School back in the day

        I can't imagine going to school in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century around the time of John Dewey.  I can't fathom how different and foreign it would be to me, being a student of the twenty first century.  First off, the school would probably be made up of only one or two rooms without any sign of indoor plumbing or the comforts we have come to expect being citizens of the modern world.  Moreover, the classroom would most likely be made up of a mixture of grades. The most advanced piece of technology located in the room would probably be either the wood burning stove in the middle of the classroom or the chalk and chalkboard the teacher is using to convey his/her lessons.  Each student would most likely be required to study and learn Latin, and if you didn't do your homework the night before you could expect to be subjected to corporal punishment in front of your classmates.  Corporal punishment at this time often meant being spanked, slapped, or getting your knuckles hit with a wood ruler.     

                     The one room school houses of the nineteenth and early twentieth century could most likely fit inside most modern day high school cafeterias.  These schools usually educated anywhere from 5-30 students at a time depending on the geographical location of the school.  Unfortunately, because of segregation laws, in both the de jure and de facto sense, schools were often very homogeneous.  Each differing minority group usually had their own separate school that was located in close proximity to their houses and neighborhoods.  In some cases, the teacher or headmaster actually lived at the school, and had a small room built off of the school where he/she could sleep and cook. 

            Even during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century technology still played an important role inside the classroom.  Even if their technology at the time was just chalk and chalkboard they didn't know any better just like we don't know any better now.  I'm sure in a couple hundred years the people of the twenty second and twenty third centuries will look back at us and our computers as inferior and laughable.  I'm sure if the students of the early centuries, and even decades for that matter, would be in awe of our modern day classrooms