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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHaunting chalkboard drawings, frozen in time for 100 years, discovered in Oklahoma school
By Elahe Izadi
June 6
Teachers and students scribbled the lessons multiplication tables, pilgrim history, how to be clean nearly 100 years ago. And they havent been touched since.
This week, contractors removing old chalkboards at Emerson High School in Oklahoma City made a startling discovery: Underneath them rested another set of chalkboards, untouched since 1917.
The penmanship blows me away, because you dont see a lot of that anymore, Emerson High School Principal Sherry Kishore told the Oklahoman. Some of the handwriting in some of these rooms is beautiful.
The chalkboards being removed to make way for new whiteboards are in four classrooms, according to the Oklahoma City Public School District.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/06/eerie-chalkboard-drawings-frozen-in-time-for-100-years-discovered-in-oklahoma-school/?tid=sm_fb
eppur_se_muova
(36,269 posts)Oktober
(1,488 posts)KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)so much fun going to look for something in the card catalog. I'd always find interesting stuff on the way. Now you just punch in a word for the subject/author etc and it comes straight up.
BumRushDaShow
(129,096 posts)just.... gone....
Thank goodness for the internet! The kids today have no idea.
NJCher
(35,685 posts)try Smartboards.
You can show things on the internet, though, so maybe it offsets by saving photocopies/trees.
A custodian told me the bulbs cost $1000 each. A lot of teachers just leave them on throughout the class.
I don't know that this is true, though, about the bulbs.
Cher
catrose
(5,068 posts)So glad I'm not in school
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)I wonder what lives these children led. What a century.
petronius
(26,602 posts)I guess. Maybe they did the work over the holiday weekend (the first row of the calendar is already switched to a December week, in anticipation...)
Fascinating find, I'm glad they're preserving it!
rug
(82,333 posts)petronius
(26,602 posts)in the 50's; did not know there were other versions out there.
I'm also still trying to puzzle out their method of teaching arithmetic...
Tess49
(1,580 posts)TexasProgresive
(12,157 posts)June 14, 1889 Colonel Balch introduces an American Flag Salute at his NY kindergarten: We give our heads and our hearts to God and or country; one country, one language, one Flag
Maybe the one on the black board is a version of that.
rug
(82,333 posts)DrBulldog
(841 posts)And I still remember the awful day in the 1950s when I was in elementary school, when I had to use the word "God" in the pledge of allegiance for the first time. It made me feel like an alien spouting about a concept I have never believed in.
rug
(82,333 posts)Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)That's how Americans recited the pledge like then.
Absolutely haunting now, but given the time, that's how it was done.
Also, it was a Christian Socialist, Francis Bellamy, who came up with the original pledge (in the 1890s, if I recall). The original version did not include the word "God."
Interesting stuff.
TexasProgresive
(12,157 posts)Here's an interesting link to read a bit on the history of the salute and pledge.
http://www.gemworld.com/US-PledgeSaluteSocialism.htm
I take issue that the NAZIs appropriated the Balch salute from the U.S. I really think the Germans wanted to be the reincarnation of the Roman Empire and that this is a bit older than NAZIsm. When I took Latin, many, many years ago (yes it was still a dead language) in my 3rd year we had to learn a new pronunciation. Years 1 and 2 were ecclesiastical Latin (soft like Italian), 3 and 4 were classical. It was explained to us that the Germans insisted they knew how Latin should be pronounced. It was hard with a lot of r rolling and I just thought it was unpleasant.
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)I didn't intend to imply that the Nazis appropriated the salute from the United States. It was, as you correctly state, an attempt to rebuild the Third Empire (Third Reich), and as such with the Nazis play on myth and history, adopted the Roman Salute to continue the tradition in a cynical play at national unity.
However, it is not unlike our play at national unity with the pledge, even though it was a socialist who came up with it.
Hekate
(90,714 posts)....of great waves of immigrant children a century-plus ago. They needed to learn English and learn how to be American, as it was understood then. This was part of Bellamy's contribution.
People went back and forth about the wording and posture, and yes, the Roman salute had nothing whatsoever to do with Nazism or fascism, but we ended up with our hands over our hearts in the end.
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)I'm glad I could contribute something.
mountain grammy
(26,624 posts)My birthday is Nov 29th and it can never fall on Thanksgiving. If it falls on a Thursday, it's the fifth Thursday so not Thanksgiving.
This is December.. weird. Wonder what the 29th was.The teacher's birthday?
These are great. I hope they go to a museum.
petronius
(26,602 posts)I'm guessing the teacher only updated the first week, in anticipation of the upcoming school week...
On edit: according to Wiki, Thanksgiving was simply the last Thursday in November prior to 1941. Nice to learn a bit of trivia on a lazy Sunday!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving#Fixing_the_date_of_the_holiday
mountain grammy
(26,624 posts)before I was born. At some point it was changed to the 4th Thurs of the month.
petronius
(26,602 posts)unfair overlap!
mountain grammy
(26,624 posts)6 years before I was born.. Thanks, FDR, and thanks for a whole lot more.
marble falls
(57,106 posts)So interesting. The drawings they took time to do are intriguing.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)I need to figure how it works later.
rug
(82,333 posts)salin
(48,955 posts)per the pattern of the numbers on the wheel.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)so that people actually memorized the number pairs instead of just the sequence. Kids might be asked to take turns as the teacher points at each number around the wheel, for example.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)I don't see a pattern
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)I haven't figured it out. Pattern detection, especially with numbers, is usually one of my strong suits
TexasProgresive
(12,157 posts)Maybe the teacher was using it as a drill on multiplication. She would point at say 6 X and then the 3 and say, "Wake up, Jimmy. What's the answer?"
I never saw one like that but I can imagine it. Teacher's imaginative ways of teaching were not hamstrung but extremely tight methods.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)I was hoping it was a math tool I was unfamiliar with
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)mountain grammy
(26,624 posts)I think it'll keep me awake at night.
ann---
(1,933 posts)They still sell multiplication wheel worksheets!
http://www.shoplet.com/Scholastic-Monster-Multiplication-Wheels/SHS0439609682/spdv?gclid=CKevzdXC_sUCFcmQHwodCS8ANw&rtop=1
rug
(82,333 posts)I was very curious about it.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)Look for a post of mine somewhere on this thread.
ann---
(1,933 posts)like the Star of David.
TexasProgresive
(12,157 posts)1st the yellow because that's what the German and Polish Jews had to wear.
LeftishBrit
(41,208 posts)frogmarch
(12,154 posts)Remarkable remnants of the real past. I hope they endure now that theyve been discovered.
On exhibit in a museum in my hometown is an old toilet room door taken from a 1950s store that was torn down. When I was 12, my friends and I, silly creatures that we were, wrote our names and phone numbers on the door, along with the names of the local boys or the movie stars we wanted for our boyfriends. Pencil writing can last a long time. That is why the door is on exhibit. How embarrassing.
Jamastiene
(38,187 posts)Did something happen that caused them to just get forgotten and left there or what?
petronius
(26,602 posts)these old ones were hoping for this reaction - they thought it would be cool to leave a little time capsule...
Another thing that just struck me is that the chalkboards that were just removed may have been in use for almost a century; kind of boggling to think how many teachers and students used them, for so many lessons.