I dropped into the one-room schoolhouse at the Fryeburg Fair this morning. This got me to wondering about the advantages of a small community of learners. We've all heard about how inefficient they are, about how larger schools provide more opportunities . . . but might there possibly be more ways of looking at a situation than through mere efficiency? Is efficiency the only measure of progress?
Wikipedia: One-Room School
The One-Room Schoolhouse Resource Center
Maine Memory Network: Otisfield Schoolhouses.
One Room Schoolhouses of Minot, Maine
History of Maine Education
Are there any one-room schools still in operation in Maine? If there are, I'll bet they have superb per student bandwidth for the Internet "Global Village."
Wouldn't it be easy to differentiate when you only have one classroom of students to work with. And isn't there a lot of research that supports multi-age classrooms? We used to have a "one-room schoolhouse" in Peru called the Heritage school, but I think that it closed this year due to financial problems. I think that you are right, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. We used to have a "one-room schoolhouse" in Peru called the Heritage school, but I think that it closed this year due to financial problems.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite titles on Maine's MLTI iTunes U section is the Islesford video (#3 on the list) which is about a one room schoolhouse on Little Cranberry Island. Hats off to the teacher.
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/4yw4rl