What do you think it would be like to go to school in a two-room school?
Marg, my GrandPal, was born on May 11, 1946, and she started school when she was five in 1951. What is so interesting is that Marg's school was very different from the schools we have today. Marg's school was in King City and the school was named after her teacher Miss Dennis. Marg went to Eva L. Dennis Public School from Grade 1 to Grade 8. What was most different was that Marg's school only had two rooms; one for children in Grades 1 to 4 and one for children in Grades 5 to 8. There was no kindergarten at this school. There were 30 students altogether and 15 in each room. Marg doesn't remember how big the two-room school was but she knows it was a two-room, one-storey school.
Marg's school didn't have a library or bookmobile. Her school also didn't have a playground. Some things that were the same are that they had chalkboards and she learned almost exactly the same things as we do today.
When Marg was five, she had curly brown hair and would wear brown leggings, a skirt and any shirt that she had to school. She had a little brown bag she would carry her books in. It would take Marg 20 minutes to get to school in the spring and fall and took her 30 minutes to get to school in the winter. To get to school Marg would go through Dr. Berry's field. Marg would pretend she was a horse and gallop through the field for fun.
In the morning Marg's class would sing "O Canada," just as we do. Marg and everybody in her class had their own desks. The desks were made of wood but what was different was that the seat was attached to each desk. Marg's favourite subjects were math, art and reading.
For recess, Marg and her friends would play hopscotch, run around and skip rope. Marg's best friend's name was Diane. Marg's friends would call her Marg but everybody else would call her Margaret. At school, Marg and her friends would get chased by her brother Joe and his friends with garter snakes. She felt scared and frightened when the boys would chase her and her friends with garter snakes but Marg would have to pretend that she wasn't scared so the boys would not chase her too much. For lunch, Marg and her brother Joe would go home to eat.
One time at the end of the school year Miss Dennis let the kids pick the flowers from the garden. The flowers were peonies. Marg's mom thought she stole the peonies and Marg had to return them to the school. When Marg went back to the school the teacher sent a note to her mom saying that Marg could take the peonies home. Marg was glad she got to keep the peonies.
After elementary school, Marg went to Aurora High School. Marg would have to take a bus there but in 1961 they built a school called King City Secondary School so she went to that school. When Marg got older her mom wanted her to learn how to play the piano but Marg could not get her left hand to do what her right hand was doing, so her mom got her a violin to play. When Marg would go to school the kids would tease her because her violin case looked like a machine-gun case. The school that replaced my GrandPal's school is like the ones we have today! The new school has a library, gym, playgrounds and more rooms! What I found most extraordinary about growing up in the 1950s was that she went to a two-room school! I was surprised that they still had two-room schoolhouses then because it was not that long ago. You would not find those around anymore. There were lots of log school houses and two-room school houses in King City Township in the early 1900s but the story reports that none of them still existed when it was written. By the 1970s these old schools were converted to homes, stores or torn down.
The second thing I found extraordinary was that the boys would chase the girls with garter snakes! Today you probably wouldn't find children chasing each other with garter snakes at school or at home! I don't really see very many garter snakes in my area.
I don't think I would like to go to school when Marg did because they didn't have a library or a gym. I love to read and play sports in the gym!