The Secret School

Ida drives herself and Felix to school in “her family’s battered Model T Ford” (1). Model Ts were the first mass-produced cars; hers might date as far back as 1908, the first year they were built. Though the car introduced the brake and clutch pedals to the world, the accelerator was attached to the steering wheel. Ida isn’t tall enough to reach the pedals, so she has Felix push them with his hands at her direction.

They make a good team, and rural children as young as 14 sometimes did have the right to drive, but the main reason for the car’s presence in the story is to demonstrate Ida’s resourceful intelligence. She captains a vehicle she’s not big enough to control on her own, but she’s able to give commands while operating the steering wheel and accelerator. These traits come to her aid when she manages a classroom full of kids, milks the cow while memorizing answers to test questions, or makes a complex presentation to the school board. The Model T thus symbolizes her ability to take on adult responsibilities.

Tom loves radios and builds a “primitive” one at home and shows it off at school. The radio barely brings in signals, but it’s good enough to connect the school children to faraway cities and inspire them to dream of places they haven’t yet seen. For Ida, the radio suggests a bright future; it reminds her of her desire to become a teacher, see the world beyond her valley, and participate in a society that’s modernizing and not, like some of her neighbors, clinging to backwater ways and attitudes.

A one-room schoolhouse provides education for the children of Elk Valley. It’s a simple structure: “Squat and square, the school building had a pitched roof and a small bell steeple at the south end. The painted but peeling white clapboard walls had three windows on each side” (3). Grades one through eight are taught within its walls. Somewhat neglected but still appreciated by most nearby farm families, the schoolhouse represents the community’s desire to better their children.

At the same time, a few men see it as an obstacle because it takes their kids away from vital farm chores. Some of these same men also believe education is wasted on girls. The school board meets in the schoolhouse to decide its fate, and much of the valley’s population attends; the building symbolizes and hosts the conflict between old and new ways of thinking about community, the rights of women and girls, and the educational needs of youth.