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The Wingham Advance-Times, 1983-04-20, Page 31Serving over 25,000 homes in Listowel, Wingham, Mount Forest, Milverton, Elmira, Palmerston, Hairiston, Brussels, Atwood, Monkton, Millbank, Newton, Clifford, Wallenstein, Drayton, Moorefield and Arthur. Wednesday, April 20, 1983 BONNIE ROES and ANGIE MOORE Pilot program in Milverton Students skip their way to physical fitness by Lynn Pinnegar The whole purpose of physical education classes being included in a school's curriculum is for students to get fit, but students at the Milverton Public School have been told by their teachers this year to "skip it". They aren't skipping the fitness — they are skipping their way to better physical condition. The school is one of only three in Perth County involved in a pilot Skip It Program, officially called Jump Rope for Heart. The students in Grades One through Eight have spent one physical education class a week skipping ropes. Not only are they skipping, they are learning a series of tricks such as forward -backward arm crosses, boxer steps and side swings. The project is culminating this Saturday (Apr. 23) when 120 students will take part in a Jump Event Day, showing their prowess with skipping ropes to interested parents and friends and raising money for the Ontario Heart Foundation. The Jump hope for Heart program is sponsored by the Ontario Heart Foundation, O.P.H.E.A. (an organization of physical education teachers) and the Perth County Board of Education. One of the physical education teachers at the Milverton Public School, Charles King, is excited about the program, both from the physical fitness aspect and from the interest shown by the students. He said skipping rope is excellent for cardiovascular fitness, is fun and 10 minutes of skipping equals 30 minutes of running in benefits. Another plus is that no student has an advantage over others when it comes to skipping in physical education classes, as sometimes happens in gymnastics, for example, when a student has a natural ability. "My philosophy is for the students to at least try," Mr. King said, "and i find it helps pupils who are not coordinated ... not the best phys. ed. type person • .. because they find they can do tricks they didn't think they could do." He said all the students, boys as well as girls, have been eager to take part in the program and learn the new tricks with a skipping rope. Mr. King said the program also has been a challenge for the physical education teachers at the school. The teachers have a program for teaching tricks of various levels to the students, • provided by the Ontario Heart Foundation. In addition, the Heart Foundation provided beaded skipping* ropes for the students to use. The program covers skipping from very basic described: "With feet together, jump over the rope as it passes under feet and take a preparatory rebound (little jump) while rope is overhead." An intermediate level trick, called Heel Toe, is described: "As rope passes under feet, jump with weight, landing on same foot, and touch left toe beside right heel. Repeat, using other foot." An advanced trick, Double Unders, is described: "To do this trick you need to jump the rope a little higher, to rotate the rope faster, and bend slightly 'at the waist. With one jump try to make two revolutions, the rope passing under your feet both times." There are 25 tricks of varying dif- ficulty in the program. The Jump Event Day on Saturday will see teams of six students each getting sponsors and skipping for a total of three hours. Of the money raised in the community, 90 per cent will go to the Ontario Heart Foundation, five per cent will go to the O.P.H.E.A. and five per cent will go to the Milverton Public School. Students taking part will be eligible to win T-shirts, pins, skipping ropes, gym bags, and warm-up suits from the Ontario Heart Foundation. "We're not too concerned about making money at this point," Mr. King said. "We've been defining skills and the students have been enjoying it. They are looking forward to showing off the tricks they have learned." Mr. King said the 120 students interested in taking part in the Jump Event Day — and not only the best skippers or those who have mastered the most difficult tricks — is proof in itself that the students are very interested in and enjoying the program. He said the pilot project has been positive all the way around and he will be presenting a follow-up evaluation to the Perth County Board of Education. His Grades Seven and Eight physical education students have completed the entire program, mastering all the tricks, and now are learning skills in pairs and group skipping. He said all the phys. ed. teachers at the school have pretty well completed the program set out for their Continued on Page 4 Another little schoolhouse closes Bloomingdale School decision was When the Bloomingdale Public School doors are shut this June, another chapter in the history off the "little red schoolhouse" will have closed. Bloomingdale residents will be without a village school for the first time in 150 years. In those years they have used a church and a cooper's shop for classes, they have built one -room frame buildings and one -room brick buildings. They have progressed from one room to two and finally to four rooms. But the tides have turned and rather than increasing its population and therefore its school facilities, Bloomingdale is facing a decrease in school enrollment. As a result, the parents made a decision to have the school closed and to send their children to schools in Breslau, Conestoga and Winterbourne. Waterloo county school board trustee, Paul Haney, said Bloomingdale was studied because of the declining enrollment as were other area schools. Parents had a choice of closing the school or triple grading — three grades in one room. Mr,. Haney said some parents indicated if there was triple grading they would pull their children out and send them elsewhere. It was "almost unani- mous" .to close the school, Mr. Haney said and the board will provide a choice of trans- portation, to Breslau where Grades 1 to 8 are in one school or to Winterbourne, Gerdes 1 to 4 and Conestogo, Grades 5 to 8. For many residents in Bloomingdale and surrounding area, the closing of the school represents a closing of a chapter in their own lives — whether they were pupils or teachers at Bloomingdale. Olive Schweitzer