“Soddies: Down to Earth Country Schools” Here is a photo that generates a host of questions about teaching conditions on the more remote stretches of the Great Plains! How young was this teacher? How substantial was a sod schoolhouse? What was it like to teach and learn in a school made of dirt? What kind of education did the children receive? How did they survive the rigors of the geography and the weather in the communities of the emerging west? Wood planking, logs, adobe, stone, and brick...all were regional building materials used in the construction of one-room schools across America...unless none of these were on hand. To jumpstart the education of their newly settled children, many plainsmen resorted to using the endless grasslands to erect their homes and their temples of learning. “The very first care of the sturdy homesteader of the plains, after a dugout was completed for his family, was a school for his children. School districts were hastily organized and in the absence of money on taxable property, schoolhouses were constructed out of the only material that cost nothing but hard work, the virgin sod of the prairies.”...Friends’ Intelligencer Journal (1903). In the video slide show by Susan Fineman below, hear the stories of pioneer homes and one-room schools, "soddies" made from dirt and grass. It was here that western settlers’ children “drank of the fountain of knowledge,” while enduring Mother Nature’s greatest furies and annoyances. Explore the determination of sod-house communities and the stories of hardy teachers who overcame adversity to produce some of the highest literacy rates in the country. Enjoy vignettes about sod home and school experience in 17-pages of memories, stories, and poems (Click in the photo above to open the PDF). Note: The short program attached was presented at the 2022 CSAA Conference in Golden, Colorado and answers some of the intriguing questions asked above. Attending an annual conference offers countless programs of interest to country school enthusiasts. We encourage you to present or attend a future conference with 2025 planned for West Virgina. Stay tuned on this website for information and conference updates.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Our early public schools systems were indeed disparate, but a common thread among early districts was that children of all ages were taught together in the one-room schoolhouse" Blog Archives
October 2024
|