New book documents history of acclaimed Ellerbe School - Richmond County Daily Journal

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The book is the first by Marty Abbott Goodman.

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ELLERBE — Marty Abbott Goodman has had a life-long curiosity around a “famous school” in Ellerbe.

“If you grew up in Ellerbe, and of a certain age, you heard a lot about the Ellerbe School,” Goodman said.

While her mother attended the school, Goodman’s generation didn’t have first-hand experience of what made it special.

So, what caused a school in rural North Carolina to achieve national acclaim?

Every time that Goodman asked, she couldn’t get an answer. Goodman, a retired Richmond County Schools educator with 40 years of experience, endeavored to find out for herself, and compiled all the information she could about the school for her new book, “Learning by Doing: An Annotated Scrapbook of the Ellerbe School 1920-1949.”

“They didn’t know why they were famous because they didn’t know that’s not what school was like every where,” Goodman said.

The Ellerbe School

In 1920, Principal Morris Randolph Mitchell moved to Ellerbe and began consolidating the one-classroom buildings into the newly built Ellerbe School, which included all grade levels.

One-classroom buildings dominated the educational landscape at the time. Classes focused more on simple memorization and recitation. Mitchell’s successor, Richard F. Little from Hickory changed the pedagogical philosophy.

Goodman referred to it as “progressive education,” meaning instruction built around the idea that students learn by doing and that nothing should be taught simply for the sake of teaching. The curriculum would no longer be the center of the school — the students would be.

The height of the school’s success was in the mid-1930s. Mitchell, who had moved on to Columbia University, evangelized about the successes achieved in these classrooms in rural North Carolina, and it eventually caught the attention of the New York Times and Reader’s Digest.

Educators flocked from all across the country to visit and observe the school. Goodman said the Ellerbe School became a showroom for the success of a rural school. It gained so much attention that a class was added on Saturday just so that people could come and watch.

“School was so interesting to people, because it was new — the idea of a consolidated school with a group of teachers,” Goodman said. “People, when they read [my book] today, have to think outside of what school is like today. What we have today is similar — this was brand new at the time.”

Students built the gymnasium at the school themselves. The school housed a community printing press, as well as a film development room.

Goodman recalled an anecdote of the first principal, Mitchell, buying roller skates for students and skating through the halls.

Students also started a farmers’ market that raised money for the community. Administrators brought in a movie projector for the town in the late ’20s.

“They were almost like another business in the town,” Goodman said. “The community was so behind the school.”

Writing the book

Since the 1980’s, Goodman has been collecting articles and photographs from newspapers and magazines for her own interest. She’s interviewed countless individuals around North Carolina who had connections with the school.

In the ’90s, Goodman borrowed a dictaphone from Richmond Community College and spent a summer transcribing her interviews.

“Learning by Doing” is the first undertaking of this kind by Goodman. She said pandemic compelled her to complete the project that was so long in the making.

One observation that she noticed was the difference in writing styles from then to now. Goodman opted not to make any revisions or style changes to maintain the integrity of the writing of the time period. She added that the writing style of the newspapers were informal, but remained informative.

“The capitalization is different, the punctuation is different,” Goodman said. “I realized I couldn’t change any of it.”

Goodman said she also learned that the search for new information never ends. She said she’s edited the book at least a hundred times.

Today, nothing is left of the school. The high school was torn down in the 1950’s. A grammar school was torn down in the 1980’s.

Goodman said that anyone interested in Richmond County history or the development of the modern education system would be fascinated by the book.

“I did not want that story lost and I knew it would be if it was not put on paper somewhere,” Goodman said. “It’s a story about a school in Ellerbe, but it’s certainly a history of education in that time too, of how things were and how they’ve changed.”

Her book, “Learning by Doing: An Annotated Scrapbook of the Ellerbe School 1920-1949,” is now available on Amazon.

To support the Richmond County Daily Journal, subscribe at https://www.yourdailyjournal.com/subscribe or 910-817-3111.

Reach Matthew Sasser at 910-817-2671 or [email protected]

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