“Education is the movement from darkness to light. “
This morning I noticed webbing between my toes. It appears I am beginning to adapt to a wet world where it rains every day. The sun is supposed to return, but I have become a skeptic worn down by snow and cold and rain.
In elementary school my day was chock full of subjects, some every day and some once a week. Many of them have since disappeared.
Back then no school room was complete without those green writing alphabet cards running atop the blackboards. On each was a single letter in both small and capital cursive forms. I always liked the capital Z and the capital Q. They were odd-looking and uncommon to use. We had penmanship a couple of times a week when we practiced the Palmer method. I remember the circles and the lines. I also remember mine were usually messy and didn’t resemble the examples we were following. The nun always stopped at my desk to show me how my hand should be moving up and down as I practiced. Many schools don’t teach writing any more. Cursive is disappearing.
Geography was always one of my favorite subjects. I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about knowing that Columbia produced coffee or that Costa Rica led the world in bananas, but I loved the pictures and the articles. I used to dream about visiting some of the countries in my book, but I never really believed I would see so many of them. When I was sixteen, we went to Niagara Falls and saw the falls from the Canadian side. I was visiting my first foreign country, and I was thrilled. They don’t teach stand alone geography any more either.
We had music a couple of times a week. We learned the fundamentals. I still remember every good boy does fine and face: the mnemonics for the names of the scale’s lines and spaces. We sang songs. I remember every nun had a mouth tuner like a round harmonica. She’d blow the note, and we were supposed to start singing the song on that note. I doubt we ever did. I was in the rhythm band in the first and second grades. I remember first year I did sticks and second year I did triangle. I always wanted tambourine.
Reading was a subject unto its self. We had reading books with stories then questions and new vocabulary at the end of each story. I always liked those books. Each year the stories shared a theme. My favorite was American folk heroes. I loved Pecos Bill and his riding the tornado. It was the only time he was “throwed” in his whole career as a cowboy. I learned about Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox, John Henry and Sally Ann Thunder who helped Davy Crockett and wore a real beehive as a hat and wrestled alligators in her spare time. There was even a sketch of her and the alligator. I got my love of reading from those books and those stories.
I was never bored in school. We went from one lesson to another quickly enough to stave off ennui. I looked forward to most of them but only tolerated the rest. I still don’t like arithmetic no matter what you call it.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: alphabet letters, Amercian folk heroes, Columbia and coffee, Cursive, EGBDF, Elementary school, FACE, geography, math, music., Pecos Bill, penmanship, rain, reading, rhythm band, Sally Ann Thunder, skeptic, sticks and triangle, sun, webbing between the toes
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
April 10, 2015 at 11:48 am
The politicians have played so much with our schools lately that I’m not aure what they teach there any longer. According to the results on the Pisa studies I doubt they teach anything any longer.
I loved geography for the same reasons You did and I do hope they still teach it in school but I also loved mathematic and still do 🙂
Sunny and warm here now in the afternoon but foggy and cloudy most parts of the day and even if it was rather warm it still felt a bit chilly because of the dampness.
Have a great day!
Christer.
April 10, 2015 at 9:57 pm
Christer,
That is the same with here. The schools all have to teach to the common core test. A whole bunch of teachers got arrested for changing answers on the kids’ tests.
I never love math. I struggled and got good grades in it but hated it anyway.
Iy is almost 10 at night, and it is goofy and drizzling-ugly night.
Enjoy your Saturday!
April 10, 2015 at 4:58 pm
“Rain, rain go away. Come again another day.
Rain, rain move a while. Webbings KatRy wants to smile.”
We’ve had a beautiful summer-like day, sorry for you, the world is unfair.
April 10, 2015 at 9:58 pm
Birgit,
I could spit!
We are getting some warm weather for the weekend into Monday. It will be in the 50’s for the weekend in Boston, a bit chillier here as it always is this time of year.
I am very excited at the thought of warm weather!
April 10, 2015 at 6:55 pm
Hi Kat,
We must have had the same books. I’d forgotten Pecos Bill but remember Paul Bunyon and Babe. Didn’t know about Sally Ann Thunder.
