The History of Sunset Gap - page 4
     To speak of the health work in the community, as important is in no way to demean the work of the school as an institution of learning. From the very beginning, Sunset Gap Elementary School was one of the best in Tennessee. It was early chosen as one of six given a rating by the state.
      "Ours is a child centered school," Sara Cochrane wrote in one mission report. "How much easier it is for the Legend of Sleepy Hollow to become real to pupils when making a sand table scene of the vicinity . . . Any child enjoys such work."
      The approach was that of learning through doing. Skills were taught through clubs: forestry, 4-H, sewing, health and many others. Plays, programs for holiday celebrations, and special projects involving the creative development of a subject were important teaching methods in this small school.

Granny Dola at the loom
      A small weaving industry began in the late twenties, which enabled the older girls to earn money for continuing their education at Warren Wilson High School.
      By the mid thirties, the health needs of the community became less critical, and Sara Cochrane began to look for still other ways to involve the school in the life of the larger community.
      She started a PTA, a monthly meeting of the women in the community interested in the school. The meetings were both educational and entertaining, involving special study projects or interesting films. PTA membership dues paid for the school children's dental work, and fall canning provided the basis for the hot lunch program.
      It was more than ten years later, in 1948, before Sara Cochran retired as director of Sunset Gap due to failing health. She left East Tennessee to live in a retirement home for missionaries in California until her death in 1965.
      "Have you seen our new boss? What do you think of the old woman? These and many more questions were being asked as the new executive came in February..." wrote Elizabeth Wright in her first mission report of 1949.
      She still today recalls that in the first few weeks of her new work all that she did and said was compared to Sara Cochrane. The strangeness soon wore off, and the school routine settled down.
      However, there was little question that there was a new director with different ways.
History pages:  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11