What was school like in the 1940s

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Analytics Analytics. The political process of consolidating small school districts began. The educational revolution that began in the s has continued until today. Again, according to the U. Census Bureau, Nebraska now boasts that Almost a quarter of the state's residents also have a college degree and 7.

A partial bibliography of sources is here. This would be hung on the easel, and the appropriate chart flipped over when required. These were used for rote learning of spellings, sounds of letters, tables, school rules and good manners, as well as other things.

There were no fans, electric heaters, nor carpets on the floors. Linoleum on some floors such as the Head Teacher's Office was considered a luxury. Electric lights in classrooms were the exception rather than the rule, although one classroom in each school had a single light bulb in it for School Committee meetings, if electricity were available.

At that time, though, many country schools had no electricity nor telephone whatever, and even in the mids the present writer was appointed to a country school where the only electrical appliance was a grey console radiogram, powered by a rechargeable six-volt car battery.

Having the battery recharged involved a 50 mile round trip along bush fire-breaks and dirt roads to the nearest town. In the s, most children walked to school or rode horses. Often, all the children in a family came to school on the one horse. In the late s, children began to ride to school on bicycles, and in the s bus services to schools became common. What did we learn? The main subjects taught were English, Arithmetic, History and Geography.

English included reading, recitation, spelling, dictation, writing compositions or essays, punctuation, synthesis, analysis, parsing, derivation, and hand-writing practice in a copy book. Arithmetic included tables, notation, mental arithmetic, written arithmetic, mensuration and geometry.

Each class had a single teacher who taught all subjects. An exception was often made for music, for if a teacher on the staff were talented in this art and could play the school piano if there was one , then that teacher could likely find himself or herself but usually it was 'herself' taking music lessons for some other classes than her own. This radiogram also played 78 r. Modelling of simple items, such as a basket of fruit, was done using plasticine.

Girls attended a sewing lesson each week, while older boys learned such crafts as carpentry or fretwork. Some schools taught natural science, and built up small museums of dead creatures bottled in formalin, shells, mineral samples, different types of wood, bones etc.

Other schools used this time to run Project Clubs , in which the children planted pineapples, fruit, vegetables, pine trees, or bred poultry or pigs. The State Education Act stipulated that half-an-hour each week be set aside by all classes and devoted to the reading of Bible lessons by the teacher from set books, and another half-an-hour for Religious Instruction, taught by visiting clergy.

School days In the s, children began school at the start of the year in which they turned five, and there were seven main grades, beginning in Grade One.

This was not always the case. Before , there had been six Classes in primary schooling. In the single preparatory grade was extended to two years of four semesters, Preparatory One Prep One to Prep Four. In their third year the pupils entered Grade One.

The Prep grades were abolished in , and primary schooling was organised into eight years, after which pupils moved to secondary school, where there were four year levels: Sub-Junior, Junior, Sub-Senior and Senior.

In the early s the Grade Eight class level was moved from primary to secondary schools throughout the State. Daily school routine was much simpler than we see today. There were no aides, instrumental music teachers, physical education teachers, foreign language teachers, learning support teachers, teacher-librarians, guidance officers, administrative officers or groundsmen provided. Parent helpers were rare and not generally encouraged.

Each class had the one teacher for the whole day, with maybe a singing lesson taken by a musically-talented staff teacher once or twice per week. The children sat at their desks for the whole of each session, for group work was unheard of.

If a child at the other end of your desk began rubbing something out, then all the children in that row had to contend with a rapidly vibrating desk. Sometimes, part of a class would move onto a veranda, go downstairs or sit under a shady tree, to chant tables or to listen to a story. In those days, it was believed that children learned by listening.

The teacher was regarded as a fount of knowledge, whose job it was to pour information into the heads of the pupils, generally by lecturing from the blackboard, the children listening passively in rows facing the front. The teacher talks to the group at an average level, having to put to one side the needs of the brighter and slower pupils, and the requirements of different learning styles. Today educationists believe that children learn by doing, so the pupils in our classrooms are allowed a much more active role in acquiring their knowledge.

Teaching programs are organised to cover a wide range of learning styles and abilities. Each small school district probably had one school building. In , 7, school districts in the state boasted 7, school buildings.

Most students went to country schools from Kindergarten up through the 8th grade. If they wanted to go on to high school, they had to take a test and be certified by the county superintendent of schools so the student could attend high school in town. Schools are supported by taxes. Someone has to pay for the building, its upkeep, the books and the teacher's salary. In Nebraska and most rural states, wealth was measured by how much property a person owned.

So, the schools were supported almost entirely by property taxes, rather than sales or income taxes. In , Nebraska ranked last of all the states in state support of public schools. Only about one percent of the funding for schools came from the state, as opposed to local property taxes. A child living in a relatively well-off rural community would have a much better education than someone living in a poor area. In addition, the Depression of the s excellerated a migration away from the farms.

For 15 years beginning in , the number of school kids in the state dropped dramatically.