Occasionally I wonder about one room schoolhouses. Most of us know nothing about them first hand, and only a shrinking minority of us remember the fictional ones in Little House on the Prairie.  And how accurate were those depictions, anyway?
I suspect, that if any of us ever do think of them anymore, we view them as the quaint strides of early frontier America toward our ‘more advanced’ modern education.  But, still, I wonder . . .
It was the first day of school in the early ‘50s in my small hometown, smack dab in the middle of the Midwest.  I was starting Second Grade, and I still remember the first-day-of-school combination of excitement and jitters.  The feelings were still present after proudly becoming a ‘big-kid’ – a polished veteran of both Kindergarten and First Grade.
This was not yesterday, of course, so you’ll forgive me if details are a little fuzzy.  As I recall, we’d been been settled in for less than an hour in our new classrooms that day.  I know it was long enough for me to be glad that I liked my new teacher (Mrs. Wittmeyer?) so far.
The new business at hand was soon interrupted by visitors ‘from the office’, with a small hushed committee meeting that included these visitors and Mrs Wittmeyer, near the room’s front door.  Shortly thereafter, some of our names, including mine, were called and we were mysteriously moved across the hall to a new classroom.
There we met another new teacher (Mrs. Clevenger), and another group of students, who turned out to be third graders!  I went on to spend the entire year in a split class of second- and third- graders.
I survived the year, and I’m not aware that I was negatively scarred by the adventure in any way.  Still, I can’t imagine such a thing happened often, so I think I experienced something unique.  I look back on that year now, with lots of memories, and I don’t think any of them are bad.
I remember liking Mrs. Clevenger, who seemed the perfect combination of a no-nonsense attitude, coupled with a visible and quickly-grasped caring for each student.  I look back now and realize what an incredibly difficult job hers must have been that year!  I now wonder what factors went into the obviously-last-minute choice to hand her that assignment.  The choice was a good one.
I remember the fun of ‘listening in’ to the third graders’ lessons, when we were supposed to working on our own assignments at the time.  It seemed daring, hearing ‘stuff’ ahead of time, and noticing I could understand a lot of it.  I now realize there’s nothing magical about the arbitrary grade distinctions of content material and wonder how that speaks to the speed – or lack of it – with which students learn.  The age-old question of whether we should ‘group’ by age or content knowledge.
I remember necessarily mixing with third graders occasionally, though I’m not sure any of them became ‘friends’, as such.  I now realize that mixing was probably good for me as well.
You can see why I sometimes wonder about one-room schoolhouses.  I am certainly not advocating a return to those days, but I sometimes wonder if we ought to be slower to forget some of the positive things that existed in those settings, and how/if some of them could help us in various places today.
Follow-Up Note:  If you had similar (or even one-room schoolhouse) experiences, I’d love to hear about them.