
Chalkboard drawings frozen in time for 100 years discovered in Oklahoma school - Thevet
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/06/eerie-chalkboard-drawings-frozen-in-time-for-100-years-discovered-in-oklahoma-school/
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lotharbot
Looking at the multiplication circle, it doesn't appear to have any products
written. The numbers on the outside are almost definitely factors (note the
lack of 10, and the relatively high frequency of 7 and 8, which are generally
the hardest to memorize.) So I don't think it's a way of teaching
multiplication directly, but more likely is a way of testing.

My best guess is that the teacher would call a student up to the board, and
then (using some sort of semi-random process, like slapping a ruler against
the board) use the wheel to generate a problem for the student to solve (5x7,
or 8x9). It looks like a more complex/extensible version of this worksheet:
[https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/multiplication/circle...](https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/multiplication/circle-
multiplication_TWZFT.pdf)

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cactusface
Why are 7 and 8 the hardest to memorize?

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iherbig
No discernible pattern and the numbers very quickly get large, I imagine.

2 is always even. 3 only gets to 30 after 3 x 10. 4 has a quick pattern
(4>8>2>6>0>..). 5 always ends in a 5 or a 0.

7's pattern is long 7>4>1>8>5>2>9>6>3>0>.. with no sense to it and the numbers
get big fast.

8's pattern is short (8>6>4>2>0>..) but the numbers are unwieldy getting into
the 40s really quickly.

9's pattern is easy: start with 09. Add one to tens-place and subtract one
from ones-place. So it's long, but pretty: 9>8>7>6>5>4>3>2>1>0>..

I skipped 6 because it seems to me that 6 would probably be pretty difficult
for the same reason 8 is difficult. Its pattern is short (6>2>8>4>0>..) but
there's less sense to it than there is to 8's pattern, and the numbers get
large rather quickly.

At least, that's the reasoning I've always figured. I have no idea.

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keithpeter
Just one idea: you don't come across things in multiples of 7 that often.

UK: eggs come in 6s. Pizzas get cut into 4s and perhaps 8s for a really huge
one, so multiples of those numbers get seen around. Half is sort of easy (all
my adult students can usually find half of a figure, especially if I encourage
them to think of paying it out in money with £10 notes and £1 coins). 5 fits
into the decimal system nicely. Threes are easy to count up.

~~~
beejiu
> Just one idea: you don't come across things in multiples of 7 that often.

Days of the week?

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keithpeter
You got me there!

But just thinking around weeks, apart from a fortnight do you actually count
the days in multiples of 7 or just think about months or a period of weeks?

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songshu
I became good at sevens working in a pharmacy store room in a large hospital
where we did continue to count in weeks. Boxes of 112 were common. Inside you
would find blister packs arranged in rows of seven with the days of the week
printed.

~~~
keithpeter
Nice example!

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geuis
Short related story. When I was in first grade in the 80's, all of our chalk
boards were being upgraded to white boards. The teacher used it as an
opportunity to be a kind of time capsule. We each wrote our names and
something personal on the boards. Later they placed the white boards over
them. It wouldn't surprise me at all if those boards are still there to this
day.

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rcurry
The cursive writing is beautiful, what a wonderful little find. It's always a
joy to find some echo of the past tucked away right under your nose.

~~~
kingmanaz
The writing is "Spencerian Penmanship" and is considered a distinctly American
form. Its influence is still recognizable in the Coca Cola and Ford logos.
Many homeschoolers still buy reprints of the classic manual for use in their
curriculum.

[http://www.amazon.com/Spencerian-Penmanship-Theory-Book-
copy...](http://www.amazon.com/Spencerian-Penmanship-Theory-Book-
copybooks/dp/088062096X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433664087&sr=8-1&keywords=spencerian+penmanship)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencerian_script](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencerian_script)

I've been using the script for all of my handwriting for over a decade, even
filling out cursive-prohibited official forms without issue. The swift
transition from being notorious for "Dr.'s handwriting" to being sought after
to fill out wedding and funeral cards was startling.

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meesterdude
> I've been using the script for all of my handwriting for over a decade

Maybe a stupid question but, how? I have pretty horrible handwriting,
certainly doctor level; how did you manage a swift transition?

~~~
austinjp
Personal experience with handwriting change:

My writing became stylised in my teens, as I'm sure is true with many others.
It sloped backwards, and I used a Greek style e and d, purely out of aesthetic
reasons.

In my adult life I noticed this made my writing really slow. This became a
problem when I sat some exams in adulthood: my hand cramped as I tried to
scrawl as fast as possible in the time limit.

