The first permanent school was established on a rental basis in the residence of Hans Jahr of Jahren. The rent was 12 dollars per year, heat included. Gudmund Thoresen was precentor and ambulatory schoolteacher and therefore became the first school administrator for Fet’s permanent schools.
There were very modest demands on teaching materials and equipment at the time. The only thing the law of 1827 said about this was: Every school should be supplied with a Bible, New Testament, Book of Psalms, Book of sermons, a copy of Norway’s constitution, a copy of the Law for General Schools and an arithmetic book. As far as we can tell the school at Jahren was better equipped than these very modest demands called for. There was a monochord (a one stringed string instrument), an abacus, a reading board, a pointer and a writing board. The pointer more than likely served several purposes!
A new law appeared in 1860: "The Law on the General School System in Rural Districts". Two important aspects of the law were:
Despite the fact that the building of the first schools stretched over a fairly long period, 50-60 years, it was a very powerful economic boon for the municipality. Measured by the standards of the time the schools were very well equipped.
It started with the building, in 1865, of schoolhouses with accompanying teachers’ homes in Jahren and Åkrene districts. In Jahren district the school was built at Øverby and was situated where the parking lot for Fet church is now located. In 1904-05 the school was moved to the present location of Riddersand School. The school was added on to quite a bit and was called Jahren School.
Åkrene School was in use until 1957. That year the district was unified with Fetsund district and the school at Åkrene was discontinued.
The next schools that were built were at Øvredalen and Faldalen. That was in 1874. In Øvredalen the school was built at Nygård. The building still exists and was used for many years as a teacher’s home. The school at Nygård was discontinued in 1924. That is when Øvredalen School was built. It was a stately building that was in service until 1968.
At Roven a school was built in 1900 and with additions this school was in use until 1962. That is when students from Roven district were transferred to Riddersand School, which was the new school for the unified schools Roven and Jahren. Today Roven School is the community center for ’Roven Velforening’ and has therefore been well preserved. Before Roven school was built classes were held in rented locales in the area.
In 1914 Faldalen School was supplemented by Fetsund School. As mentioned, Fetsund and Åkrene districts were unified in 1957 and a new school, Hovinhøgda, got its start. Since 1957 Fetsund School has been tied to the municipal offices. Until Fet City Hall was built the Social Welfare office, the Social Security office and the library used the building. Today only the library remains..for the time being.
According to the law it was possible to establish so-called convenience schools at places there were more than 30 workers. Two of these schools were established at Varåbruket and Gansbruket. Varå convenience school was discontinued in the early 1900s and the students were sent to Roven and Jahren schools. Gan convenience school was discontinued in 1918, shortly after Sand school was built.
The year 1889 was in many ways the start of a new era. That is when the ’Law for the People’s School in Rural Districts’ was adopted. The first thing to note is that it was called People’s School, a name that would last until 1969 when the new obligatory name ’Elementary School’ was adopted.
The fight to improve schools took on a new dimension. Obligatory school was now 7 years and the school day/year was extended while also strengthening the subjects. Orientation was now obligatory. Independent subjects and skill subjects like gym, shop and drawing should be taught, at least where possible. Fet made sure that its students had these choices.
The law of 1889 was for the most part written in the spirit of local control. The School Board, where the priest was no longer necessarily the Chairman, was given the right to decide on teaching plans, class hours and to employ new teachers.
In 1914 the law of the land declared that children should have free school materials. This meant a lot economically for parents and guardians but it was a relatively large economic boon to the municipality. The school budget for Fet and Rælingen Municipality (they were one municipality until 1929) was 37,389 crowns. Teacher pay was 64.50 crowns per week in school for adolescents and 53.75 crowns per week in school for the younger students.
An interesting aside here is the debate on the school board from the beginning of the 1920s on whether they should purchase a new teacher’s chair or repair the old one. The new chair would cost 9.50 crowns, repairing the old one 7 crowns. The board decided to repair the old one. The use it- throw it mentality had apparently not made any inroads yet!
At the same budget discussion we can also see these specifics:
2 classroom thermometers for 1.35 crowns a piece for Jahren.
