All things practiful and useful

Today we engage in high tech everything. There is little left to do by hand anymore, especially in education.

Computers dominate about every aspect of our lives.

So, it was an eye-opener visiting the Old Columbia School House now located behind the Anderson Historical Society & Museum on Ferry Street. Oh sure, one-room school houses are still seen on television, if you watch “Little House on the Prairie” or the “Waltons.” And I’m sure they still exist in some remote areas around the globe.

Comparing education as it once was with the classrooms of today, you cannot miss the differences.

It’s not so much the electronics versus manual, there was much more character building emphasized in school back then. I think educators today are realizing that. I often see signs around campus that encourage students to be respectful.

Respect is a big word taken too much for granted.

Today’s student heads to the bus most likely packing an electronic device, maybe a laptop or notebook, but more likely a smart phone. And the kid knows how to use it.

I’m so envious. I do plan to catch up some day.

But, it’s not that my phone doesn’t have a few bells and whistles. It’s just outdated. Texting without a key pad is downright frustrating and slow. I lose my place and I start all over.

Drat!

Kids today can call for help. If lost, they can find their way with the GPS mode. They’re never really completely alone. Some newer backpacks are even fitted with alarm systems.

But gazing around the old school room, I see bumper-to-bumper desks with lids that don’t open.

I reminisce about the old desks in the Pine Street School when I was in the first grade. The desks there weren’t quite as ornate as the older versions, but they were somewhat modular styles from the 1950s with desk tops that lifted for storing items.

Early day one-room school houses had desks with ink wells? Wow, that takes talent filling a fountain pen with a bottle of ink and then actually writing something in cursive. Oh yeah, I’d like to meet the person who did those beautiful A-Z cursive signs that wrap around the upper walls of old time classrooms. Actually, you still see them in a few primary school classrooms.

I remember the specially-ruled paper we had on which to write cursive letters in upper and lower case. Those letters had to be flawless.

Mine were. I took great pride in my writing skills, but those skills deteriorated when I entered journalism. I didn’t take shorthand in high school so I had to devise a way to write fast — half cursive, half printed letters. Talk about a mishmash of good talent running downhill.

The Columbia Schoolhouse has a lot fewer desks — probably just one to three desks for each grade level — than in today’s classrooms that serve up to 30 children in one age bracket.

Remember, the one-room schoolhouse addressed the needs of all age students that attended. The good thing was there were older kids to tutor the younger ones. Now that does make sense.

I’m finally catching up with the kids of today as I’m using my electronic devices more and on a regular basis.

I used to stare in wonder at people who came into Starbucks and McDonalds, plugged in their laptops and disappeared into another world.

Now I know why.

I’m meeting a lot of people these days at Starbucks who have been very helpful directing me how to get connected now that I have a Wi-Fi device in my laptop. I had to show it all off to my grandson so he would realize his grandma isn’t so behind the times after all.

It’s made a significant difference in our relationship. I’m leaning the new school lingo as I research for some of my writing duties.

But going into that old schoolhouse made me think about what kids did learn back then. No, it wasn’t computer skills.

There was value in some of the hands-on learning offered beneath oil lamps hanging in rows from the ceiling. Children had more time to actually study and communicate as they sharpened some of those practical skills.

I think today’s kids might learn something new from the old if they were to visit the Anderson Historical Society and Museum to take in some old fashioned education. Reading, writing and arithmetic were the basics.

And, handwriting … well today’s students could improve that skill if they would practice writing letters to cousins who live across the country.

But I’m afraid today they’d rather be on the keyboard texting each other.