Technology drives one-room schoolhouse

By LAURA BEHENNA

Bigfork Eagle

Life at the one-room Salmon Prairie School south of Swan Lake is quite different from the school’s early days in the 1920s.

In other ways, not much has changed.

What’s new is that technology has transformed the traditional classroom. Each of the four students has his or her own new computer with a flat-screen monitor. The classroom has a cordless phone, a fax machine and a digital camera.

“I can’t imagine being out here without the technology,” Holl Hubbard, the school’s only teacher, said. “You’d be lost.”

Yet the school carries on much as small schools have done for generations. Students still have to learn how to read, write, spell and figure out arithmetic problems. Their artwork covers one wall. Newspaper clippings are pinned thickly on the “Current Events” bulletin board, yet the quiet location of the school, about a mile from the highway, makes the world seem like a peaceful place.

Next to the phone lie plaster casts of bear footprints, those of a grizzly, a black bear and a cub. Hubbard calls the students in off the playground with an old-fashioned hand-bell.

Hubbard, or “Mr. H.” as the students call him, gives a spelling test to seventh-grader Jared Kesterson while calling out instructions to the other three students, who are working at their computers. Fourth-grader Will Clarke and fifth-grader Keith Woods are using entomology Web sites like BugGuide.net to help them identify insects they’ve caught and pinned inside glass display cases.

Will’s older sister, Lily Clarke, is getting ready to graduate from eighth grade in a one-student graduation ceremony June 1. She’s the only girl in the school this year, and she’s excited about going to a larger high school in the fall.

“Having other girls; that’d be kind of nice,” she said. “And cute guys,” she added in a whisper.

“Having more kids for sports” would be an advantage of a larger school, Kesterson said. “We can’t really play kickball with five people.”

A small school has its own advantages too, the students said. They have fun joking with each other in their little group, Lily said.

“There’s no bullies,” her brother Will exclaimed.

“In a small school, everybody knows what’s going on,” Lily added. “Nothing’s really a secret.” This lack of privacy could have both good and not-so-good consequences, she said.

Hubbard, 31, is in his second year of teaching at Salmon Prairie. The Tennessee native said he likes teaching in a one-room schoolhouse with only four students.

“I like the idea behind it,” he said. “It’s small, personalized and everything is one-on-one. It’s a good opportunity to teach kids [on] their level. You build pretty strong relationships with kids day to day, year in and year out.”

In the fall, he knows where each student left off the previous spring and what he or she needs to study next. And each child gets plenty of individualized attention.

“In a class of 22 kids, you might be able to sit in the back and disappear,” he said. “You can’t do that here.”

Having computers helps greatly with instructing the students, Hubbard said. All the computers are networked so that students can share their work with one another and Hubbard can check their progress on his own computer. In addition, the Internet allows access to a huge array of information that supplements the school’s tiny library. The school subscribes to Gale InfoTrac, a national database of scholarly magazines, journals and lesson plans for all ages. This resource gives students “some diverse material to work with,” Hubbard said.

Having only four students still keeps him on his toes, though. He had to get used to “a lot of juggling and multi-tasking,” he said.

“It’s always challenging because it’s always changing,” he said. “It’s just constant, going in different directions at the same time. You have to roll with the kids and keep moving.”

Because Hubbard is the school’s only staff member, he doesn’t have other teachers around with whom to share ideas, ask questions and find solutions. He’s grateful for the Montana Alliance of Small Schools, an affiliate of the National Education Association, which allows him to communicate with other rural school teachers by phone and e-mail. The alliance also holds about five conferences a year where teachers can meet each other and learn new skills.

Despite the school’s isolated location, teaching at Salmon Prairie is Hubbard’s dream job. While he was a student at the University of Montana, he and a friend went fishing in the area, where he spotted the school and thought he’d like to work there. Within two years, the teaching position came open and he got the job.

A typical school day starts with a writing assignment. On May 25, the assignment Hubbard printed on a flip-chart was “You are a Salmon Prairie newspaper writer. Write a story involving Salmon Prairie School, activities, students, etc. Your story must be captivating and of interest to the readers.”

Hubbard usually teaches physical education about once a week, but every day he leads the students on a morning hike or walk along the road, sometimes up to the highway to pick up the newspaper. The walk exercises the kids and gives Hubbard the opportunity to talk with them individually, to ask how they’re doing, what’s working and what could go better; and to do some on-the-spot counseling. He incorporates lessons into the walks too, guiding a nature study, taking art supplies along or teaching the children how to snowshoe.

“It’s a time for them to check in,” he said. “It’s part P.E.; it’s part health.”

Last week they were all recovering from their regular P.E. class, where they got blisters on their hands from doing chin-ups, using the monkey bars and climbing the fire-pole.

The morning concludes with language arts, spelling and grammar.

After lunch, they work on science, art, history or finish projects they started earlier. Their schedule is flexible; no automatic bells divide the instructional or recess periods. A math lesson could take 10 minutes or nearly two hours, depending on what a student needs.

After school, Kesterson walks home on Salmon Prairie Road. The Clarkes live a 20-minute drive away and ride to and from school with their parents. Hubbard lives a few steps from the schoolhouse in the “teacherage.”

Does he miss anything in this small community?

“Nope,” he said without hesitation. “Not at all. This is what I like.

“I know people up and down Salmon Prairie Road. It’s a laid-back, down-home feel. People are willing to stop and talk and invite you to dinner. Everybody’s really friendly. That’s my family.”

In his free time, Hubbard likes to hike, hunt, fish, camp and ride horseback.

“This is a good place to be in the middle of all that,” he said. “You could never explore all there is to explore.”