The Spirit of the One-Room Schoolhouse

Mic Eslick, 12, sprints across the yard during recess at Sunset School, near the Blackfoot River.

photos & story by Oona Palmer

Remember the one-room schoolhouse? That quaint little building on the prairie where children of all ages would assemble each day to learn in one room? Although a thing of the past in most of America, the little schoolhouse is a living, breathing entity in Montana.

For my master’s professional project in journalism, I am visiting a as many of these small schools as possible to photograph what rural education in Montana looks like today. The images here are pulled from my first few forays into the Montana countryside.

At Grant School, Danny Melle, 12, finds his own reading nook.

Times have changed. Today’s world is a far cry from the one in which Laura Ingalls Wilder was raised. But at some of these rural schools, that contrast is less marked. One of the things that is most delightful about visiting them is noting the ironies of the modern world meeting that more rustic reality. I’ve driven miles out on country roads, incredulous that I would actually find the school the map indicated, only to find a classroom of students hooked up to the internet.

Mic reads Dr. Seuss to Gus Leigland, 8, at Sunset School.

The modern incarnation of the little schoolhouse ranges from the actual one-room schoolhouse to the slightly larger school with a few teachers — still remote geographically and often still the center of its community. Spanning the landscape from east to west, there are roughly 150 of these very small schools, about 80 of which are one-room schools.

As I travel farther afield, I will be looking at how education in these small schools is different from the public education most of us know. I’m interested in how size and location affect learning, what rural schoolteachers’ lives are like, the role of the community and the financial issues surrounding small, rural public schools.

Sunset School students, their teacher and their teacher aide all swish and spit a fluoride rinse on a winter afternoon.

For now, I am merely sharing a little of what I have seen so far. Flexibility and informality, a familial atmosphere, a relationship to the land, students teaching other students — these are a few of the characteristics I’ve witnessed to be the spirit of rural education in Montana today.

A student at Jackson School dons her rollerblades for a recess skate.

Rylee Maier, 6, slides down the rails in front of Woodman School outside of Lolo.

Two Potomac students give each other their special high five after planting Easter eggs on the school grounds.

Sisters Alexa and Gretchen Gerlach, 14 and 9 respectively, eat lunch with their classmates and teachers in a classroom at Sunset school.

At Grant School, the younger of two classrooms files out of the library and computer lab where they had been writing persuasive essays.

Teacher Marcy Gruber gives a geography lesson to third, fourth and sixth grade students at Sunset School.

Seven-year-old Jesse Ferre bounds up the steps of Paradise School after recess. The third and fourth grade teacher, Timberly Kelly, waits just inside after ringing the old school bell.