| ||||||||||
 
Dr. Ronald P. Rogers CHIROPRACTOR Support for your body's natural healing capabilities 270-384-5554 Click here for details 
  
Columbia Gas Dept. GAS LEAK or GAS SMELL Contact Numbers 24 hrs/ 365 days 270-384-2006 or 9-1-1 Call before you dig 
Visit ColumbiaMagazine's Directory of Churches Addresses, times, phone numbers and more for churches in Adair County Find Great Stuff in ColumbiaMagazine's Classified Ads Antiques, Help Wanted, Autos, Real Estate, Legal Notices, More... 
|
Tom Chaney: Me Growed from a Pumpkin Seed Of Writers And Their Books: "Me Growed from a Pumpkin Seed." Tom reviews Lynwood Montell’s book about Kentucky one-room schools and adds comments about Hart County. This column first appeared 6 February 2011. The next earlier Tom Chaney column: Jim Lowe's Reading Suggestions By Tom Chaney "Me Growed from a Pumpkin Seed" Professor Lynwood Montell has added another interesting volume to his rather lengthy shelf. The latest book is Tales from Kentucky One-Room School Teachers, The University Press of Kentucky, 2011. And it is just what it promises to be. It is not a reasoned analysis of the history of elementary education in the Commonwealth; not a study of fairness and achievement in the drafty schools of yore. It is an attempt to preserve the stories of the diminishing cadre of the teachers who taught in those schools now gone for half a century and more. Montell put out a call in a journal for retired teachers for stories and received responses from many of the state's 120 counties. The stories are arranged in various useful categories such as "Disciplining Students," "Teaching Methods and Philosophy," "Outhouses," and so forth. As the author indicates in the introduction "the bulk of these stories are relevant to the personal involvement of the teacher who tells the story" making the teacher the focus. Unfortunately that focus reveals a great deal about the quality of education provided. While having the stories provides a valuable folk record of education before the end of the one-room school, it tends to reveal the weakness of the educational content of the school day. It is clever to remember the response of the boy who could not identify his father, "Me growed from a pumpkin seed; me ain't got no daddy." It is uncomfortably revealing to see the unedited bad grammar of the former teachers. Of course, that leads to a story about schools in Hart County. No examples from Hart County are included, and that is just as well. At the end of World War II this county had 101 one-room schools. In 1946 Mrs. Daisie Carter became county school superintendent vowing to improve the quality of education by consolidating the myriad one-roomers into four or five grade centers. The tale she told had to do with educational quality: specifically the lack of certified teachers. That lack is echoed throughout Montell's book although it is not a central focus. Time and again his sources speak of the long struggle to get certificates and college degrees. She told of visiting one school on a Monday to find it devoid of scholars. Cornering a student nearby she asked whether the teacher was ill. "Nome," the pupil replied, "we don't never go to school of a Monday. Teacher says that's her washday." Mrs. Carter also spoke of the wretched condition of the actual buildings where education was intended to take place. Children shivered in their coats all the long day when winter winds blew down the hollers. Often unclean drinking water combined with inadequate outhouses made a perfect incubator for disease. By 1954 all but two of the Hart County schools were closed. Roads were improved so that when pupils appeared at school in the fall expecting to find a teacher, they were met by a yellow school bus instead. There were those among Montell's sources who regret the loss of the sense of community that accompanied the closing of the schools. But is not that a part of the necessary price to pay for better education? Those sources refer to the occasional superior student produced by the one-room schools. Few spoke of the many others who were left behind. Tales from Kentucky One-Room School Teachers is a valuable book. It gives a glimpse of an era fading into a rose-colored rear view mirror. There is a danger, however, that nostalgia for a bygone, badly remembered day will lead away from necessary progress. Shall we have a tea party? Tom Chaney can be found telling stories, planning his next meal, and occasionally selling books at THE BOOKSTORE Box 73 / 111 Water Street Horse Cave, Kentucky 42749 270-786-3084 Email: Tom Chaney - bookstore@scrtc.com http://www.alibris.com/stores/horscave This story was posted on 2015-12-06 04:20:33
Printable: this page is now automatically formatted for printing.
Have comments or corrections for this story? Use our contact form and let us know. More articles from topic Tom Chaney: Of Writers and Their Books:
Tom Chaney: Jim Lowe's Reading Suggestions Tom Chaney: Stories Rise Like Smoke Tom Chaney: I Don't Go To Church - Kneeling Bags my Nylons Tom Chaney: Understanding the Enemy Tom Chaney: Literature and the Plague Tom Chaney: The First Black Novel (More than Likely) Tom Chaney: Doing History - Celebrating Feet of Clay Tom Chaney: A World Made New Tom Chaney: The Hero Takes No Crap Tom Chaney: Alan Vance at The Gallery View even more articles in topic Tom Chaney: Of Writers and Their Books |
 
115 Jamestown St. Columbia, KY. 270-384-2496 
  
   
 Provided by the Adair Co Fiscal Court and the Adair Co. Emergency Mgt. Agency 
|
||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
Quick Links to Popular Features
Looking for a story or picture? Try our Photo Archive or our Stories Archive for all the information that's appeared on ColumbiaMagazine.com. | ||||||||||
|
Contact us: Columbia Magazine and columbiamagazine.com are published by Linda Waggener and Pen Waggener, PO Box 906, Columbia, KY 42728. Please use our contact page, or send questions about technical issues with this site to webmaster@columbiamagazine.com. All logos and trademarks used on this site are property of their respective owners. All comments remain the property and responsibility of their posters, all articles and photos remain the property of their creators, and all the rest is copyright 1995-Present by Columbia Magazine. Privacy policy: use of this site requires no sharing of information. Voluntarily shared information may be published and made available to the public on this site and/or stored electronically. Anonymous submissions will be subject to additional verification. Cookies are not required to use our site. However, if you have cookies enabled in your web browser, some of our advertisers may use cookies for interest-based advertising across multiple domains. For more information about third-party advertising, visit the NAI web privacy site.
| ||||||||||
