The last bell for one-room schools
Avening, Banda and Mount Zion/
Cashtown, Creemore, Maple Valley/
Bayview, Glen Huron and Dunedin/
Twenty-three has joined us too.
We all came marching in.
If you attended Creemore Nottawasaga Central School, you’ll know what that is all about. It is the school song composed by the pupils to mark the opening of the school in 1967. The names above identify the one-room schools in this area that all were closed at that time. I would also like to mention that Madills school closed earlier.
It may be a mystery to some how one teacher could teach and look after eight grades in one school day. We can thank Heather (Weatherall) Rowell for providing a glimpse into the functioning of a one- room school, in this case, Avening:
“The school bell on the roof rang at 9 a.m. Mrs. Timmons, the teacher, played the piano as we always started the day with O Canada or God Save the Queen. First there was language (reading, writing and spelling), recess at 10:15 a.m., math at 10:30 a.m., lunch at noon for one hour, science, health, music, social studies in the afternoon. Art was always on Friday afternoon.
“Primary students were excused and went home at 2:30 p.m., walking home alone. Senior students stayed until 4 p.m.
“Mr. Coates, the travelling music teacher, introduced us to a variety of hymns, folk songs and music theory. I remember one song, called ‘Blood on the Saddle’. The Book Mobile, our travelling library, came every two or three weeks.”
All this sounds like a day in a school room with just one grade. In the one-room schools the teachers knew how to set different grades to work and then provide a lesson for a grade that was experiencing something new. The teacher would move from grade to grade as needed. It was common for two or three grades to be using the same program such as science or social studies. I, your writer, have had the experience of teaching in four different one room schools and can tell you it was often exhausting.
Now, to return to Heather Rowell’s description of life in a one room school. There were special events during the year: “We would practise marching around the school in preparation for the South Nottawasaga School Fair in Creemore each fall. We would compete by first marching down the main street, lining up and performing our school cheer on the baseball field (now Gowan Park). Then we would cross the street to the arena to see if our entries of vegetables, fruit, baking or crafts had won a prize. I competed in the public speaking contest. I still have the cup.
“Our annual Christmas concert of skits, songs and dance was held at the Avening Community Hall to accommodate all of the community members each December.
“On a rare occasion we would get out early to play baseball. We had great fun at Hallowe’en dressing up and playing games.
“We had two baseball diamonds. Primary students played baseball on the north side. The big boys played on the west side and the twirling tire swings were on the south side. We also played ‘anti-over’, a game played by two teams, one on each side of the school. The ball was thrown OVER the school roof. When one team caught five balls, then they would race around to ‘catch’ new team members on the other side.
“On rainy days the basement was divided into the girls’ side and the boys’ side. The boys often played poison tag and the girls skipped with one long rope.”
Dorothy (Timmons) Shropshire has provided us with some other interesting pictures of life in one- room schools. She has confessed that sometimes they went skating on the creek behind the school. The teacher rang the hand bell for them to come in. Sometimes it took quite a while.
As with most one-room schools the toilets were outdoors, one for the girls and one for the boys. One of the girls went out to the toilet in class time. When she didn’t return the teacher sent Dorothy out to see what was wrong. This is what happened.
When the girl shut the toilet door the latch fell out on the ground and she couldn’t get out. In an attempt to solve the problem, she broke the window, tried to crawl out and got stuck. When Dorothy investigated, she picked up the latch on the ground, put it back in and opened the door. She pulled the unfortunate girl out of the window, went back to the school room and all was well.
Helen Blackburn is a retired teacher, avid gardener and a long-time contributor to The Creemore Echo. She writes about local history.
