Draft: Historic Colored Schoolhouse
Student Voices
Notes
Copy links to Collins etc. on Black History Project
Videos from Richard Taylor
General Content needs summary
At this time, it seems that most of the schoolhouses’ teachers did not live nearby. At least two of the Schoolhouses’ teachers rode the train in from Baltimore to work each day and home in the afternoon at their own expense.
Most of these teachers were married women, who were often not the only earning individual of their household.
Warren Dorsey
film: Richard Taylor
Warren Dorsey's life is the best documented of any of the former students of Sykesville Colored Schoolhouse......
Marrianne Collins
film: Black History Project
Details...
William Hudson, Sr.
photo: clipped from the Black History Project, Community Media Center, 2008.
link:
William Hudson Sr. lived in Hoods Mill, approximately five miles walk from the Sykesville Colored SchoolhouseSchoolhouse. After attending elementary school here, he attended Johnsville School for seventh grade. He recalled in 2008:
“What makes it bad, there were three in my class when we started out. Children dropped out. Them days they can drop out of school. I had a hold by myself. Every question that was asked, I had to answer–cuz I was the only one in that class.”
Marrianne Collins
film: Black History Project
Recognizing the difficulty of teaching rural schools of many students with varied grade levels, the Maryland State Board of Education developed this model schedule to help organize the day of rural school teachers. Understandably, teachers responded with how little this plan helped in practice.
Secondhand Learning
The personal narratives above give you an idea of the day-to-day experience of student life in the Sykesville Colored Schoolhouse. While we have only one photograph of students at the school (see photo at right of three of the Dorsey Children c. 1930), but artifacts from the time periods and photographs of similar schools combined with these oral histories can help give us an idea of how students lived.
Until 1956, Carroll County public schools were segregated by color. The biggest difference between white and black rural schoolhouses in the county at the turn of the century were the qualifications of their teachers (see: teachers page), and the quality and volume of materials available to them. The early 1900s, and especially the Great Depression were a time when schools were underfunded in general. However, as part of a broader social reform effort, making sure students were educated and trained as workers (rather than relying on State or local aid) was a bigger focus than it had been in the 1800s. Still, used materials often broke or were missing pieces. Textbooks within Black schools also almost never featured Black characters or themes.
In 1904--the year the Sykesville Colored Schoolhouse opened--Carroll County public schools spent zero dollars on books in any of its 13 colored schoolhouses.
Photo: Desks
The desks in the Historic Colored Schoolhouse today were purchased from another historically black school, St. Benedict the Moor, near Pittsburg, PA. The original desks used by students at this schoolhouse were sent from a closed white school in Detour, MD.
Rural schools were considered out of date and less effective than consolidated, graded schools. Free transportation provided to white students allowed them to attend consolidated schools, such as Sykesville School (today's Sykesville Middle School), but Black children literally were not afforded this opportunity until almost half a century later.
PHOTOS OF WHITE SCHOOLS NEARBY SIMILAR TO THE SCS
By the time of the oral histories above, Sykesville's Colored schoolhouse was not a new building. Its books were often from already-consolidated schools in the county that were missing pages and were often out of date. Its desks were secondhand from a consolidated school. Its teachers usually were not local and had limited preparation for teaching such a variety of ages and levels of students.
Sykesville Schoolhouse provided education in at least five grades at a time, and often as many as seven. Most students in both black and white schools were in the first two grades, with as many as 60% of students repeating both classes before moving on to third. Teachers were encouraged to supplement learning by using readings, drawings, and music from other sources to supplement limited textbook availability.
As is seen in this photograph of a Rosenwald school in Virginia, students generally sat several to a desk in a bare room, with a stove for heat. This is very similar to the interior of today's schoolhouse building in Sykesville.
PHOTO HERE PHOTO HERE
Note: Rosenwald schools were completed with matched funding for either white or black students. While there are Rosenwald schools in Maryland, the Sykesville Colored Schoolhouse was not one of them, it just follows a somewhat similar layout.
After World War I, schools were supposed to have playgrounds of a particular elevation and size to promote physical fitness. Having been built in 1904, Sykesville Colored Schoolhouse predated this requirement, but benefitted from a nearby baseball diamond and a much less forested surrounding than today. Annual track and field-style competitions throughout the county (which were segregated) were especially well attended by Sykesville Colored Schoolhouses' students, who very often won many of the events.
Picture: " Plays and Games at Rural Schools"
Picture: Badge Test Medal
Badge tests (in use c. 1917-1956) were a precursor to the Presidential Fitness Test (1956-2013), which measured a student's height, weight, and ability to run, jump, and compete in various sports. Those scoring in certain ranges received a physical badge like this one.