Historic Summit Schoolhouse Analysis

The Historic Summit Schoolhouse is a long-term, educational living history program that attempts to present an accurate interpretation of a day in a nineteenth-century, one-room schoolhouse. The program is centered on an individual historical structure known as the Summit District Thirty-Eight schoolhouse. The Summit schoolhouse is an authentic, one-room building that was erected in the spring of 1892 in Summit, Kentucky. The school was in operation until shortly after World War Two, when it was permanently shut down due to declining student numbers. The Summit schoolhouse was tragically neglected and forgotten for twenty-five years until several, regional conservation groups became interested in preserving the one-hundred year old structure.

The program is available to both public and private schools on weekdays throughout the school year for field trips, period appropriate parties and events, and special occasions. Field trips will begin at approximately 10:00 am and last until 3:00 pm. The cost of each field trip is two-hundred dollars, and an additional five dollars per student is assessed for classes of over twenty-five students. Furthermore, in order to create a truly authentic experience for the students, all forms of modern technology will be prohibited throughout the duration of the event. The fundamental purpose of the Historic Summit Schoolhouse program is to provide an informative, lighthearted glimpse into the educational practices and social experiences of teachers and school children in nineteenth-century rural America. Additionally, the program will allow young students to personally witness the various sights, sounds, rules, customs, and challenges of a nineteenth-century, one-room

Afterwards, she will lead the class in the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, and in the singing of several period appropriate songs. Next, students will be equipped with slates, chalk, pencils, and McGuffey’s Readers, which were a series of graded primers that were widely used as textbooks by American schools throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The schoolmistress will then instruct the students on several subjects, specifically penmanship, arithmetic, reading, and spelling. Older students will be expected to assist the younger students with their lessons, as was accustomed in most nineteenth-century, one-room schoolhouses. Additionally, several students will be allocated various schoolhouse chores to complete throughout the day. The aforementioned tasks will be assigned primarily for educational purposes. For example, one student might be responsible for sweeping the schoolhouse, or erasing the chalkboard, while another student might be ordered to bring in firewood for the stove, or a bucket of fresh drinking water for the other