Tarring of the urinal at Åkrene 4.00 crowns
Improvements on the outhouse at Roven 45.00 crowns
There was a great improvement pedagogically as well as economically in 1918. That is when the municipality decided to increase school to 30 weeks for the youngsters (1st-3rd grades) and 36 weeks for the older students (4th-7th grades). A new school plan was introduced some years later in 1924. It was carefully prepared and was approved by the Superintendent of Schools on February 16th 1924. The plan contained detailed descriptions of the curriculum for each subject and each class level and was an excellent guide for teaching. It also contained rules for acceptance, promotion, and tests, teaching time, rules for special instruction, instructions for teachers and citizenship rules for the students. It was a pedagogic instrument that commanded respect and that one can still be proud of.
The plan was in use until the ’Common Plan for Rural Schools’ was adopted. This was a rural plan published by the Church and Education Department in 1939. It might be interesting to see the subject and class distribution in the 7 grade school as the plan of 1924 dictates it:
Subject |
1st |
2nd |
3rd |
4th |
5th |
6th |
7th |
Christianity |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
Norwegian |
12 |
11 |
11 |
11 |
10 |
9 |
9 |
Home Ec. |
5 |
5 |
5 |
||||
Geography |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|||
History |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|||
Science |
2 |
2 |
4 |
4 |
|||
Arithmetic |
6 |
6 |
6 |
6 |
6 |
6 |
6 |
Writing |
3 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
|
Song |
1 |
1 |
1 1/2 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
|
Drawing |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|||
Shop |
2 |
2 |
4 |
4 |
|||
Gym |
1 1/2 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
|||
30 |
30 |
30 |
36 |
36 |
36 |
36 |
In the area of rules of behavior it is easy with today’s rules as a backdrop to find ’curiosities’ such as these taken out of Rules for school children.
The instructions for teachers seem a bit unusual too, especially taken into consideration today’s conditions. But they may be something to consider.
This comes from point 6 of the instructions:
The subject and class distributions of 1924 lasted for many years, actually all the way until the 1950s. The class structure was improved after a while and in the middle of the 1930’s Fetsund school was a 7-grade school, the others were 4-grade schools. In 1937 the student population of Fet schools (Rælingen excluded) was 490. The teaching staff consisted of 2 female and 2 male teachers at Fetsund School, 1 male teacher and one female at the other schools.
In 1936 the almost 50 year old law for ’People’s schools in rural districts’ was replaced by ’The Law for People’s schools in rural districts’. It brought in its wake several improvements; amongst these was the increase in minimum class hours for the earliest grades to 32 and 36 for the older students. This had been established practice in Fet for years. The skill subjects were to be improved but here again the situation was already good. All the schools had, for example, long had their own rooms for shop.
The 1936 law was to have been fully instituted prior to July 1st 1942. The outbreak of war in April 1940 put an end to that notion, and the period after 1945 became a time of rebuilding in several senses of the word. The schools were in poor condition after the war not in the least because of the fact that for varying periods of time they had been used for quartering the occupation forces. One thing was the restoration and fixing up of the school buildings, another was the lack of inventory and teaching materials as well as the run down nature of what was left.
In the middle of the 1950’s it became possible to introduce a 4th and 5th school day in the Rural People’s School. This was gradually instituted in Fet. The problem was that the schools did not have the necessary capacity so the extended school days took more time than many had hoped.
As time passed both on the national and local scenes there was a greater press on the various roads to education. The expanded right to education, the expanded obligation to educate and the organization of this was something that occupied school personnel and politicians more and more. The answer was a 9-year uniform school. This school had to be carefully prepared and in 1959 a new, temporary law was adopted. This law concerned the People’s school but was meant to lay the groundwork for the 9-year uniform school.
At the start of the 1959 academic year Fet had these schools: Dalen, Hovinhøgda, Jahren and Roven. The first thing that had to be done was to expand the district schools in order to satisfy the demands for the locales for the elementary schools in a 9-year school. In connection with this it was necessary to alter the district schools as smaller districts were centralized to these primary districts (grammar school districts):
Translated by Steven Mohn