Seneca Schoolhouse

This afternoon, my daughter wrote a delightful post on her Weblog about a trip to the Seneca Schoolhouse in Poolesville, Md. But her post vanished in a wisp before she could save it to TypePad. Argh.

Molly encountered the same problem that a month ago had me cursing by name all 60,000 Microsoft employees (yes, it was exhausting but therapeutic). When she went to insert a photo, an Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview pop-up warned about secure and unsecure content. Clearing the warning was supposed to let her post the picture. Like my experience, the process instead erased the entire post. Molly was so upset that she, like her dad, couldn’t redo the post. 

My daughter joined about 25 kids for the social studies trip to the one-room schoolhouse. Montgomery County Public Schools offers day trips to fourth graders. Because Molly went with homeschoolers, she got a more authentic experience, with kids grades 1-7. The kids got a taste for a school day in the 1880s. The structure was built in 1865.

Their school day lasted four hours, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and began with prayer and Bible reading, as it would have in the 1880s. Other accoutrement’s of the era included a whip, for discipline, and a chair and dunce cap in the corner and slate boards for each student.

Kids use a Porta-Potty instead of a wooden outhouse. The teacher dressed in period attire, and the kids were encouraged to do likewise. Each student assumed a role. My daughter was Natalie, who lived with her grandmother.

Photo Credit: Amir G.