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"A school is not a factory. Its raison d'ítre is to provide opportunity for experience."
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--James Lloyd Carr
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According to historian Stephen Lassonde, many New Haven children were employed and contributed to the household income before the turn of the nineteenth century. In 1872, the Connecticut General Assembly made it mandatory for all children ages 8-14 to attend school for at least three months a year, with six weeks of consecutive attendance. This upset employers who needed inexpensive labor and also hurt immigrant families who relied on their children's incomes to make ends meet. Truancy rates were high at first, but by the year 1900 a vast majority of New Haven's children ages 8-14 were enrolled and attended school on a regular basis.
Explain to your students that children didn't always have to attend school. Ask your students what they think children used to do during the day when they were not at school. Responses will most likely center upon things children do on the weekends when they are not at school. After their responses have created an idyllic childhood lifestyle, inform students that the children didn't go to school because they worked. Tell them the children worked long, hard hours in factories and only received $4 or $5 a week! Explain that the children generally did not even get to keep the money, but had to give it to their parents to buy food or pay for other living expenses. Ask students if they would rather go to school where they can learn and play
or
work tiring hours only to give the money they earned to their parents. If you are dramatic in your presentation, children will understand that attending school is the better option. Tell them that, long ago, many adults realized it was better for children to be in school, too. That's why a law was passed to make school attendance mandatory.
Ask your students to describe how they think children used to dress for school 100 years ago. Display a class photo from 100 year ago. There is one such photo located at the New Haven Colony Historical Society in Manuscript number 17. The photo was taken in 1893 and depicts a third grade class from Grand Avenue School in Fair Haven. Ask the children what they notice in the photograph. Point out the children's formal attire. All of the girls are wearing dresses and hats. The boys are wearing pants with jackets. Ask your students if they think there are more children in their class or in the class in the photo. In the photograph, there are 33 white children. New Haven now has a maximum of 26 students per class in grades K-2 and 27 students per class in grades 3-12. Call your students' attention to the little girl standing in the front of the photo. Ask them why they think she's there. It's possible that she's the sister of the girl behind her. Ask the class if they think they would be allowed to bring their younger brothers or sisters to school.
Place my picture of
Barnard School at Strong, 2006
alongside the photo from 1893. The 2006 photograph depicts Miss Stellato's kindergarten class in front of Strong School. Have your students look at the buildings in the background. Ask them if the buildings are the same. Explain that Grand Avenue School burned down and Strong School was built in its place in 1915. Strong School is now a swing site which houses the population of schools under renovation. The Barnard School students in this photograph were at Strong School while their school was renovated. Have your students compare the children in the photographs. The style of dress has certainly changed. No one in the current photo is wearing a hat or fancy clothes. The girls in Miss Stellato's class are wearing their hair up in pony tails or braids and many of the boys are sporting very short cuts. In the 1893 photo, the girls are wearing their hair down and while the boys have short hair, it's still quite a bit longer than most of the boys' hair in Miss Stellato's class. There is also much more diversity now. In the 1893 photo, all of the children are Caucasian. In Miss Stellato's class picture, there are children from various ethnic backgrounds.
Ask your students what they think children did at school all day. After several children answer, tell them that while there were schools that focused on reading and math, there were also trade schools. These schools were primarily encompassed with immigrant children. Elaborate by explaining that immigrants are people who move from one country to another country. Continue to explain how trade schools prepared children for future employment. Ask students what kind of jobs they think children who attended trade schools would get.
Next, display George Bradley's 1895 photograph of the Boardman Manual Training School. This picture can be found in the photo archives at the New Haven Colony Historical Society. Ask the children what they notice about the photograph. Approximately fifty students, all of them girls, are seated at the desks that occupy the room. The desks are organized in rows and the children are seated on benches. Chalkboards alone line the walls. A female instructor walks about the room, monitoring student progress. All of the children are concentrating on tasks. None of them is talking. They look like carbon copies of each other…all looking down attending to their sewing, all wearing dresses, most sporting very short bangs…almost as though they are a product of the factories where they will one day work.
Ask your students why they think the girls are so well-behaved. Inquire about the way your students would behave if they knew they were being photographed. Ask your class what they think the girls are making. Have them think about what kind of jobs these girls will be trained in after they graduate. Ask your students to compare the classroom in the photograph to their own classroom. Have them determine similarities and differences. In both classrooms, children are in school to learn from a teacher. There are desks and boards. The similarities end there. In the photograph from 1895, the classroom is very bland. With the exception of the chalkboards, the walls are bare. Your classroom is most likely filled with brilliant colors, posters that encourage learning, and student work. Classrooms are much more aesthetically pleasing today. The desks in the 1895 classroom are very different. Today, students are usually seated at tables or grouped together at desks. There are also very few gender-based classes now. Boys and girls are given the same opportunities no matter what the field. Inquire whether or not your students would rather attend the school in the picture or the school they are going to now and have them explain their answers.
Show students my photograph of Barnes & Noble Bookstore. Ask them if they recognize the area. Tell them they are looking at the Barnes & Noble on Broadway in downtown New Haven. Explain that Boardman Manual Training School once stood at the corner of Broadway and York Square Place (the latter street no longer exists). Hillhouse and Commercial High School were just feet away creating an academic center until the late 1950's when then Mayor Richard C. Lee sold the land to Yale. The high schools were torn down and replaced by Ezra Stiles and Morse dormitories.