High school education was a lot different than it is now. For the poor school was cramped and crowded with many kids and one teacher. If you didn't have the money to send your kids to a fancy acadamy then your child only learned the basics, reading, writing, and arithmetic. The poor kids were sent to small schools that usually one room or sometimes at students houses. It was a very plain and simple room with desks and chair. Because the teacher had to teach all the grades at the same time, the older kids often ended up helping a lot of the younger kids instead of getting their own learning done. Kids were supposed to go to school until they were sixteen but lots of times the family would need them on the farm or couldn't afford school anymore and they would have to be sent to work either on the farm or in a factory. The teacher were often cruel and mean and would hit the kids with paddles and rulers. During the winter all they had to heat the room was a wood burner.
High school for the more fortunate was much better than the poorer kids. They usually learned skills like reading, writing, arithmetic, dancing, penmanship, tennis, basketball stretching and archery. They were sent to live at acadamies seperated by gender.
In the decade of 1900-1909 many people thought that the schooling should be progressing with the rest of the counrty. They started setting standards for what schools should have and who should be teaching the students.
I think that the progess that schools have made is amazing and i'm not surprised that schools keep changing. They need to keep up with the way the world is changing.
http://library.thinkquest.org/J002606/early1900s.html
- Grandma Kleffman
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