ATTENDING SCHOOL THEN AND NOW

Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom
ATTENDING SCHOOL THEN AND NOW — Estella Bennett, left, and Holly Melia of the Monson Historical Society show second-graders at SeDoMoCha Elementary in Dover-Foxcroft how students at a one-room schoolhouse would get water during a presentation on the afternoon of Sept. 29. The grade 2 pupils have spent the last month learning about how the daily lives of people who lived long ago contrast to today in a “Then and Now” study and the presentation by Bennett and Melia on the various schoolhouses that educated Monson children served as a culminating activity. On Monday the present-day students learned how schoolhouse attendees had to walk long distances to get to their classes, shared a communal learning space with all of the grades, had just one teacher for everyone and often brought in items from the family farm to contribute to a lunch, such as a stew, served to all. Bennett and Melia shared historical items, such as individual slates to write on, 19th century arithmetic books and photographs depicting how students of the past looked.