Monthly Archives: April 2011

And on this date: school.

How about some cool school trivia?

Today, 23 April, 376 years ago, school was officially in. In 1635, Boston Latin School became America’s first educational institution funded completely by local government.

  • The first headmaster was paid “fifty pounds and a house” from the public treasury.
  • Its students were taught to “dissent with responsibility.”
  • Five signers of the Declaration of Independence (John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, Robert Paine and William Hooper) received their boyhood training there.
  • The main purpose was to teach Puritan values and bible reading.

Well, look at the school now. We’ve all come a long way, baby. But…

  • School boards didn’t exist until 1837, so hiring practices were largely arbitrary (and often corrupt — *gasp*).
  • School wasn’t compulsory until 1851, when Massachusetts voted to require all children to attend.
  • High schools didn’t come about until 1820.

And schools, like countless other American institutions, changed with the times:

  • African American children were allowed to attend segregated, “separate but equal” schools after the Civil War.
  • The Smith-Hughes Act passed in 1917, and “tracking” was born. Students were pointed in vocational directions via “intelligence tests.”
  • In 1954, Brown vs. Topeka precipitated the Supreme Court decision that “separate” was definitely not “equal,” and that segregation must be abolished. We all know how that went over in the South. Eisenhower had to call in the National Guard to keep the peace.
  • In the 1980s, the first charter school popped up in Minnesota, and to some, signaled the renaissance of segregation.

And everything old is new again.

The agrarian school calendar has repeatedly come under fire. Personally, I think it would take a huge influx of cash and a systemic overhaul of union practices to pull off year-round schooling, so I don’t see it happening nationwide for a long time. And further, if you’re really a stickler for semantics, we don’t have a truly “agrarian” calendar. According to Dartmouth professor and researcher William Fischel:

The “agrarian calendar” was not the current calendar of fall-winter-spring. [C]ities in the late 19th century had school in the summer. Nobody had AC back then, so going to school or working in a hot factory was not a big deal. The real reason for the Sept to June calendar is the widespread adoption of age-graded schooling. Rural schools of the 19th century did not have age-specific grades, and so they could have a “term” of school whenever they wanted for as long as they wanted. But age-grading required coordination among different schools. You had to start and stop at the same time so the third graders could start fourth grade together with those from other schools.

Well isn’t that interesting. Teaching all these years, and never knew that. And if you’re still with me by now — did you enjoy this little Saturday lesson? Feels like school, no?

:-)

I think I’ll break with tradition and have some coffee this day. Resolutions, shmesolutions.

Fri-ee-day, Fri-ee-day

OK, that will be my only Rebecca Black reference. Ever. :P

It is also Good Friday, and Earth Day. Good Earth Day. I happened upon the story of Chief Seattle again this morning. It’s one of those feel-good tales that won’t go away. On an Earth Day site, someone commented, “TODAY I AM READING OUT LOUD ‘CHIEF SEATTLE’S LETTER TO WASHINGTON’ ONCE AGAIN!”

For those who may not know, the text of the 1854 speech is an impassioned response to the US government’s interest in buying Indian land. An excerpt reads:

You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.

Beautiful words, yes? Too bad he never said them. Still, the text of the speech (found here) is poignant and romantic, and resonates perfectly the ideal of the Native American eco-hero our country so loves. Hey, whatever gets the job done.

Happy Good Earth Day, and a blessed Easter holiday to all who celebrate it.

RNF XLVI

Random Neuron Firings

  1. “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.” I’m learning to employ the wisdom of this proverb more and more. Fellow crusties: remember the old commercial that went, Aren’t you glad you use Dial? Don’t you wish everybody did? Heh. Yep, it’s like that.
  2. This in no way means that I have a new attitude, or that I enjoyed it, but I must admit that last night, I burned 20 minutes and 100 calories on the treadmill — on my night off. Get out. Am I mental?
  3. What are your plans for the holiday weekend? Please do share, because I’m interested in the lives of my fiends. That, and I’m nosy.
  4. Whoever has to work on Good Friday, raise your hand. I have tomorrow off, but usually it’s today and Monday that are added to our little “spring break” every year. Not so this time, as we have snow days to make up. Why can’t it just be unicorns and butterflies and picnics, and nobody pays for anything? Oh wait…for a minute there, I thought I worked for a US bank.
  5. The Cleveland Indians, today, 21 April 2011, 5:29 a.m. EST, are tied for the best record in Major League Baseball. I am enjoying this little house of cards before someone blows on it.
  6. I’ve had some good rehearsals this week. Well, two days of good rehearsals. That counts, doesn’t it? Let’s hope for three in a row. Come on, singers. You can do it.

:-)

It shouldn’t be this difficult.

Answer me these questions three, ere the other side ye see.

  1. Why is major change so hard to embrace?
  2. Why do professional people think it’s acceptable to not return phone calls and emails?
  3. Why is it that I’ve used a “Certificate of Live Birth” all my life to get everything from a passport to a Social Security number, and it’s not OK for Obama to use the same document to prove he was born in Hawaii? (I was told on the phone the other day that my original birth certificate was likely destroyed after my adoption.) All who know me know I hate politics and abhor nutjobs on both sides of the aisle, so this isn’t a partisan rant (cuz I don’t have a party, except in my mind every day). It’s just common sense, which apparently isn’t too common anymore…

Only then may you cross the Bridge of Death.

Fink, about to plunge headlong into the Gorge of Peril <dramatic music>