One-room Country School - Group of Students with Teacher - North

This was a typical one-room rural school in North Dakota USA in 1947. The group of children in the photo are not a single class but range from grade... more

by Donald Erickson

Title

One-room Country School - Group of Students with Teacher - North

Artist

Donald Erickson

Medium

Photograph - Photographic Prints

Description

This was a typical one-room rural school in North Dakota USA in 1947. The group of children in the photo are not a single class but range from grade one to grade eight. If I counted right and figured right, that's 1.75 students per class. It doesn't work out that way of course; a class may have three for four students; another may have none.

This is the school I attended. My two brothers are in the photo, each in a different class. We lived two miles from the school. We walked to get there, and we walk back. Sometimes a blizzard would come up during the day, and we walked home in that.

A teacher had to have eight weeks education at a teachers college to teach in a rural school for one year. If that teacher went back to college the following summer or another eight weeks, she or he could teach another year. And so on. If a teacher did this long enough, she or he would earn a two year degree, then called a Standard Degree. With a Standard Degree the teacher would be qualified to teach in a town school.

Many of our teachers had only eight weeks of college preparation. They graduated from high school in the spring and taught us in the fall. This was not a rare practice. The first eight weeks was paid for with a scholarship program with the stipulation the recipient would teach in a rural school the following winter, a pretty good deal for a high school senior with no money. My wife started this way, as did my sister and at least one of my cousins. All eventually earned Bachelor Degrees.

There's no question that we had a different education than kids going to town school had, but I don't think we lost much by it. Maybe we gained. Who knows? One of my brothers(back row, third from the left, also the right) eventually earned a PHD in history, did a year of post-doctoral study at Harvard, and became a professor of history and a dean at a major university.

Uploaded

December 17th, 2014