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| East Tennessee Schools, my thanks to Pam Mulinix for the use of her photos |
Lots of improvements were underway in
Tennessee schools:
Standardizing textbooks:
Haliburtion's Primer and
Haliburton's First reader were recommended for the first
grade.
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| Cover of Haliburton's First Reader, digitized by Google |
Read
Haliburton's First Reader
Here
Improving school buildings:
More school buildings were being built and some of these
schools were consolidated schools (combining two or more smaller
schools). Consolidated schools were made possible by the use of
school wagons. Local farmers were hired to drive the children to
school. More of the school systems were starting to build brick
schools too.
Boys' Corn Clubs were very popular.
Read more about Corn Clubs
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| Moses School, Knoxville (photo shows later addition) |
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| Modern desks |
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One
room school circa 1910, showing wooden plank desks
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Increasing school year:
Carter was able to run some
consolidated schools for 8 months.
Hamblen County 6 months
Henry County 6 months
Roane County 8 or 9 months
Hancock County 5 months
Hardin 4 months
Grainger 5 months and one week
Greene increased from 4 ½ to 6 months
Maury 8 months
Meigs County needs better resources to
be able to run their schools for 6 months
Adding district school libraries:
Claiborne County had the most ambitious
plan:
The Items of Standardization as printed
below have helped our schools more than anything. The teachers
unanimously adopted the following items of standardization for every
school in Claiborne County at the County Institute:
1 School graded
2 Library and bookcase
3 House painted repair roof doors
windows and locks
4 A flag for every school
5 Cooler and individual drinking cups
6 Time piece clock preferred
7 Globe maps blackboard erasers and
waste baskets
8 Broom cluster sprinkler or oil floors
9 Cloak room or racks for hats and
wraps
10 Daily schedule posted including
study and recitation periods
11 Two pictures well framed and an
additional picture each year
12 Call bell for class use
13 Proper seating
14 Proper ventilation
15 Proper heating stove jacketed 16
School improvement club
17 School pig – Who doesn't love a
school pig?
18 Activity in Church and Sunday School
19 Attendance at Teachers Meetings
20 Taking and reading at least one
educational journal
21 Minimum of three public gatherings
22 Visiting every home or reason for
failure
23 No tobacco or alcoholics used by
teachers or pupils
24 Personal supervision at play time
25 Neat personal appearance of teacher
26 Flowers on yard table or in window
27 Neat school grounds
28 Sanitary out houses
29 Orderly assembling and dismissing of
pupils
30 Reading of the Bible at opening
exercises
31 Teachers report to member of Board
and Superintendent when absence is necessary
32 Neatly kept register with daily roll
call
33 Domestic arts at home or school two
exhibits of work from at least one half of the girls
34 Manual training at home or school an
exhibit at close of school from at least one half of the boys
35 Inventory showing everything
received or added during the year
36 An exhibit to the County Fair
The opening day of
the County Fair was given over entirely to the school children of the
county. Public school pupils took part in the following contests:
Reciter's Declaimer's, Bird House Contest for the boys manual
training, Apron Contest for the girls domestic arts. , Prizes were
also given for the best General School Exhibit of the first three
grades, also for the best General School Exhibit of the grades beyond
the third.
Our slogan for
this year has been, “ A Library and School Improvement Association
for Every School.”
