Back to School, One-Room Style
To today’s students, a laptop is a computer and logging on is something you do to connect it to the Internet. A little over a century ago, however, these words had much different meaning to students starting the school year in the Chippewa Valley. The only laptops available were slate chalkboards that kids used to practice their lessons, and logging was something lumberjacks did to clear the land for the timbers used in buildings like this school in the Rusk County community of Sheldon. Back in 1908, teacher Myrtle Gillespie was in charge of students of a wide range of ages in this one-room rural school. The next time your kids complain about not being able to use their cellphones in school, just remind them that a few generations ago schools didn’t have phones – let alone electricity.