attended Bloomingdale School and was a member of the senior class in 1911-12. She and her late sister, Vera Sch- weitzer compiled a history of the schools and education in Bloomingdale as part --of their complete history of the village of Bloomingdale. Much of the history in this article is due to their efforts. As members of the local Women'e. Insti- tute they compiled a Tweedsmuir History of the village and it includes a chapter ;00, duc tin ::'rhii iiivelimble book has- been microfilmed at the Kitchener Public Library for anyone interested in Blooming- dale history. According to the history book, the first school was a frame building which had been erected in 1826 by Mennonites as a meeting house. It served as the first school from 1833 to 1842. Only boys attended the classes held during the winter months. Priorto 1842 school attendance was volun- tary and classes were held only in the winter. Teachers were'paid by private sub- scription. In 1842 a frame building, 26 by 28 feet was built on the corner of Woolwich road and Maryhill road, across the street from the present school. A barn was also built for horses. The Daily Telegraph reported in 1902 that the barn would be taken down. Two pounds and 10 shillings was paid for the land. An arithmetic copy book owned by Moses C. Schneider and dated 1842-1844 listed such headings as Rule of Three, Interest, Simple Interest, Discount, Annuities, Barter, Fel- lowship, Compound Fellowship and Double Rule of Three. Writing was taught by example and samples in the history book indicate the importance of a good writing hand in those days. Concern about the quality of education was an important issue in those days and as is the case today, such issues were tackled in newspaper editorials. In 1859 on August 26 the Berlin Telegraph and Waterloo County General Intelligence discussed the problem of unqualified tea- chers. A condensed version of the article fol- lows : "We often find people in our schools who are not teachers. They have some other call- ing or they take to teaching for a short time to meet some passing, temporary purpose. Thus it is not common to find a young man who farms all summer employed in tea- ching all winter. Or, another grows tired working at his trade and tries teaching in order to take a rest. Now we ask, why is it that, when people will not let their leather or cloth be cut out and stitched together by botches, they are by Kim Dadson quite willing to (allow) any botch who pleases spoil the education of their child- ren?" In 1862 the trustees and ratepayers of SS No. 12 decided a new school was necessary to relieve over -crowded conditions at the frame school. On June 10 of the same year a 'new, one -room white brick school was built on one acre of land. In 1875 the school inspector reported that there were too many pupils for one teacher. It is recorded in 1873 that there were 103 pupils on register with a yearly average attendance of 48. The cost of each pupil in the county was $4.61. It wasn't until 1883, eight years after the inspector's report that a partition was built to divide the room in two and a junior teach- er engaged. In 1871 school attendance was compulsory but it wasn't enforced until 1891. Attendance wasn't always the best in Bloomingdale as these figures indicate; in 1893 of the 122 "almost unanimous" pupils on register, 78 attended less than 100 days in the year. In 1898 the inspector was able to report a 70.8 per cent regular attend- ance but in 1904 of 71 on register, the yearly average attendance was 47. During the .late 1800s a teacher would find these conditions at Bloomingdale: The Pennsylvania Dutch dialect was spoken exclusively in the homes and pupils starting school couldn't speak English. Boys from fl to 16 attended school in the winter months only and in many cases were taken out of school entirely. Older boys were a discipline problem. The boys wore their barn clothes to school and the one -room building was poorly ven- tilated. One teacher resorted to using per- fume in an attempt to mask the odors. A wash basin and soap were also provided for the pupils. Slates were used instead of books. The girls used water from a bottle and cloth to clean their slates while the boys more often used spit and shirt sleeves. There were no electric lights, no plumbing and an arratic furnace that sometimes smoked and could only be reached through a trap door in the floor. In 1850 the teacher was paid 50 pounds and by 1857 this had gone up to 94 pounds and 10 shillings. In 1858 the salary was recorded in dollars, $330 and there were 80 pupils. Approximately six per cent of the population was unable to read or write. In 1919 a decision was made to build another school. An additional half acre oi' land was purchased for $175. During the building the senior room held classes in the King Edward Hall and the junior room was in a small carpenter's shop or the cooper's shop as student Bessie Horne recalls. The cooper's shop was where barrels, staves and hoops for barrels were made and it was located across from the hotel. Mrs. Horne recalls the students ate their lunch on the hotel steps. Although she says her school days were uneventful, she does remember that the new school "seemed elegant" after the frame school. And she recalls her father saying there would be a 20 -year debenture on the new school. Continued on Page 10 OLIVE SCHWEITZER®Miss Schweitzer with her late sister Vera complied the Bloomingdale Tweedsmuir History which in- cludes a section on the history of education in Bloomingdale. It 1 is an invaluable source of information, especially when schools, like Bloomingdale are closed. 140 THREE "R'S"—During the 1800's writing was taught by example and was a very important subject. Besides learn- ing to write, pupils were copying lessons on good morals at the same tirne. y• .."%: NEW SCHOOL—Pupils and teachers alike were impressed with the two room red brick school house that was built in 1919. This is the same school that stands today except additions were ad- ded in later years. 444M4 .9 414 BUILT 1862—This was a new one room white brick school in 1862. It was built to relieve over crowding in the one room frame .school across the road TEACHERS—Teachers were expected to take pari in the community when they taught at Bloomingdale. Many stayed to Marry local people. in fact, the Tweedsmuir History Book where these pictures are kept, includes a list of such marriages.