What do you think it would have been like to learn or teach at a Moonlight School?

Honey is surprised to find out that Loretta Adams had attended one of Kentucky's Moonlight Schools, which served the uneducated and the elderly. What do you think it would have been like to learn or teach at a Moonlight School?

This was one topic I felt was not developed in the book and could have been explained more.

I agree with Gretchenm. These schools would make a good topic for a “Beyond the Book” article.

Moonlight Schools helped so many uneducated to read and write. I think as a teacher how gratifying it would be to not only teach the children, but also the parents. As the student to learn to read and write would help them in life on so many levels. Learning to write and correspond with loved ones, as well as, learning to read. Many received letters and kept them, but could not read them.

Also, the social aspect of being with other adults and learning together. The Moonlight Schools were a brilliant idea. I would love to read a book about them.

I was unaware of this activity being used by the teachers in Appalachia to advance literacy but there is an excellent article about it online. The url of that website is:
https://www.appalachianhistory.net/2017/12/kentuckys-moonlight-schools.html.

I also am quite familiar with the evening programs offered by the public schools in San Antonio TX at this time to offer opportunity to parents of the students in our school system who either are illiterate or who can only speak or read books in their native language.

The best word I can think of to describe learning or teaching at a Moonlight School is the word rewarding. How rewarding it would be to teach an adult to read and to watch the satisfaction of that adult making sense of the letters.

I fully agree with elizabethk's choice of the word "rewarding" and view the establishment of the Moonlight School's as a way to strengthen communities that have been disadvantaged by location, discrimination, or other challenges which stifle citizen success in contributing fully to their family's welfare.

While an innovative idea at the time, Moonlight Schools have become our evening classes, classes for new immigrants, GED classes, internet-based distance learning, etc. I admire anyone who receives an education; whether elementary, secondary, college, or post-graduate through non-traditional educational methods. It isn't easy and takes real dedication on the part of the student.

I agree that I wish the description of the Moonlight Schools could have been more detailed. I looked up information on the founder, Cora Wilson, and she was a fascinating woman. It would have been great to have her included as a more main character in the book. Teaching literacy to adults is an amazing gift and opens so many doors. I grew up in a family of teachers so it is hard to me to imagine what it would be like to not be able to read or write. Reading especially has taught me so many things and has been such a comfort and inspiration over my life.

It is too bad that Richardson did not develop more into the novel about the Moonlight Schools. That would have been interesting. Without the equipment and appliances we have now that make out work day so much easier and shorter, these people really worked hard for very little gain. They did not have all the free time we have. School was not valued then like it is today. Plus the blue skinned people were not always allowed to be everywhere, so a night time school was to their advantage. For those that had the desire to learn - to read and write - this was a great advantage for them.