Main Street, Wyoming Classics; 111; One Room School

In. The one room school a relic of the past were still an important part of Wyoming life. We journey out into the ranch country north of Cheyenne and back in time to the one room schoolhouse on the Bean Street Wilding class. The one room schoolhouses often romanticised in from Tir history. So we went looking for the real thing and found it north of Cheyenne at little Ingleside. Well that was over a decade ago and the changes in modern education as well as the dwindling population in ranch country are closing many rural schools. There are still a

few one room schools in Wyoming though yet no one at Laramie County School District Number One could remember this one which apparently is closed down. Well we made our visit quite a while ago back then historian Phil Roberts had long hair and some of it was actually on top of his head. We were able to locate one of the kids from the classroom. Chris farthing the gentle boy his mother worried about him as he left the one room school and headed to a bigger more urban area. He's grown up and back ranching in the Iron Mountain Country surviving a tougher environment than any classroom. So recess is over. Come back into the one room school on Main Street Wyoming classics. Row downward spin the wheel. Nothing in a song about love on my home says the little old time. Dreamy look. Down the road. Mean Street men are the same as chance rude baggy with. Heels more.

Will you gut your feet down in the main street. When you study the westward push of American civilization in the 19th century whether you do it in books or on the ground you take note of landmarks. Railroad tracks military force even irrigation ditches. But none of these quite symbolize the advance of civilization across the country like the one room schoolhouse. All across America settlers made the education of their children of the utmost importance. In the mid 19th century it was government policy to. 1840 a quarter of all Americans were illiterate and education experts like Horace Mann and John Dewey. So the public schools as a key element in shaping a healthy society encouraging good citizenship. And assimilating immigrants. Most of us walked or rode horses. Sometimes I rode horseback.

I couldn't even get on a horse now I'm at the fringe. We I had my own little saddle mare and my dad was a rancher and we rode our horses or walked in and I had almost two miles that I had to go the other children all walk to from various directions sometimes in the wintertime. They'd have frosted ears when they get to school or their fingers to be frosted and the teacher had in a wind up phonograph that he used to play John Philip Sousa marches on and we'd stop around in warmer street and say I told you before one of the main marches that I remember we started straight through every Because there were many a morning I think. The children had all the grades they gave children and they do want children. I don't think they get one and

I know that I did get a lot of us. Remember the things that I learned I can tell you that in Wyoming in the one room schoolhouse in Wyoming dates all the way back to the 1850s when the very first school in Wyoming was established the first school children at Fort Laramie and one room schools for the next hundred or so years were very a very common part of the of the Wyoming scene. In fact there were one room schools in the 1850s 1860s 1870s and Wyoming had places like Fort Bridger on the south and in the southeast part of the state where Judge Carter out there who was the post sutler brought a teacher out to teach his children. And that was essentially a one room school there. And so they've been in existence in Wyoming ever since the very beginning.

So can you give me a sense of the rise in the decline of the one room school. Can you show me the curve. Well the one room school in Wyoming you know we can look at the period roughly from the 1890s up into the to the Great Depression as the period when one room schools really became very common in Wyoming. And part of the reason for that was the increase in agriculture in various parts of the state where an individual could actually make a living on 640 acres or so and that was a that was pretty tough to do in the days before irrigation in the days before dry land farming became popular. And so consequently it was these farm communities primarily in Wyoming where you see a proliferation of one room schools in the 1890s and up into the 900 twenties in fact when educational consolidation occurred throughout the United States in places like Wyoming and South Dakota and Nebraska it closed up the little rural schools where maybe every couple of miles every three four miles there was a little school that

students then went into town school and the town school basically closed up all the rural schools and students were bussed into town. But as long as there are still a few people living on the ranch a few country schools will hang on with them. There's a family ranch near Iron Mountain North of Cheyenne. Been on the land for generations and Charlie and Carol farthings kids go to a country school in nearby Ingleside. Were a good hour from town. If the roads are in good shape you can attest to that yourselves the day probably and that you know. Horseback now is 30 miles from our fireplace and our kids are still the closest students. We've got some more that come from up at the true ranch and well another true ranch and you know they go further than our kids and you know it is. Quite a drive.

If you take those kids to Cheyanne especially a kindergarten or first or second grade or a couple years ago we had a. Member of the school board shy and want to close the school out here and we were quite concerned we were going to lose and she'd never been out here she just didn't understand the distances involved and we finally did get her to come out to school and she agreed that indeed it was quite a ways from town but she still never saw for the people lived individual families to go to that school. You have to remember I'm talking about.

Historians. Magic tricks. Are not good for you. Do you really.

