150 years ago, when gold was first discovered on the West Coast, there were very few children around, so no schools were needed. However the miners soon settled down and had families.
At first, the children would have been lucky to have had the option to go to a real school with a real teacher, but soon teachers moved into the district. The first teachers would have been paid by the miners themselves. Perhaps the children would have taken along a coin or some vegetables to pay for their day at school.
Activity:
Why do you think there are so few girls in this photo?
Discuss the clothing worn in the photo.
The first schools would probably have
been like tents, but small buildings soon
followed. These had one room, and were
built from wood. Girls sat on one side
of the room, and boys on the other.
All the children would have been in the
same class, no matter how old they were.
Activity:
Make a list of similarities and differences between your school, and the one in this photo.
In this photo you can see 2 teachers. The lady was probably the Junior Teacher and the man would have taught the older children.
Activity:
Why do you think some
children are facing forwards
and others are facing
backwards?
Make a list of similarities
between the inside of your
classroom, and this one from
100 years ago.
If you listened to a conversation in a school yard 150 years ago, you would not hear words like ‘play station’, ‘television’, or ‘mobile phones’. Instead you would have over-heard talk about ‘slates’, ‘the out-house’, and ‘the strap’.
Children had to make up their own games outside at break times. They would play marbles, jacks (knuckle bones), tag and any thing else they invented.
Many teachers used the cane
or strap on naughty boys.
Girls were more often punished
with sarcasm rather than the
cane.
Children could be punished
for bad behaviour, but also if
they hadn’t done homework,
or got things wrong in class.
(Prepared by Abi Comrie)
In the early days, it was not compulsory to go to school. Parents made the decision which children they would send to school, and who would stay home to help on the land or in the house. More often than not, it was the boys who got an education because it was thought that all girls needed to know was how to cook and clean for their future husbands.
Inside the school room, children would have sat in formal rows, in very uncomfortable seats – so they didn’t drop off to sleep! There were only very high windows in many school houses. This was to stop certain children looking out the window and being distracted from their lessons. Children would have learned reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar and spelling every day. Other subjects taught were history, and geography. Boys would have been taught drawing, and girls sewing.
Most of the learning was done by rote – often chanting out loud for ages – as it was thought that repetition was the only way to learn.
All children had to write with their right hand. If you were naturally left-handed, and couldn’t remember to use your right hand you may have had your left hand tied so you couldn’t use it!
In this photo the tall boy at the front would have probably been close to leaving age – 14 years old. The young man at the back could have been a pupil teacher. He might have been learning to become a teacher.
