The one-room school house was synonymous with education in Nebraska for over a century. In 1901, most of the state's 6,773 schools were identified as one-room schools. While the national movement away from the one-room school house was also occurring in Nebraska, its 385 one-room schools were the most of any state in 1986 (McKee, 2013). The…

This article presents an interview with Lyn Huston, who teaches in a one-room schoolhouse--Duckwater School--in Duckwater, Nevada. The school, which has a class of only 15 students, is set on a plot of land between alfalfa farms, an Indian reservation, and a 20,500-acre wilderness area. Huston discusses the challenges that exist when teaching in a…

10 Great Curricula is a collection of stories written by educators who have come to understand curricula differently as a result of their engagement with a graduate course and its instructor. The book represents the best of what can be found in teaching and learning, in general, and in the quest for meaningful ways to understand curricula in…

This article discusses the Pleasant Valley School, located in Stillwater, Oklahoma, which is now a living history project where contemporary 4th grade students throughout Oklahoma have the opportunity to spend a day as students did in a turn of the century one-room schoolhouse, complete with coal heating, ink wells, and "McGuffey…

Harney School in western North Dakota had just one student left during its final year. Harney School is one of the rural schools across the Great Plains that have withered away over the decades as entire communities have faltered. In the 1920s, more than 4,700 one-room schoolhouses dotted North Dakota's countryside, often no more than a few miles…

An Old Order Mennonite one-room school in Pennsylvania was selected for this case study, which describes the building, curriculum, methods of instruction in reading, students and teacher. The study conducted interviews of school and community members together with modification of Flander's (1974) interaction analysis to collect quantitative verbal…

In 1937, four young women, three of whom were teachers in one-room schools in rural Maine, set off on an eight-week cross-country trip to California. They decided to take the trip so they could teach from first-hand experience. Together they saved $1,200 and then visited 30 states, Washington, D.C., and 2 Canadian provinces. (LP)

Describes the author's experiences as a student in a one-room school accommodating grades one through eight. The lone teacher employed a style that maintained excellent discipline, fostered self-confidence in the students, drew significant lessons from everyday experience, and developed the whole person. (PGD)

This article discusses the myth and reality of the ubiquitous one-room school in Canada. A marker of civilization, it bespoke a desire to spread the merits of education to the rugged laborers and their families in even the most remote areas of rural Canada. This historical vestige, particularly in the early-to-mid 20th century, painted a…

This article describes techniques for organizing curriculum in a one-teacher rural elementary school. Flexibility in grouping and teaching strategies, thematic approaches, and independent learning activities are emphasized. (SJL)

Presents an interview with two volunteers who set up and ran a school from scratch located in the mountains of Guatemala. Notes that after three months, the government was convinced to send at least one teacher. (RS)

Time and modern education caught up with the nine pupils of Daniel's Creek Elementary School, one of the last remaining one-room schoolhouses in Kentucky. The school was closed at the end of the 1986-87 school year by the county school board, after much opposition from a citizen's group. (JMM)

Teaching in an impoverished Mexican village requires an inexhaustible will to help children learn. This article describes Felicitas Sanchez Ochoa's struggle to make education possible for children living in an isolated rural area of Mexico. (PP)

This article is a first person's account of working in a rural district affected by drought, economic recession and poor levels of services. It is a facto-fictional narrative describing a typical working day in the life of Peggy, the acting CEO of quality teaching, in what is locally referred to as an NIDA district (where everyone is acting).…

A visit to Ketchikan, Alaska, reveals a floating, one-teacher logging-camp school that uses multiage grouping and interdisciplinary teaching. There are 10 students. The school gym and playground, bunkhouse, fuel tanks, mess hall, and students' homes bob up and down and are often moved to other sites. (MLH)