Making The Grade Teacher’S Smaller Classes Helping Students Catch Up

Irene Curran is a one-woman show with a one-room schoolhouse just off Highway 53.

At an age when most teachers are retiring, Curran, 65, opened Bingham Street School to help children falling through the cracks of America’s crumbling public education system.

This native of Canada isn’t trying to solve the country’s educational woes, she’s just adjusting the system a tad for a handful of struggling North Idaho children.

“I was interested in the old methods of teaching and if they had validity,” Curran said Tuesday, while her four students quietly read their new social studies books.

That’s why Bingham Street School resembles the one-room schoolhouse of yesteryear and mixes children of different ages together, concentrating on ability instead of grade level.

That means a traditional fifth-grader struggling with math could do course work at the third-grade level. If English is going better, that student could tackle fifth-grade work.

“The goal is trying to get them up to grade level,” Curran said.

And parents say it works.

Take Brian Langdon for example.

The 10-year-old was struggling at Fernan Elementary and would have repeated fourth grade this year if his mother, Lisa, hadn’t moved him to Bingham.

“He’s a normal, bright child,” said Lisa Langdon. “He was just falling through the cracks.”

When Brian came to Curran’s school three weeks ago he couldn’t copy a math problem from the textbook to his notebook. His handwriting was a mess and he didn’t know his multiplication tables.

Curran proudly displayed his math notebook Tuesday, showing pages of multiplication problems neatly written out and calculated correctly.

“I notice a big improvement in him already,” Curran said.

Brian is shy with curly blond hair. He sat quietly as Curran showed off his work.

“Yep,” he likes Bingham School. “Yep,” Bingham School is less frustrating than Fernan Elementary.

Brian’s mom finds no fault with the public school system. Another son remains at Fernan and her kindergartner is in a private Christian school.

Smaller class size is what attracted her to Bingham School.

Curran teaches nine students. Four are home-schoolers who attend class only on Fridays. The other five students cover second through fifth grades. Curran is certified to teach K-8 and has had up to 17 students.

“It must seem like a mystery how I can teach all these grade levels,” Curran said. “It works well.” Pained by what she called a crisis in education, Curran bought a chunk of land in 1994 and turned one of its buildings into a school and the other into a home.

She charges $225 monthly tuition and pays for other expenses, such as textbooks, from her own pocket.

Because the school is nonreligious she gets no church funds, and she gets no state tax cash because Bingham School is independent and private.

She believes Bingham is the only school of this nature in North Idaho. Coeur d’Alene School District representatives agreed, not able to name another nonreligious private school in the area.

Once students reach their grade level, Curran encourages them to return to public school.

“They need to learn how to function in the real world,” she said. “This is a pretty sheltered environment.”

Most students continue to do well, but Curran said it’s difficult for children who haven fallen behind to ever catch up completely.

“They’ll probably always struggle in that area a little bit,” Curran said.

With gray carpet, vases of flowers and curtained windows, the school seems homey. Curran said traditional classrooms are “too prisonlike” and aren’t conducive to learning.

The large room is broken into two sections. The north end resembles a regular classroom with a chalkboard and desks, and numbers, letters and posters cling to the walls. The south part of the school has several tables, a small library and a microwave so students can heat their lunches. A bathroom is in the back.

“My focus is to seek and create new ways of educating children,” Curran said.

She faults the current education system for having too many students in a single classroom and trying to flood children with information.

“As a consequence they are not learning anything, no retention,” she said.

Her goal is to teach less, better.

“It’s gratifying,” Curran said. “I do make a difference in the kids’ lives.”