Know them very. Well. Like the farthings family has lived in this country for generations. The farthings came to a ranch where her family came to mind. While. My dad was on the school board. And. He had hired. A teacher to teach I'd had to stay out of course for three weeks because they didn't have any transportation back unless it was on Friday night when someone happen to be coming to town. And the day that school opened there were no teacher showed up. So he asked me if I would please come up and just sit with the kids at least until I could. Find some teachers to take it. And nobody wanted it. From that time they had cannot stay. So. I. Started. Going to school. Teaching during the winter and consequently summer. I drove back and forth on army. If you be going to school to get a teaching degree. So how long that takes 10 years.

To teaching at work yes great to see. Most of the one room schools in the country have been absorbed into larger schools which means more students many more classrooms. The legal side has gone in the opposite direction. They tore out a wall here and went from being a two room school to a one room. If we could put six kids with a teacher in the in our schools it would make a great difference. I think

a lot of the on the positive side is the fact that the children do get a lot of individual attention from the teacher Mrs. Clawson even though there are different grade levels. They learn as they're working they still learn other things from other grade levels and by the time they reach sixth grade they have a very well-rounded education. Can you tell me how kids test when they come out of these country schools I think students coming in from this environment. Compare favorably favorably as far as academics go. One example I might cite is. We had a young lady come in here in second grade two years ago and was longways behind in actually knowing her letters and being able to read and could not read even at first grade level. And after Mrs. Claassen had her for a year and was able to teach and work with her in this small setting she was testing out above grade level at the end of the year and I think that's just an example of of the small setting where it's kind of the best of all worlds it's a resource room with a regular classroom with enrichment and education. Because she's able to work with the kids. And I feel

that academically they come out very well prepared to. Go to school and create. On the tricky them in our schools or so I am the elementary. We do have separate art music and teachers and all the elementary schools. The only difference out here is that instead of getting P.E. like a half hour for two days a week they get to eat one day a week for an hour. But they do still get the same amount of time and weeks then that they do it the other schools. And that's part of the broad education spectrum we want the kids to know a little bit of a musical bit about art. And of course to be physically fit as we can. And the teacher had all the grades I don't have children she had

that she taught all grades which I did also when I thought she doesn't seem to have come early in the morning vilifying the call still to be a pot belly still there and she built a fire get a wad Rian it getting really was a blackboard the floor and everything done well that's the same thing she had to do our own work and most. He has got forty dollars a month. The one that stands out in my mind the most was the Christmas program when it was about 40 below zero and my dad got the team to haul us through the snow because we couldn't get there otherwise. And there. I arrived breathless and I had a terrible time memorizing on my progress my brain was frozen. That Christmas morning seemed more like Christmas nearly Christmas I really had nothing. In many cases the school was the heart of the community because

there wouldn't be in many cases any stores or anything of that sort out in these rural neighborhoods. The school would be the place where people went to listen to Christmas programs for example. They would go to the schoolhouse frequently for church services because various done dominations would not have churches out in those neighborhoods and so consequently they'd use the school building for that purpose. It would be used for it for entertainment. Various community clubs would get together and meet there. Meet at the school. Individuals would organize dances that would be held it at the country school so it became just the center of community activities and in fact there are a number of cases where the name of the school. Became the name of the community because the community so identified with the school that it would become that they would they would start sharing the name of the school. When people think about the old country schools they often think in extremes.

Either it was a romantic setting trudging miles through the country to a cosy wood burning stove with a sensitive wise teacher who helped the kids one on one. Or it was a nightmare of ignorance with Chamblee country kids in tatters over work at the homestead and unable to read or do so. With a lot of anecdotal things about how students were shaped by one room schools I think. I think that's about all we can. We can rely on in some respects is that. A lot of individuals in living in Wyoming now can think back to happier days in many cases happier days when they were attending one room schools. The teachers on the other hand I think you might get a different story from many of the teachers because many of these individuals were were placed out there at some very small school where they were not only the school teacher they were also in charge of bringing in the wood. They were also in charge of making sure that school was warm in the morning when the students

arrived. They'd have to make sure that there was water in the school building because frequently most of these schools did not have any sort of running water or any kind of modern facilities. These individuals had to do all their own janitorial work. They had to see that if there was something wrong with the building like a door falling off or a window broken they had to be the ones that would go to the school board or whoever was in charge in that area and and beg those individuals in some cases to come over and take care of the problem. They'd have to deal with things like skunks that would climb in underneath the school underneath the floors and and they were essentially an entire staff. They weren't just school teachers they were janitors they were they were sort of supervisors over the over the whole landscape out there in that little community out there in the country that was the center of the world. And moms and dads of all the kids kind of met in the morning to talk about what was going on in the community how things were the weather what activities were going on local

