orezok
Elite Member
My first school was in a small town in eastern Pennsylvania. It was a small stone and brick building that was very old when I attended in the 50s. As I remember, it was dog one shaped with 4 classrooms at the corners and 1 or 2 in the middle of the bone. It was 2 story so about 10 classrooms. The upper floor classrooms were connected by a corridor which we called the cloak room and it consisted of benches on both sides and hooks on the walls to hang your coat.
Now the amenities. It still had a bronze bell in a bell free and it was used to announce the start and end of school and start and end of recess. The rope for the bell was in the cloak room. We stayed in the same classroom all day and the teacher taught all subjects and determined how much time was spent on each. No bell schedule.
Air conditioning? Yeah, open a window which were huge. Heat, well there was a coal fired boiler in the basement and radiators. I never was down there, but occasionally they left the doors open and you could see the monster.
There were stairs at each end of the building. As I remember, they were 5 feet wide and made of some smooth grey stone. When I was there in the fiftys, there was a groove worn in the tread on the closer side as it was the most used, Probably a quarter inch deep.
Back then, every school had a nurse. I an remember visiting her a couple of times for scrapes and bumps. The classrooms had the original slate blackboards and at the end of each day a student was assigned or volunteered to go out side and clap the felt erasers to knock the dust off.
I do not know when it was built, but it is still in use and must be close to 100 years old. What was your first school like?
Now the amenities. It still had a bronze bell in a bell free and it was used to announce the start and end of school and start and end of recess. The rope for the bell was in the cloak room. We stayed in the same classroom all day and the teacher taught all subjects and determined how much time was spent on each. No bell schedule.
Air conditioning? Yeah, open a window which were huge. Heat, well there was a coal fired boiler in the basement and radiators. I never was down there, but occasionally they left the doors open and you could see the monster.
There were stairs at each end of the building. As I remember, they were 5 feet wide and made of some smooth grey stone. When I was there in the fiftys, there was a groove worn in the tread on the closer side as it was the most used, Probably a quarter inch deep.
Back then, every school had a nurse. I an remember visiting her a couple of times for scrapes and bumps. The classrooms had the original slate blackboards and at the end of each day a student was assigned or volunteered to go out side and clap the felt erasers to knock the dust off.
I do not know when it was built, but it is still in use and must be close to 100 years old. What was your first school like?