In first and second grade we got to play the flutaphone. If you did well with the flutaphone, you were allowed to play violin in 3rd grade. I was a great flutaphonist so went on to violin. I lasted 3 weeks before deciding that recess was preferable to violin lessons. I never regretted not learning the violin.
My toes might be webbed, too. I haven’t checked. Today was just plain yuck. Dark and damp and cool. To add to that, I did my taxes and discovered that I’m now old enough to qualify for the Aged deduction. It’s like AARP, Medicare, Aged credit = three strikes, you’re old!
Enjoy the evening.
April 10, 2015 at 10:06 pm
Hi Caryn,
I did my library folk heroes phase and that may have been where I learned of Sally Ann.
We only had the rhythm band first and second grades and no options after that except the classroom music. I didn’t really care. I liked listening, not playing, music.
I have to do my taxes tomorrow. Everything is in place. I just have to add up the numbers. I always get some back so I have no idea why I wait so long.
I must be old enough for that too!
Have a great Saturday!
April 11, 2015 at 8:01 am
You probably are if you were born before April 1950.
I spent my entire working life dealing with that credit in some way or another and was never anywhere near old enough to get it. Even when I retired I wasn’t old enough to get it. It was like, “Oh! Yeah. I guess.”
I always got a refund and I rarely filed before April 15. I spent all day dealing with tax forms so I didn’t want to go home and continue working. In fact, I usually did my return at my desk on my lunch break. On April 15.
April 11, 2015 at 10:55 am
Caryn,
I most definitely was born before 1950.
All of my records are in one place. I just have to add up the numbers for my deductions. My friend used to do my taxes. After I retired I had to learn how. Now I use Turbo Tax-easy peasy!
April 10, 2015 at 7:47 pm
I tolerated school until I got into high school and could take subjects that I found interesting. Our education in the 50s and the 60s was designed to prepare us for jobs in an industrial era which don’t exist in this country. We din’t have to compete with anyone except the Japanese in the party favor and pocket transistor radio business. It was the era when we made things and could find well paying jobs on an assembly line or as a manager or engineer in a plant. Today we live in the era of globalization and information technology. Kids today are competing for jobs with people living in evert country in the world. Subjects like cursive handwriting should be replaced with keyboarding and music should be replaced with Manderin. It’s interesting that we are hurting for skilled welders and computer machinists. Maybe we produced too many software engineers.
April 10, 2015 at 10:22 pm
Bob,
I really liked school some subjects more than others.
I was always in the college track so I wasn’t allowed business courses, not even typing. I even took Latin IV my senior year. My high school had the three tracks, the third being industrial. Mostly boys were in that track.
They just cut Chinese at the local high school in an effort to reduce the school budget. The only things left in tact were courses teaching the Common Core curriculum.
Every one takes keyboarding and introduction to computer and then moves on from there.
We are losing people who learn carpentry, plumbing and similar jobs. They want big paying jobs, not what they see as menial.
April 10, 2015 at 11:45 pm
Unfortunately, those jobs are not menial but just physical. Have you called a plumber or an electrician lately? They can make six figure incomes if they are good and if they work hard. Think about the kids coming out of college with degrees in English, history or other liberal arts majors who can’t find a job that pays enough to pay back the hundreds of thousands of dollars that they have in student loans.
I bet the Chinese government hasn’t cut English from their schools in an attempt to cut costs. 🙂
I don’t know much about the Common Core curriculum except that it’s very controversial here in Bible belt Texas.
April 10, 2015 at 11:56 pm
Bob,
Many Americans consider them menial. They don’t want to get their hands dirty and seek prestige from having a corner office.
The Chinese don’t use their property taxes to fund the schools the way we do in this state and they don’t have a 2 1/2% cap on raising those property taxes. The school committee has to cut $200,000 which is difficult when the budget is already bare-boned but costs still rise and towns are reluctant to pay. That’s when programs, sports and music get cut.