Unlike today, some kids went to school and some didn’t. That’s how it just was. At first boys and girls went to Dame School. The teacher would be a woman, and children would come to her house and learn how to read and write.

Back then, the older kids would use a book called The New England Primer. Children in Dame School, however, would use hornbooks. It wasn’t a real book, but it was wood with a printed page on each side. When finished with the hornbook, children would have finished Dame School.

After Dame School, boys would go onto another school. Though girls…… went home! Most people thought girls should just know how to read and write, and more importantly, how to cook and clean the house. Other people said that girls should just as smart as boys. Therefore, girls were taught at home. Now back to boys. Boys were forced to go to school (according to the law…) That same law said that a town with more than 50 families would have to build a school just for boys (some law….) But, some towns did not have enough money (oh, what will they do....?)

The law (probably the same mentioned a slide ago) did not say schools had to be comfortable. So, most of them weren’t. The benches were hard and there was only one room (which was freezing in the winter.) The heat came from the fireplace. Unfortunately, each boy had to bring in firewood. If someone forgot to bring it in, no warmth for them! Also, the family of the boys had to pay the schoolmaster. Often, they paid with corn. Sometimes, the schoolmaster might even have too much food!

There were no blackboards and no maps. There were no pencils. They wrote with a lump of lead or with goose-quill pens dipped in ink. Paper was really hard to get. Instead, they wrote on birch bark. Boys also spent a lot of time to learn to write neat. If it was neat and small, nobody even cared how words were spelled. After learning what was in the New England Primer, boys would go to another school. Though, some boys were ready to go to college at the age of eleven. Then again, some boys stopped going to school and went home.

Schoolmasters would keep a birch branch in handy-just in case if someone needed a good amount of whacking! But, there were also other punishments. For instance, if you didn’t know what you were doing, you would have to wear a dunce cap. If you were caught biting your nails, you would have to wear a card that said “Bitefinger Baby.” In Colonial Times, you would have to think twice about misbehaving.

Bet you don’t want to go to a colonial school!

-…If You Lived in Colonial Times by Ann McGovern - oducts/25/ _rgb008_xlg.jpg - c5830dff4e.jpg content/uploads/2009/10/colonial- schoolhouse.bmp - m/2010/08/classroom-group.jpg - hat.jpg