Diane Davis

Dean, Educator One-Room School Method
Aletheia Christian College

“Nothing is as exciting nor as challenging as teaching.”  Diane Davis

Known as a bookworm since early childhood, Diane Davis has enjoyed teaching for over 40 years. She began teaching music during her undergraduate work at Westminster College where she received a degree in Music Education at both elementary and secondary levels. Following graduation, she was a para-professional in public school for 2 years. While her children were young, Diane taught as a substitute in both Christian and public schools. No Christian school in the area would accept her oldest son due to his learning disabilities, so she and her husband Randall began a Christian school in 1990, Liberty Christian Academy (LCA). LCA initially had 3 teachers and 7 grades, so Diane’s experience with multi-level teaching began.

While teaching and administering various Christian schools, Diane earned a Master’s degree in Educational Administration and a Doctorate in Higher Education Leadership, both from Idaho State University. Her dissertation covered the life of a one-room schoolteacher from Jerome, Idaho as she taught grades 1-8. Diane subsequently taught grades 3-9 in a one-room school where she honed her practices and ideas about multi-level teaching.

There is never a dull moment in a one-room classroom. A high school student looked up from his work to learn how to read a clock, something that he had never learned. He thanked me after class because he had always wanted to know how, but never wanted to ask anyone. The younger classes were determined to catch up to the older students, so they also would be listening to the more advanced topics. And yet, everyone did their assignments.

A multi-level classroom benefits all the students. Older students help younger students, thereby building a learning community. Children learn how to relate to others of different ages. Individual or small group lesson plans allow students to progress at their own pace, permitting some of them to complete course work early and go on to the next grade, without the ostracism of changing classrooms or going to special programs. The key to this is the organization of the teacher, which Dr. Davis learned when she taught in her first multi-level class in 1990.

Dr. Davis is starting a 3-week training seminar to help educators begin a one-room school. The topics offered are: “Nuts and Bolts: Teaching in a One-room School,” “Legal Issues,” and “Starting the One-room school: Business information.” This seminar will be offered each month starting in September, October and November for 3 hours on Monday nights. There is also the opportunity to take additional classes as offered on classroom management, literacy, curriculum, and transitioning the one-room school to a traditional Christian school.  More traditional college classes are also offered at Aletheia for students that do not have a college diploma.

“For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers that they should teach them to their children, that the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, that they may arise and tell them to their children, that they should put their confidence in God and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments.” Psalm 78:5-7