Oak Hill School Heritage Education Center: An 1886 One-Room Schoolhouse. Teacher's Resource and Curriculum Guide.

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104

Tennessee Humanities Council.

Practitioners; Teachers

Class Activities; Educational History; Educational Practices; Field Trips; Grade 4; Heritage Education; Intermediate Grades; Local History; Museums; One Teacher Schools; Rural Education

The one-room school experience is a part of U.S. and Tennessee history that should be preserved and shared. Since the last generation of scholars who attended one-room schools will soon be gone, the Jonesborough-Washington County (Tennessee) History Museum recreated this early system of education through a "living classroom" heritage program in an original rural one-room schoolhouse: Oak Hill School. On a field trip to Oak Hill School, students participate in a school day in 1892. Lessons from era textbooks are taught in a manner consistent with one-room schooling. Students use slate pencils and slate boards, practice arithmetic drills and spelling lists, make copybooks to practice penmanship with a quill pen and ink, wear school clothing of the period, bring lunch in lard pails, and play 19th-century games during recess. Although this guide was produced to prepare students for class visits, background information is included to enable any teacher to turn his or her classroom into a late 19th-century one-room school. The experience is designed to enhance the fourth-grade Tennessee social studies and language arts curriculum but is adaptable to other grade levels. Sections of this guide cover background information on America's one-room schools of the 1890s; rural education in Washington County, 1892; previsit, visit, and postvisit class activities; teacher forms and information for on-site visits; and a glossary, bibliography, and list of resource material suppliers. An Appendix contains additional 19th-century resource materials. (SV)

2002

ED458080