A-b-c-darian facts for kids

A-B-C-darians, also called ABC-darians or abecedarians, were the youngest students in schools during the 1800s in America. They were called this because they were just starting to learn their "a-b-cs," or the alphabet. Sometimes, the word could also mean someone who taught the alphabet. These young learners were a special part of the old one-room school houses.

Where Young Learners Sat

In the early 1800s, schools often had a unique setup. The classrooms usually had floors that sloped upwards on three sides, like a mini-amphitheater. The teacher's desk and the doors were on the flat side.

The youngest students, the A-B-C-darians, sat on the very front benches. Older students sat at desks further back. These desks often fit two or more students. The front of one desk would be the seat for the desk in front of it. The very first rows were just benches for the youngest kids.

Samuel Griswold Goodrich, who also went by "Peter Parley," remembered his school around 1810. He said the older students sat at desks on the outer sides. The "smaller fry" of A-B-C-darians sat right in the middle. Another writer, Warren Burton, also noted that the youngest students had low, narrow seats near the front. He said, "the older the scholar the further from the front was his location."

A Day for an A-B-C-darian

Life for an A-B-C-darian in these old schools was quite simple. They would practice their letters two or three times a day. For the rest of the school day, they were mostly on their own. They tried to remember the letter names. They also watched older students recite their lessons for the teacher.

Educator William Augustus Mowry shared his own experience. He went to school when he was four years old. He sat on a low seat facing the open floor with other young learners. Boys sat on one side, girls on the other. He said they mostly just watched. Teachers in these schools had many different age groups to teach. So, they could only spend a few minutes with the A-B-C-darians.

Mowry recalled, "Twice a day we were called up and took our places at the teacher's knee. Here we received our first lessons in learning to read; and this reading lesson of five minutes in the forenoon and five minutes in the afternoon was all we had to do."

Changes in Teaching

Starting in the 1830s, people began to think about how to make schools better. This included finding new ways to teach all students, especially the A-B-C-darians. Henry Barnard, an education reformer, shared an interesting idea. He wrote about Johann Bernhard Basedow, who taught letters using gingerbread. If a student remembered a letter, they got to eat the gingerbread! Barnard thought this was a great idea for young learners.

By the 1850s, some schools had started to change. Reports said that A-B-C-darians were now in their own separate classes. They were taught in a more organized way.

However, in New York, some educators still worried about how young students were taught in the 1860s. They complained that children were asked to define simple words using complicated language. For example, a young A-B-C-darian might define "mother" as "a female parent." Or "cat" as "a domestic animal." Teachers tried to stop this practice.

The End of an Era

By the late 1800s, the term "A-B-C-darian" was rarely used. It became a reminder of the past, of the old one-room schoolhouses. George Howland, who was in charge of the Chicago Public Schools in 1898, said that the days of A-B-C-darians were "happily gone by." He meant that schools had moved on from simply teaching the alphabet and the "three R's" (reading, writing, and arithmetic) in a basic way. Education was becoming more advanced.