I participated in a debate today on the question of who received the better education: kids in one-room schools (which I attended) or kids in today’s elementary schools. My team consisted of another former one-room school student and me; our opponents were a retired school teacher and a current teacher at a local elementary school.
We debated eight topics such as physical plant, art and music instruction, curriculum, teacher education, and teaching self-reliance. We had an audience of about 40 people. On most issues I was willing to concede that the current elementary model came out on top, although our team did very well on the topic of learning self-reliance and personal responsibility. One item that amazed me was learning that the playground now has cameras trained on the kids playing. I found that scary.
Some of the audience was amazed that we had no school nurse, no hot meals, no snow days, no help for special needs kids, and no art instruction. We also had outdoor toilets, no playground equipment, and corporal punishment. As my teammate said, how did we survive?
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