government issues and in the evenings they'd come and talk about what happened in the day. Did you hear that you work on that. And. Our school functions like for instance the Christmas program or the how when we party. We're not only a thing looked forward to by our students but by whole families as well they would bring in carrion dinner. And invite people who didn't have students in the school. And it was just a large community gathering. Every time we had some function historically education officials have played a role in consolidation. I hear it more from legislators then I hear it from families whose children would be affected by the move from educators. I guess I have two views about that. I would not want to. Say that educating a kindergarten or a first grader is better by having them trials travel 70 or 80 miles one way. But I wonder about if we're doing justice to a student who is. High

school age. If they have to be in a community school where there's only one person in that grade. I feel like the discussion that is generated in class settings where there are more than one student in a class. Are very very valuable. Especially to students at that age. And if I were a parent of a student of that age I would consider. Bringing that student into. A setting where there were more more of his own age. You talk about country schools that need to exist because of the law. Just as the children have to commute to a larger school. But what about a small country school supported by the parents. It isn't that many miles from an urban center. Can you support keeping that kind of school operating. As long as the school board. Has to make you very unpopular difficult decision. It's highly likely they will remain. When an example is in Torrington. I left Torrington to become our state superintendent. And it was real difficult to close some buildings that were very close.

To the city of Taunton. They did it and it was hard it was very difficult decisions to make but they did it. I feel like the foundation program is one of the reasons why the system. Perpetuates that. Because we. Pay the same amount of money for eight or 10 students in a rural setting like that as we pay for 23 students who are in a one Metropolis kind of setting. And so not only do we have the desire of parents and people in a small community but we also have a foundation program that supports that as well. It's clearly a relic. No one is looking to resurrect the country school. On the other hand many of the ideas that are at least being talked about maybe not implemented but ideas that are talked about were standard in the country school ideas like site based management where the teacher would be in charge in this

case of the school. Now we have site based management where principals are in charge of the building. That's a very typical idea one that that is what is occurring in places in Wyoming and that occurred in the country school years ago. An idea like Cooperate of learning where students would work together on a project. That's what some people think is a new idea in the country schools. That was business as usual and that was business every day. I can't think of an of a time in anyone's development where being in a warm environment that supportive and where people know who I am and where they care about me and where my emotional and cognitive and social needs are being met where that wouldn't do me some good. And so probably all age students would benefit from that. It's interesting to me that in very large cities and in the center of huge popular population areas that one of the goals of teachers and administrators

in large urban schools is to figure out ways to make big schools small. And so what they do is create schools within a school. And in fact if I were in a school like that if I were a student in a school like that I might have a pot of a of a small group of students and I would have a teacher who is assigned to me as a kind of mentor as a kind of of of leader facilitator maybe not anyone I take classes from but someone who I can go to when I have a problem or when I need to have have a question answered. And in very many ways that's a lot like the philosophy of the small one room rural school too. This is. A place where they make the news. First. Here is. Probably. Six cars.

Sure you don't. 50 miles to shine. And it was. Good to. Come right out of the school. It's hard to do this when you're young you really don't look back you're always looking forward to something. And hopefully. After he goes through school and gets done with it he'll look back and realize how lucky he was you know I can guarantee you we don't have any drugs in the school over here. We don't have problems with kids bringing weapons to school. They they do and shy and you know I hope when he gets done he'll look

back and realize how lucky he was to have the individual attention from the teacher and maybe the quality of. Of life that he had. He's a very easygoing very accepting child I think he'll do really well mom and dad aren't handling it nearly as well as the child is. I worry because I know what he's going to get into going into that situation he doesn't know what he's getting into. He's always been the oldest in the school the oldest in the family and I think it's going to be really a tough adjustment for him when he gets there. We've tried to kind of prepare the kids by having social things and involving a lot of other children their age but once he gets there he started on his own where I think I think I can speak for Charlie we're both very nervous about it and the fact that he's 50 miles away. He's got a health problem you know the whole situation so we're we're not real happy that he's leaving. We wish he could just continue here I think I like. To carry on here. And. How do I help. Can do more for them. In a larger

group you can't. Do individualized instruction like I like to. Our little school with all six of us in there will pack that auditorium with over 50 people for sale like a Christmas program a potluck dinner at the end of school. And these people have had children in school there in decades. We have former teachers who come back former principals to come back. It really is a social center for us. One of the best things about being in a rural school was mom and dad or one of the other students every morning. We had no busses each night. So if you had something to tell mom or dad. Good or bad all you had to do was be there at the beginning of the day and the end of the day and you can have wonderful discussions with parents I've never had that kind of a situation with parents. Since I left the country school. They say you can't go home again and we can't go back to the schools of a century ago.

But we keep looking back in that direction. Not so much with nostalgia as with hope. Hope that we can find ways to take the best of that era the intimacy and personal attention of the one room school. And give it to our children today. Thanks for joining us on Main Street Wyoming.