Trinity shows students what it was like to learn in a one-room school

It’s one thing to teach children about things through reading about it, talking about it, looking at drawings or even photographs, or even watching a movie, and it’s another thing entirely to learn about something by being totally immersed in the experience. Students in Mrs. Laura Marnholtz’s first grade class at Trinity Merrill Lutheran School learned what it was like to attend school at a little one-room schoolhouse, like many generations of students learned in our area prior to the 1960’s.
Mrs. Marnholtz said she tries to make the experience as authentic as possible. Students were invited to dress in simple attire as similar to what students wore in those early years as possible, so most of the girls wore dresses, with some also donning aprons and bonnets, while many other students wore overalls and button up shirts. Students got to spend their day at the Brickyard School located at the Merrill Fairgrounds. To start with, students were transported to the white clapboard one-room school building that morning by horse-drawn wagon. “We’ve been using the horse-drawn wagon of Steve Lee for a number of years now,” Mrs. Marnholtz said. “It has really added to the authenticity of the field trip.”
“The students dress as students of yesteryear, pack lunches in lard pails or baskets, and try hard not to pack modern lunch foods,” she said. “Instead they pack juice in a jar, hard boiled eggs, whole fruit, homemade cookies, and sandwiches wrapped in wax paper or cloth napkins.”
Once at the school, “They learn about student life in a one-room school from the retired volunteer teachers,” Mrs. Marnholtz said. That experience includes “writing on slates, using buttons for math, reading from Dick and Jane books, playing London Bridges for recess, and washing their hands with water from a dipper,” she said. They sat in attached old-school desks, and learned about ink wells and keeping the school warm in the winter, helping the teacher, ringing the bells, and the ins and outs of attending a one-room school that were quite different from what it’s like to attend school in 2024.
“It’s a great comparison and contrast of different eras of learning in America’s schools,” Mrs. Marnholtz said.
And it’s a safe bet judging by the looks on the children’s faces that Trinity’s first graders enjoyed the experience.