John Hill School, Boonton, NJ ~ Michele Filosa

John Hill School, which was originally called Boonton Public School, was established long before 1908, in Boonton, NJ.  The current high school used to be John Hill School and the current location of John Hill School used to be Boonton High School.  Many of the original furnishings and fixtures can still be scene in the schools today.  Above are photographs of the school as it is now.  When you enter the walls of the school, you immediately feel a sense of warmth, eventhough the school is quite old.  Many teachers who work in the school remember how the school looked when they were students there at one point or another.  I spoke with several teachers and there are certain aspects of the school that hold fond memories for them.  For instance, one teacher told me that they can remember sitting in the exact same seats in the auditorium at one point and if they looked hard enough, could probably find their initials carved into the seats.  Another teacher remembers when the halls were not lined with lockers as they are now. 

In a town, rich with history, Boonton received their charter as a town in March of 1867.  The Boonton that is today, began in 1829, resulting from the construction of the Morris Canal and the New Jersey Iron Company.  When taking a tour of the town, one can identify many historical buildings within the town.  Many buildings are not identified as historical landmarks, including the John Hill School.  After looking around the school building for several minutes, I was unable to find a cornerstone for the building, however, it can be noted that the school was established before 1908, as there are postcards and photographs that can be found on the internet. 

When looking at the John Hill School, the school in which I currently work, I was observing the structure of the building today, and what it looked like in the past.  Looking at the outside of the building, the roof seems to have been changed, however, most of the school still remains the same.  Below are some images of the school as it used to be.  After searching online and at the library, I was unable to find out when the high school and intermediate schools switched. 

image taken from http://www.boontonpostcards.comule.com/254.htm

image taken from http://www.boontonpostcards.comule.com/178.htm

 

I came across Murphy's Laws of Teaching on the website http://www.murphys-laws.com/murphy/murphy-teaching.html and though some of the to be rather intersting.  As the old saying goes, "If it can go wrong, it will go wrong."  This defiantely pertains to the school I walk into everyday, regardless of the fact of how old it it! 

Murphy's Laws of Teaching

The clock in the classroom will be wrong.

Disasters will occur when visitors are in the room.

A subject interesting to the teacher will be boring to the students.

The time a teacher takes in explaining is inversely proportional to the information retained by students.

The length of a meeting will be directly proportional to the boredom the speaker produces.

Students who are doing better are credited with working harder. If children start to do poorly, the teacher will be blamed.

The problem child will be a school board member's son.

Students with behavior problems are never absent — not one day — all year.

After 27.5 hours of intense creative work, your bulletin boards — the best ever — are finally complete. Ten minutes later you will be notified that you are assigned to another classroom in which the bulletin boards are not the same size as those you had just prepared.

Once your notebook is full of good ideas, tests, sample lessons, films and a list of 500 library books for supplemental reading, and all of this is correlated to the textbook you are using, you will get the message that they're adopting new textbooks next year or that your current textbook is out of print.

New students come from schools that do not teach anything.

When the teacher says "weird" rather than "emotionally disturbed," he learns that the person to whom he is speaking is the school counselor.

News of what you failed to do travels at 1,000 times the speed of news of what you did well.

The week after you have completed your lesson plans that will keep you on schedule with the curriculum and allow you to teach all you need to before the school year ends, you will lose four days of school because of snow.

Parent-Teacher Open House will be held on the night of part two of the best three-part TV series of the year.

On a test day, at least 15% of the class will be absent.

Clocks will run more quickly during free time.

Murphy's Law will go into effect at the beginning of an evaluation.