How Schools Changed, 1885-2019: Traverse City Public

How do today's kids compare with those a hundred years ago on tests designed to measure how much they have learned?

How did teachers in one-room schools manage a classroom with eight grades and eleven subjects?

What was it like to be a high school student in 1924? What was a high school teacher's day like a hundred years ago?

How did the mission and character of schools change over the course of the last one hundred thirty-five years?

Examining student handbooks, yearbooks, school board records, eighth grade tests from 1919, state education websites, Grand Traverse Normal School records, oral histories, interviews, newspaper articles, and photographs from the Local History collection of the Traverse Area District Library, Richard Fidler illuminates what schools used to be-as well as how they became what they are today. Told as a narrative focused on the Traverse City Area Public Schools, this history of education will interest all who care about children, teachers, and schools.

RICHARD FIDLER taught science in the Traverse Area Public Schools for 31 years. He earned a doctorate in science education from the University of Michigan. A long-time resident of Traverse City, he has written seven books about the local and natural history of the area. He can be reached at [email protected].