A modern relic

These stories have nothing to do with higher ed, but I thought they were interesting. We often think of the one-room schoolhouse with a few kids as a relic of a bygone era. But in some parts of Wyoming, they’re just a fact of life. Distances to the nearest school in a town can be many, many miles and with the way winter works in these parts, busing can be a long, treacherous and sometimes implausible trip.

The whole concept is an interesting one to me.

Here’s an excerpt:

In minutes, the school goes from completely empty to full capacity, perfect attendance. All five students here.

With Douglas 36 miles southwest, Dry Creek is the closest school to the families who send their children here. It’s one of four rural schools in Converse County, and parents said home-schooling would likely be the only option if they didn’t have Kilpatrick and Dry Creek.

While some question the efficiency and cost of small Wyoming schools, parents said this school of five students, one teacher and one paraprofessional serves a real purpose for this rural community.

Sherrill Kilpatrick began teaching in rural Wyoming schools in 1983. Her largest class was 17 students, taught by two teachers. Once, she had nine students in eight different grades, which made lesson planning particularly challenging.

Over the years, numbers have fluctuated as parents choose either to home-school or send their kids to Douglas. Kilpatrick’s smallest class was two students big, when Maggie Pellatz was in kindergarten.

Here’s a related one with Wyoming politicians debating the efficiency of such school arrangements.

Three year bachelor’s degrees the wave of the future?

Story

The four-year bachelor’s degree has been the model in the United States since the first universities began operating before the American Revolution. Four-year degrees were designed in large part to provide a broad-based education that teaches young people to analyze and think critically, considered vital preparation to participate in the civic life of American democracy.

The three-year degree is the common model at the University of Cambridge and Oxford University in England, and some U.S. schools have begun experimenting with the idea. To cram four years of study into three, some will require summer work, others will shave course lengths and some might cut the number of credit hours required.

So is it going to happen in more places or not? I don’t think cramming a four-year degree into three is the answer, nor is the plan that most who want to graduate early already employ (summer classes, community college credit, etc.) and so, I think this will take a bit of creativity.

I’m not sure that most places could afford to do it, though I can see industrious schools with a broad base using this as a way to tout their programs and show they’re in touch with the needs of the community (namely, less tuition or whatever) and yet, I think it might end up being adjudged by some to be lesser if it somehow manages to require less credits than a four-year degree and that’s the reason the idea seems DOA.