Chapter 157 - School (1/2)
Abby did her best to push Blaise out of her mind over the next couple of months and often failed miserably. But she did become more accustomed to life here.
By accompanying Katie on all of her visits to people around town she got to know the locals fairly well. Once Nyla's son Fai was born she spent a lot of time at her house helping with the other children and keeping them out of her way.
She was reminded of her earlier idea to help implement a school and talked to Katie about it. Apparently she had tried once while teaching some of the village children to read in the library but had lacked sufficient resources to set something up permanently.
That was where Abby came in. She had been a tutor in both high school and college to earn a little extra money and had a better idea of where to start.
The first thing she had to do was come up with a curriculum by finding as many rudimentary books about math, history, literature, and geography as she could in the library. Since children typically went off to become apprentices at the age of twelve around here, she decided the school should teach children aged six to eleven.
Breaking up the curriculum into things each age could understand would be a bit more difficult but she supposed there were Montessori schools and public schools in tiny towns without enough children to break up classes back home that did the exact same thing. If they could do it, so could she.
Unfortunately, there wasn't anything like workbooks to go off of so Abby had to come up with everything on her own. After recruiting a few of the older Kanta who had been a part of the original society before the raids to help with the history and geography aspects, she decided that school couldn't possibly be more than three hours long or she would run out of material.
This world was simpler than hers. They had to take a practical approach to learning things that would be useful to their own society instead of her modern standards.
She managed to convince some of the craftsmen in town to do short demonstrations of their respective trades and teach useful skills such as how to sew on a button. Though Abby ended up in charge of the classes that were held in the library until they had their own little schoolhouse built, there were a variety of guest teachers involved.
A few women whose children were either grown or who had no children volunteered to help her teach as well. They were supportive of enhancing the minds of the younger generation.
The school helped keep her occupied so over time thoughts of Blaise became much less frequent. She was too busy functioning as the headmistress of the tiny school she had established with everyone's help.
The construction of the schoolhouse was completed before winter hit. It was a single large room filled with desks and bookshelves. A chalkboard hung on one wall and maps of Annalaias, the Kanta region, and all of the known nations in this world were on the others.
It wasn't terribly far from the playground so they were even able to institute the concept of recess so the kids could take a break halfway through the day. If she really thought about it, the program they set up wasn't terribly unlike half-day kindergarten.
The kids learned something, the parents didn't have to worry about them for a while, and everything was hunky-dory. Abby hadn't ever envisioned herself as a teacher but here she was, in another world and in charge of nearly thirty children.