with kids that graduated with excellent abilities of reading and math.
April 13, 2016
I liked it because it is history and I live in Wisconsin. I feel certain that, although it was directed to a particular rural area and state, there is a lot here that is applicable to any rural area of the time. It is sprinkled with anecdotes and period photographs, and this adds to it's appeal. However, it is somewhat pedantic at times, and it is rather dry reading. If you are a history buff and/or an educator, it has distinct appeal.
This book was provided by the author or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of LibraryThing.
This book was provided by the author or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of LibraryThing.
December 9, 2021
It's basically a good book. I found some chapters repetitive. Perhaps someone who went to a country school or someone who is doing some kind of research paper on the subject.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 2, 2011
I really liked reading about the schools and how they operated years ago and how they evolved over the years. The author talks about schools throughout Wisconsin and the ways of the one room school houses on their salaries and that the kids and the teachers took care of the schools and how they worked together. I would have loved to go to school back in those days. Where the students and teachers had a personal relationship and had a more simple way of life.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews