Campbell Teaches in Monhegan Island's One-Room Schoolhouse
By majoring in elementary education at UMF, Jessie Campbell fulfilled State of Maine teacher certification requirements for grades kindergarten through 8. As the only teacher in a one-room schoolhouse on Maine’s Monhegan Island, Campbell is putting her education to good use: her seven students (six boys and one girl) run the gamut of grades.
Located 12 nautical miles off the central coast of Maine, the island and its 60 year-round residents are reachable by an hour-long ferry ride that runs three times per week during most of the school year. (School officials chartered a lobster boat to bring Campbell to the island for a job interview.) The remoteness of the island, which measures 1.7 miles long by about a half a mile wide, means that traditional support staff such as a guidance counselor and special education teacher visit the school once a month. Thus, Campbell teaches all subjects, including art, music and physical education.
“They’re fabulous,” said Campbell of her students, the children of lobstermen, fishermen and others who work the cold Atlantic waters below the island’s rocky cliffs. “They’ve been raised in a small, tight-knit community where they’ve come to see everyone as their teacher. They’ve only had each other growing up, and they’re going to be friends forever. We don’t have detention at the school. We sit down together and talk through any disagreements. It’s embedded in them to see the good in other people.”
Perhaps it’s no surprise they see the good in Campbell. Apples are hard to come by on the island, but that doesn’t stop students from showing their appreciation for their new teacher.
“They usually bring me dessert, a plate of brownies or blueberry cake when they come back to school after lunch break,” Campbell said. “One of them wrote me a letter that said, ‘P.S. You’re doing great.’ I don’t have the option of receiving positive reinforcement from fellow teachers, so it was good to see that.”
Without the benefit of mentoring from a veteran teacher in her building, Campbell said she turns to professors within the UMF elementary education program for wisdom and guidance.
“I call them my Ministry of Magic,” said Campbell, referring to the fictional governing body that oversees the United Kingdom’s magical community in the Harry Potter series of books. “If I need advice on a lesson plan, I can’t go to the faculty lounge in the school for help. I call my professors at UMF.”
-- By Marc Glass, managing editor of the UMF alumni magazine
