Under the Floorboards: An Oral History of One Room School Houses with a Focus on Stanhope Township

Under the Floorboards: An Oral History of One Room School Houses with a Focus on Stanhope Township

Hodder, Samantha

Wadland, John; Whillans, Tom
Departments: Canadian Studies and Environmental Studies

TPB-587

n.d.

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Stanhope

One-room schoolhouses

The history of the one-room schoolhouse is presented from the perspective of differing voices and based on unstructured interviews with residents, primarily within Stanhope Township. Major themes of the interview included personal experience with the one-room schoolhouse, the changes as viewed through an educational paradigm, local yarns and anecdotes. Further research was obtained from the archival holdings at the Stanhope Township Office. Included in this paper is a brief history of the schools in Stanhope Township, with a focus on Boshkung School, S.S. No. 3. The paper is then broken down into analytical themes: looking at community and school, gender perceptions in the school system, transportation giving way to transitions, and how education both creates and removes ties to the land. Transcripts of several interviews are included in appendices.

Trent University