School Daze

Do you remember the rhyme-

“School days, school days,

Good old Golden Rule Days,

Readin’ and writin’ and ‘rithmatic

Taught to the time of a hickory stick?”

So, since it is September and the start of new school years across the nation, I thought I would look at the school days of my youth. Those times are as far removed from today’s educational programs as the slates the pupils used during the Colonial period or in one-room schools. Today students use technology routinely and easily adapt to the computer earning now prevalent. In my day, practices were different.

As a senior, but not quite a relic yet, I have memories of vastly different school days from my childhood education in a town close to Boston. I thought it might be interesting to share some of my experiences from those days. Classrooms then typically held around thirty students. The teacher wrote classwork assignments on chalkboards. At the end of the day, someone would be assigned the job of cleaning the chalkboards and clapping the chalk dust from the erasers. (Nobody considered the perils, then, of chalk dust.)

In my town, there was no grade for kindergarten, students started school right into first grade. I walked to my school, a few blocks away from home, attended the morning session, went home for lunch, and returned for the afternoon. (Of course, our mothers or someone was expected to be at home.) This all seems quaint now. After a bitterly cold winter with heavy snow, the town changed to single sessions, and that remained the norm throughout the rest of my education.

Dress codes were simple; girls could wear skirts or dresses, never pants. If it was freezing or snowing, they could wear leggings under their skirts. Boys could wear corduroy or cotton trousers, but not jeans, or dungarees, as they were called then. Sneakers were only for older children when they played sports or had gym class.

We were taught penmanship, usually in the third grade, when we learned cursive writing. I seem to remember the Palmer method, where one had to keep the arm off the desk and use sweeping hand motions as we dipped our pen into an inkwell set in our desks. The pens left splotches if the students were not careful with the dipping. This often meant that one had to start over with a clean piece of paper. These were not simple tasks for small hands. Contrast that with today’s practices, which no longer teach cursive as students and teachers, used to computers, do not see a need for it.

We also learned the multiplication tables by rote in the early grades. Later in English studies, teachers showed us how to diagram sentences as we used the parts of speech. Such lessons are no longer taught and are considered unnecessary.

Elementary school teachers, most frequently, were women. Teachers could be married and have children, but had to step down if they were visibly pregnant. (I never understood the rationale for this policy – it is not as if the students did not live in homes where new brothers or sisters arrived at intervals.) Of course, they too wore dresses or skirts, except when they taught gym classes.

During that age of nuclear threats, we learned to duck and cover, which meant during drills we were to crawl under our desks and not look at the windows, which presumably might have a blinding blast. We did not know then, if that blast was that close, that we would be incinerated.

Each class day began with the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. Originally, not all states used the same pledge as it was not universal until World War ll, when patriotism was promoted more to support the war effort. The words “under God” were not part of the pledge in those days. Although religion was not integral to my early public school days, it became more so later. Various religious groups, especially the organizations of Catholic Bishops and the Knights of Columbus, lobbied for this pledge change. It became law when President Eisenhower signed the bill to add the phrase in 1954. Two years later, the words “In God we Trust “ were added to the country’s motto and even later to currency. These were reactive moves to combat the threat of communism, considered prominent during that era of McCarthyism and the House UnAmerican Activities Committee.

Subsequently, if my memory is correct, student readings from the Old Testament were added to the morning’s opening day rituals. Then, over the years, various groups petitioned against these routines in public schools. Jehovah’s Witnesses wanted their members to be excused from the pledge, while The Society of Friends (Quakers) requested that its members stand, but not pledge to the flag. This religion also has a testimony against the swearing of oaths. In 1962, using the reasoning of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, the Supreme Court in Engle vs. Vitale ruled against the recitation of a school-sponsored prayer in public schools. Later, courts prohibited Bible reading, as schools were deemed secular. Displays of the Ten Commandments were also prohibited after a suit brought by the State of Kentucky. (Stone v. Graham) Teachers, however, could teach portions of the Christian Bible in comparative religion classes for older students.

Today, in a country as diverse as ours, religion in public schools remains another divisive issue when world cultures are considered. Yet, despite the claims of some, America was not formed as a Christian nation. The founders made specific efforts to keep religion and government apart. Many came from families that fled to this New World to escape religious persecution. The Pilgrims, Puritans, Quakers, and French Huguenots all arrived hoping for religious freedom. Catholics, Protestants, and Lutherans mostly came later, but sought the same freedom to worship, or not, options. Enslaved African populations brought with them religious practices from their homelands.

Religious groups continue to push this button amid their desire to let this Conservative majority court strike these precedent-setting rulings down. Recent rulings supporting merchants who refuse to serve gay couples and coach prayers at football games are peeling away the prohibitions formerly enacted. States that now mandate displays of the Ten Commandments in classrooms are doing so in defiance of established laws. Schools that allow students to attend Christian Bible classes in the school day, but during free periods, even if held off campus, are also skirting the law. These practices do not consider the coercive nature and the pressures placed on parents or children who might not go along or who have differing beliefs. They do not respect the child who is Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu, for example, who does not know how to step back when their teacher asks them to join such groups. There are no reasons for these classes to take place during the mandated classroom hours, apart from the logistics of having a captive audience easily swept in and becoming the camel’s nose under the tent.

According to a study done in 2023 by PRRI, White Christians comprise 41% of our populace, and “no religious affiliation” is 27%. Christians of color (Black, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian Christians) total around 25% while religions such as Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, and Hindu are among the remaining 6%. Basically, then, as these stats show, about one-third of the US population are not members of a white Christian demographic.

PRRI notes a more in-depth portrait below.

“The majority of both major political parties identify as Christian. However, Republicans (84%) are 25 percentage points more likely than Democrats (59%) to do so. The biggest difference in the religious makeup of self-identified Republicans and Democrats is the proportion of white Christians, compared with Christians of color and the religiously unaffiliated. Seven in ten Republicans (70%) identify as white and Christian, compared with just 24% of Democrats. Among Republicans, 30% are white evangelical Protestants, 20% are white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants, and 17% are white Catholics. Among Democrats, those numbers fall to 4%, 10%, and 10%, respectively.”

“By contrast, 16% of Democrats are Black Protestants and 11% are Hispanic Catholics, compared with just 1% and 5%, respectively, among Republicans. Similar shares of Republicans (4%) and Democrats (3%) identify as Hispanic Protestant. Democrats (33%) are nearly three times as likely as Republicans (12%) to identify as religiously unaffiliated.”

There is an old saying that ‘your rights end where my nose begins’. While we all may practice our beliefs; no one should interfere with that freedom; however, no one should try to force you into their belief system.

My America respects all beliefs and stays away from those who hate, denigrate, or taunt others. Is your America celebrating our nation’s diversity and moving forward like mine? Let’s make that happen!

Til next week- Peace!