I deliberately investigated faster, more comfortable writing styles. Internet
consensus, which I note agree with, indicated that joined-up, forward-leaning
(italic) cursive was the way to go. The saw-tooth shape that underpins most
letters is easy and feels natural -- if you're right handed.

It took me about 6 months of deliberate effort before the transition was fully
embedded, and I'm still very pleased that I made the change.

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iaw
I feel like there's so much beauty unintentionally lost to the movement of
time. It's always remarkable when it pops back up again.

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userbinator
I find it surprising that they didn't clean the old chalkboards before putting
new ones over them. In fact, modulo the holes in one of them (which might've
been created during the installation of the new ones), these old chalkboards
look perfectly usable to me...

~~~
deckar01
It is not uncommon for institutions that receive public funding to replace
things that are not broken in order to avoid budget surpluses that could
decrease their funding the following year.

~~~
omegaham
Yep, can confirm. I worked in requisitions in a maintenance shop in the
military, and September was always a ridiculous time.

"Hey, we have $120,000 to spend. Make it happen." I would then go to the
different section chiefs and ask what they needed as spares. Some were
reasonable requests, others were ridiculous. If we didn't spend the money, the
budget would decrease the next year, and it would be hell getting that money
back when a really expensive part died.

The hilarious thing is that the Inspector General's office is responsible for
preventing this thing from happening... but if you go talk to their
requisitions personnel around September, they're doing the exact same shit as
everyone else.

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df41
So the chalkboards that were just removed have been used for 100 years?

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probably_wrong
There is an article by the Public Domain Review[1] where they present an old
book about sketching on a blackboard.

I've been wondering how often would a regular teacher make such elaborate
drawings. Considering this completely arbitrary and small sample, I guess the
answer is "often".

[1] [http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/blackboard-
sketchi...](http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/blackboard-
sketching-1909/)

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clsec
I have to wonder how this might possibly relate to Native Americans?
Especially in light of the pilgrim history boards that were discovered. 1917
was just 10 years after Oklahoma became a state, it was called Indian
Territory prior to that [1]. And Indian boarding schools [2], where they tried
to wash the "savage" away, were a big thing back then. To this day oklahoma
has a very high Native American population and current reservations/nations
reflect Indian removal [3] as there are many nations there that did not come
from that area.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Territory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Territory)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schoo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schools)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_removal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_removal)

edit - added 3rd citation

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JshWright
Either that, or the renovation that covered the boards up took place in
December (a theory supported by the calendar drawn on one of the boards), and
that just happened to be what was on the boards at the time.

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ForFreedom
The multiplication table baffled me but the cursive writing strokes and lines
are beautiful. Beautiful, possibly because its close to 100 years. There are
teachers who write that way now too.

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ramgorur
the penmenship is still considered as a central part of primary education in
many asian countries, notably in japan, south/south-east asia, I think in
china and korea too.

~~~
dredmorbius
I'm reading the _Arabian Nights_ , and a recurrent theme within them is the
consideration given to not only script penmanship, but in knowing multiple
scripts (one of a number of interesting revelations from the stories).

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nobrains
The calendar has Sunday as the first day of the week. Interesting.

~~~
stardek
I'm curious where you're from that Sunday isn't considered the first day of
the week? I know Monday is often treated as such since it follows the "week
end" but (in my very limited experience) I've never actually seen anything
claiming that Monday is actually first.

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Symbiote
Monday is first in Britain, which makes for annoying Web ui when the site
isn't localised properly (and it's easy to leave it in en_US and not realise
the problem).

I once booked a flight on the wrong day because part way through the booking
process the first day of the week in the calendar changed.

Nursery rhymes with this order:
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday%27s_Child](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday%27s_Child)
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Grundy](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Grundy)

Chinese use 星期一 / "weekday one" for Monday.

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KMag
> Chinese use 星期一 / "weekday one" for Monday.

Sure, Monday through Saturday are numbered 1 to 6, but Sunday is "weekday Sky"
or "weekday Heaven", which is considered to come before "weekday one".[1]

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week#/media/File:First_Day_of_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week#/media/File:First_Day_of_Week_World_Map.svg)

~~~
mFixman
Portuguese uses ordinal numbers to name days from Monday to Friday, starting
from Sunday: Monday is segunda-feria (second day), Tuesday is terça-feria
(third day), all the way to Friday, or sexta-feria (sixth day).

Interestingly, there's no first day: Saturday and Sunday are sábado and
domingo, respectively.

