Teaching in a One-Room School by Judith Nero Guilford Central School teacher Judy Nero taught in the one-room school in Athens, Vermont for four years. It was her first teaching experience and a “great way to learn,” she says. On her first day of school, she was so nervous she walked around the classroom slapping a ruler in her hand as she spoke to the children. “I didn’t have too many discipline problems after that,” she laughed. When Athens, Vermont faced the decision to update and repair their existing one-room school or send their children to another school district, the town voted to keep its children in Athens. For many of Athens’ residents, the loss of their school would have signified the final blow to the community’s identity and independence. Although the school was small (from 17 to 28 students during Judy’s tenure), there were real advantages in the one-room school setting. “It felt like a family,” Judy recalls. “The children learned from each other, and they all liked each other.” By the time her first graders got to fourth grade, they had learned a lot of the material already. Students got a lot of individual attention. “If there was an issue with an individual child, we could talk about it in morning meeting and work through it together, so we all learned to respect differences. It was a safe place to learn.” Materials were scarce, and Judy learned to use everything available to help her teach. “I used the newspaper, and local history,” she remembers. “On Memorial Day we went to the local cemetery and had a ceremony.” They used the surrounding land and fields to play and learn in, too. There was a nearby stream and a sand pit. “We would take nature walks on a warm spring day. And sometimes when the kids had worked hard, we would take a long recess and slide down the sand pit,” she smiles. Judy wore many hats at the Athens school. “Aside from the teacher, I was the football coach, the librarian, the plumber and the drama coach,” says Judy. The kids all had janitorial duties, and the whole school would put on plays involving all six grades. “It was fun, “ she says, “and most kids wanted to be involved.” Judy also got to know everyone in the community. Every year, for instance, the fire chief would come over from the Athens Fire Station across the street to show the fire safety film. Since the film was made in the 1950s and featured city neighborhoods with fire escapes (which the Athens kids had never seen) they found it pretty interesting—for the first couple of years, anyway. He explained to the kids that if they saw a fire, they should call him, and wrote his number on the board. As kids will, they asked what would happen if he wasn’t home. He gave them another couple of names and numbers, but finally was stymied. “If my nephew isn’t home either,” he finally admitted, “I guess your house’ll burn down.”