Posted on 06/14/2015 10:13:31 AM PDT by nickcarraway
At an Oklahoma City high school last week, what started out as a routine job for contractors – switching out chalkboards for whiteboards – unearthed some incredible pieces of history: hidden chalkboards with lessons from 1917 almost perfectly preserved.
Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson talks with Sherry Read, a math teacher at Emerson High School, where the chalkboards were discovered.
Interview Highlights: Sherry Read
On her reaction to seeing the chalkboards
“It was just incredible. The drawings are pristine. They look like they were drawn yesterday. And just look at the beautiful colors, and the math work that was on the board. And then you look at the calendar and it says 1917, and you’re like ‘Oh my gosh, this is almost a hundred years old.'”
A wheel used to teach multiplication tables appears on one board. (Oklahoma City Public Schools) A wheel used to teach multiplication tables appears on one board. (Oklahoma City Public Schools)
“I feel like we’ve unearthed cave drawings or unearthed King Tut’s tomb. It’s an archaeological find that’s just incredible.”
On decoding math lessons from the past
“There was a multiplication circle that we’re in the process of trying to figure out. What did they do with this, and how did they use it? Because none of us have used that particular method of multiplication before.”
Her response to the passage about Pilgrims
The Pilgrims lived long ago in England. The English king would not let them go to their own churches. The Pilgrims said, ‘We will go to Holland.’ The Pilgrims said ‘our children will grow up like the Dutch children.’
“I think they were doing this as a history lesson to talk about the religious freedom that brought them to America in the first place. When you think about it in that respect, in 1917, Oklahoma would have only been a state for 10 years, so they were just as much pilgrims or pioneers of their time as the Pilgrims were.”
Ping
God in school...
Focus on math an penmanship as the lesson of the day
No transgender studies...
Where did DEC 2 and DEC 3 go????
Very cool.
The multiplication circle is baffling.
Yea no women’s studies or GLBTS training either. What a bunch of bigots and buckle draggers!
“Where did DEC 2 and DEC 3 go????”
Oklahoma didn’t have a December 2 or 3 until 1918.
LOL!
Make that knuckle draggers. Haha that was funny though.
Kids can’t read or write cursive any more. Sad.
20 years ago when my wife was student teaching, she got in trouble by her instructor for using the term “black board”.
So to be fair, “white board” is a macro aggressive term I find offensive.
My students really want to learn to write it. They think it is neat. Sadly, like you said they can not read it. I am teaching my grandchildren how to write cursive because they asked me too.
That's currently under investigation. If you stick your nose in it you could be arrested. Just be glad that you didn't ask about DEC 31.
A little more seriously, most of that calendar is for November 1917 (see that Thanksgiving is highlighted), with the month name and first line replaced by December.
....“There was a multiplication circle that we’re in the process of trying to figure out...
I think that was used in place of flash cards.
You can use that circle to teach multiplication tables to students.
3x2
3x3
3x4
3x5
Now, find the 6, then 9, then 12, then 5 (for 15) on the wheel and draw straight lines from one answer to the next!
Common core calendar systems way back then? Who knew?
I was taught in my private Christian kindergarten how to write in cursive. I had to move in the middle of the school year, however, and I was put into public school and I wasn’t allowed to use cursive. I am trying to teach myself ladies’ hand at the moment because I just love beautiful writing.
Maybe some of my kin went there as most are from Oklahoma at that time.
I find it amazing that they had colored chalk in 1917. Did not know that.
“I give my head, my heart, and my life to my God and One nation indivisible with justice for all.”
Imagine writing that on a board at any school today, public, private, or parochial. We really are living in ‘1984,’ and we will sink even further unless & until we rebel against this tyranny over the mind of man.
Now we call it black chalk.
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