A Truly Basic Education

— by Patti Schatz

— Eight grades, two rooms, and the making of a curious mind.

The school that provided my education through the eighth grade is nearly unimaginable today. It was the Franklin Township Consolidated School, in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, bordering New York State. The area was characterized by rural landscape and the Susquehanna River flowing through it. It was beautiful countryside.

The school was a consolidation of six one-room schools in 1936. It served until 1979 when it was consolidated with others. The school was located on PA-414 between West Franklin and Franklindale. Nearby towns of Canton and Troy supported agriculture, with a milk processing plant, feed and seed stores, and farm machinery supply companies. Towanda, the county seat, had a population about 5,000—and one traffic light.

Most people were farmers or businesses supporting agriculture. Family farms were owned for generations. Education was not their primary focus. Most students could not wait to get away from school and back to the land. Farming is an honorable pursuit, but not the only choice in life.

My parents were exceptions: they valued learning. My father told me and my younger sister that the way up was education. They encouraged reading and mental games. For example, I helped my father work on tractors. He kept asking me questions like, what do you think is the function of the flywheel? When I worked it out, he found another question, such as how does the power get from the engine to the wheels? I enjoyed learning these details. We were paid a dime for each “A” and a nickel for each “B” on our report cards. We had to pay if we got less than a “B,” but that never happened. We saved that money for college. We felt different from most of our classmates.

The school was a two-room building, four rooms if you count the two cloak rooms. We had no running water. Every day, one boy and one girl from the highest grade in the room took a water bucket across the road to the nearest neighbor. They were allowed to cross the road after a serious lecture about watching for cars. We had an enamel dipper in the bucket for self-serve. Each of us brought a cup from home. No running water also meant no indoor plumbing; we used outhouses behind the school. Heat was provided by a large coal-burning stove, surrounded by a high galvanized metal sheath, so children could not fall against it. Each teacher had to arrive early to start a fire in the stove, and heat the room a little at least. Physical education was recess in a mowed field next to the school, where we could play kickball, keep-away, tag, or just run around.

The school was a two-room building…we had no running water.

All students rode the bus to school. My sister and I were the first on the bus for 45 to 60 minutes, depending on snow. Girls were not allowed to wear any form of pants, with one exception. If the weather was cold, we could wear a pair of flannel-lined jeans under our skirt, and remove the jeans in the cloak room when we got to school. The bus did have a heater, but it did not reach full function until about half way to school.

Ethel Bailey taught grades 1 through 4, and Flora O’Connell taught grades 5 through 8. We addressed the former as Mrs. Bailey, and the latter as Flora, at her direction. We had no kindergarten. Mr. O’Connell drove the school bus in addition to farming.

I will always remember our special treat every fall on a day when we would stop at the O’Connell home. We were allowed to get off the bus and each pick an apple from a giant tree to eat on the bus on the way home. The tree produced large sweet green apples, and they were a real treat. I never learned the name of the apples, but it was exciting to eat the crunchy, juicy apples, which dripped onto our clothes. It was the only time we were allowed to eat on the bus.

I have yearbooks from two years. They were not professionally produced on glossy paper; they were very basic. Class sizes varied from one to 12. The number of children in a room varied from 29 to 35. Both teachers had years of experience, or I do not know how they could have coped.

A typical day was like this. Give out graded worksheets from the previous day for students to correct. Conduct the “lecture” for reading for grade one and assign worksheet. Repeat for the other three grades. Repeat with arithmetic/math, and spelling. Once a week, give spelling tests. The morning flew by, and classes extended into the afternoon. Health, science, history, and geography got limited attention, and a great deal of the work was left to the students to read assignments and to do worksheets.

After I completed my worksheets, I could listen to lessons for the next grade. After two years I was very familiar with all the classes. I was allowed to help students; I was allowed to read any book in the library, and I read them all. We took standardized state tests, and I did well, very well. As you might guess, not all students were as highly motivated.

On rare occasions, we had a substitute teacher, one of whom introduced phonics to the primary grades. I thought it was magic. I could pronounce almost any word by “sounding it out.” It helped my reading skill immensely.

My sister and I went to church and shopped outside this community. We did not know anyone else on the first day of school. Although no one was wealthy, we had less than most. Our homemade clothes and shyness made us targets for teasing. We never made friends. Most people have fond memories of school, but both of us were so happy to leave it.

I went to a “big” high school, with about 120 students per grade. I was selected for the “college-bound” group, and had difficult subjects. Learning how to change classes and adjust to the different teachers was a challenge at first, but I quickly adapted.

By almost any measure, my school was out of date. My mother went to a more modern school, much like current schools. My country school gave some academic basis and the freedom to learn independently. More important, I think, was the interest my parents had in education. They valued curiosity, logic and independent thought. Whether it was schooling then or now, parents are important catalysts to a child’s learning.

Patti Schatz grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania. She graduated from Mansfield College with a degree in math, and taught senior high school college prep math for two years. She joined IBM during the infancy of the computer industry as a Systems Engineer, a technical career which spanned 49 years. In retirement she has pursued many hobbies, among them photography, quilt design and construction, and baking, especially cookies for the holiday season. Her butterfly garden is flourishing. She is a member of OLLI, and participates in both the German language and French language SIGs.