A Window to the Past

Dear Reader,

Despite the fact that a great deal of literature has been written to describe the role one-room schools played in the education of rural students, the treatment given the subject has often resulted in the creation of a binary. One set of accounts, told from the point of view of school officials, portray the one-room school as the purveyor of Protestant ethics, and a testament to the prosperity of rural communities. Literature of this sort might recount long walks to school through rolling green pastures, or pretty, young schoolmarms who were entrusted with the responsibility of introducing their charges to the “Three R’s.” Rarely is the quality of education offered in the one-room school called into question. Rather, it is taken for granted.

A second account presents a starkly different view. Advanced by early twentieth century reformers, it describes an institution characterized by scant material resources and substandard pedagogy. Poorly heated and dimly lit, the one-room school was cast as a breeding ground for illness. Reformers accused teachers of being poorly trained and undereducated, and refused to believe they were capable of providing rural students with the caliber of instruction offered in more progressive, urban schools. As a result, they campaigned fervently for the one-room school's closure.

All too often the history of one-room schools has been told from the perspective of school administrators and reformers. Seldom have writers depicted the institutions from the vantage point of those who attended them. In an effort to do so, I spent the winter and spring of 2005 traveling throughout the state of Ohio to collect the oral life histories of men and women who attended one-room schools in the first half of the twentieth century. By documenting their stories, I hoped to contribute to the development of an important chapter in American education. Though challenging at times, my experiences in the field proved to be incredibly rewarding.


As the product of a modern day educational bureaucracy, I found the portrait of schools that emerged from the stories I heard rather foreign. I suspect the same would hold true for most modern readers. As such, I have chosen to share with you an image of teaching and learning that you may not recognize.

Over the course of the next three days I will present a portrait of one-room schools as they would have looked to those who attended them. To do so, I plan to employ a variety of compositional mediums, including text, photography, and audio. My decision to integrate these mediums is a result of my desire to share with you, as closely as possible, the stories as I heard them. Several of the people I interviewed shared photographs from their pasts. In many instances they depicted the schools they attended, along with former classmates, teachers, and friends. Others brought me to see their former schools. Long since abandoned, they sat in empty fields that stood adjacent to well traveled highways. As I stood and looked at them, I could not help but imagine what my guides, now elderly men and women, must have looked like when they roamed those same fields as children so many years ago. I chose to share these photographs with you in conjuction with audio clips borrowed from the interviews I conducted. The ability to honor my informants' voices in such a manner is important to me. I hope my efforts to do so will have done them justice.

I hope you enjoy the following montage. By integrating this mix of mediums, it is my intention to provide you with a window to the past, one through which I have been fortunate enough to look.

Enjoy!