The one-room schoolhouse is quickly disappearing from our landscape. Today only a few isolated and remote areas still have functioning one-room school houses in America. When we think of them today, they have become a symbol of pioneer days and frontier life. But in the history of American education, the one-room schoolhouse played a very important role. Communities took it upon themselves to build these structures and educate their children in the basics of writing, reading, and arithmetic. Sitting on wooden benches or desks, surrounded by children of varying ages, students would read from a McGuffey's reader, practice handwriting on their slate boards, or learn their numbers with the help of arithmetic cards and rote memorization. In the winter they were warmed by the intense heat of a pot-bellied stove and would trek outside in the snow or cold to use the outhouse. At lunch students would eat out of lunch pails or baskets with cold meals brought from home. On the occasion that students misbehaved, teachers" punishments often consisted of the infliction of pain (with a birch branch) or the infliction of shame (by donning the dunce cap). Today students" experience of school is much different. Eating lunch from plastic trays in cafeterias, many children have probably not even seen old lunch pails. Lunch is not the only school experience that invites comparison. In this lesson students will look at primary resources that shed light on the objects, the people, and the learning in the one-room schoolhouse, and compare the experience of the historic school with their own.

Objectives

Students will be able to: 1. Analyze pictures and artifacts of the one-room schoolhouse. 2. Note, compare, and contrast the historic one-room schoolhouse experience to the experience of other schools today. 3. List and speak about similarities and differences of the yesterday's one-room school and today's school experience. 4. Apply their knowledge in a comparison writing activity.

Standards Alignment

• History
  
  8.1.3. A. Understand chronological thinking and distinguish between past, present, and future time.
  8.1.3. A. Understand chronological thinking and distinguish between past, present, and future time.
  8.1.3 B. Develop an understanding of historical sources.
  8.2.3. B. Identify and describe primary documents, material artifacts and historic sites important in Pennsylvania history.
  8.2.3. C. Identify and describe how continuity and change have influenced Pennsylvania history.
  8.3.3. B. Identify and describe primary documents, material artifacts and historic sites important in United States history.
  
  
• Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening
  
  1.1.5. G. Summarizes main ideas of the text
  1.2.5. A. Read and understand essential content of informational texts and documents in all academic areas.
  1.4.5. B. Write multi-paragraph informational pieces.
  1.5.5. B. Write using well-developed content appropriate for the topic.
  1.6.5. D. Contribute to discussions.
  1.6.5. E. Participate in small and large group discussions and presentations.
  1.6.5.A. Listen to others