Galena students spend day at one-room schoolhouse

By TARA HETTINGER
Tara.Hettinger@newsandtribune.com

April 29, 2008 11:04 am

— With a recess filled with square dancing coming to a close, girls in their long dresses and bonnets and boys in their overalls and straw hats filed back into the one-room Navilleton schoolhouse Monday morning.
The 26 third-graders from Galena Elementary School each took a seat in the small wooden and wrought-iron desks, whose scratches, dents and discolorations showed their age and authenticity.
Their teacher, Amy Murphy, stood in front of the class in a long dress and apron and led the group in a spelling bee, similar to one that would have happened in the same room back in 1893, when the school opened.
For more than a dozen years, Murphy has taken her class to this spot for a real lesson in history.
“It’s a little different than the usual school day, because I have to scale back what we do to the very basics — reading, writing and arithmetic,” Murphy said.
That alone was a lesson for some.
“I learned what arithmetic means,” Olivia Kincaid, 9, said. “It means math.”
With no computers, no TV or any other high-tech equipment to teach, Murphy used the original books that teachers used in the 1800s. She said those are very different from the ones used now, because each lesson ends with a moral.
The classroom also is set up differently. Since central heating wasn’t invented back then, the room has a wood stove in the center. The desks are arranged in six vertical rows, with each row representing a grade level. In the front of the classroom sat a dunce hat on a stool, ready for any student that acted up.
“I don’t like the desks so much, because I like to have my own room and space for everything,” Kaelyn Gibson, 9, said.
Donovan Sampson, 9, said he preferred the old ways to the new, mostly because he enjoyed square dancing.
“I think this was really nice, because we can see what the pioneers did when they were young,” he said.
Students said they were excited to live the pioneer life, even if it was just for a day.
“For us to get the chance to live the life of a pioneer scholar from back then, I think it’s cool,” Gibson said.