Remember when...
Education was a simpler affair
Floyd Fenix grew up on a 40-acre subsistence farm in the foot hills of southwest Missouri. The area had mostly dirt roads, no electricity and small communities. Now a local Texarkana educator and businessman, he recounts those simpler times in a weekly installment titled “I Remember When….”
I am old enough to remember when the school I attended had no superintendent, no principal, no phone and only one employee.
The teacher was the wife of a local farmer, and she did everything. Grade One was a row of seats on the teacher’s far right and ran through Grade Eight on her far left in the one-room school.
Individual lessons by grade were given in roughly 30-minute segments. The other grades did reading assignments or homework until it was their turn.
Some classes involved the entire school. Learning to read and do math was enhanced by older students helping the younger students.
Learning was accomplished without any homework. The front of the room had three large chalkboards. Above the chalkboards were the cursive capital and lowercase letters of the alphabet.
In cold weather, the teacher arrived an hour earlier than normal to have the coal stove heated up enough to make the room comfortable. All janitorial work was done by the students as the last task of the day before school was out.
The teacher was hired by the local elected school board. I seem to remember one board member could not write or read well. That board member was the community’s biggest proponent of getting an education. Simple. Inexpensive. And it worked.