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Hello, my name is Amy Efird. I’m a senior at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. I would love to teach kindergarten and plan on teaching in my hometown of Mount Ida. My question pertains to the resources that are at most rural schools, and how they compare to most schools in bigger towns. Are the resources better or worse? Do they have different problems that they face compared to small rural schools? 

Hi Amy!

This truly is a great question and one that does not necessarily have an answer. The hard thing is that schools’ resources are dependent on a budget. This plays into how much people are paying into taxes that go to the school. I personally went to a rural school in the Midwest that had one to one Chromebooks and smartboards in every classroom. The books that we had for class were older but not out of date. I have been to a large community school and there was not a huge difference in the resources between the schools. The socioeconomic status plays a role in what gets bought for the school. One of the schools that I have field experience at does not have smartboards but they do have TVs in each room that work just as well to help students learn. I would look into a budget that the school has, and if you have any educator friends that are from a different district, compare the budget. You might find that you are able to get better material at a better price or you might have a cheaper option that you can also share with the aforementioned teacher.

Hi Amy!

I am currently at Wartburg College and plan to teach in elementary as well. I have been doing field experience at a very small rural school. I think one of the best things the teacher does is get creative. These resources are not just going to come to you, you have to find them and make connections in those bigger cities around you. An example is that they have a small library in their school, but once a month plan to go to the larger public library in the bigger town nearby. She always routinely brings in the county conservationist to talk to the students about things relevant to their class topics. Since they are in a rural area, learning about crops, animals, and farms is much easier than technology or coding; things that might be easier in a larger city. This is a problem for those larger cities. They have a harder time getting students to understand farming and how our food gets to the table. Many rural students live on farms and have a strong understanding because of their background knowledge. To me, the resources are what you make them and how you choose them. Rural and urban students need to learn the same things; where they live shouldn’t change that. Both rural and urban schools have many differences, but either way you will need to get creative and work with the background knowledge they have coming in. I hope this helps and best of luck to you in the field! These are great questions to be asking! -Ann Meirick

thanks for sharing

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These posts have been beyond helpful being that I am currently residing at an Rural Area school. Resources are very limited and they are scarce. In order to get what we need we muset partner with the surrounding communties and local leaders. By parterning with the local commuities it gives the schools that extra boost that they need from the community. These are ways in which we can make this happen for our children. A pattern that I am noticing is that the students who are in rural area schools are no where near as optomistic about learning with technology than children in urban area schools. In the bugger cities technology is everywhere including the home. While in most rural areas, the most technology that the students see is when they are at school. We have quite a set back because the reality of it is that the rural area schools are quite behind when it comes to resources.