# Untouched, unerased school blackboards from 1917 discovered **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 7, 2015, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untouched-unerased-school-blackboards-from-1917-discovered/721932 "2015-06-07T23:20:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untouched-unerased-school-blackboards-from-1917-discovered/721932/41 "2015-06-10T23:29:27Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > **Becky2844** , in the Palmer Method, as you and I and that teacher were taught, they are. To increase speed and fluidity, lower-case letters start and end on the baseline. That means that letters that start with a vertical down stroke need to get the pen up to the top first, causing the double up-down stroke. Taller letters, like **h** or **k** , turn that into a loop, but the first strokes of **m** and **n** don’t have room for it. > > **Scumpup** , \*\*my teachers banned ballpoint pens because no civilized person uses them for serious written communication. Some of our desks had holes in the top right corners for inkwells, but cartridge pens were allowed. \*\* > > **Mr Shine,** face it: You’re an uncivilized illiterate. Just ask my third-grade teacher, if she’s still alive. Or get a fountain pen and get ready for a bout of automatic writing. You just won’t be able to read it. (BIG 😉 ) Bolding mine. Quite right. So they should. A fountain pen is the highest pinnacle of graphological technology. 😃 Your teachers were clearly serious men and women, and you were obviously “raised right”, as my Grandmother (who had impeccable handwriting) would say. I still use one. And, as best I can, Palmer-style (the cursive in the pictures) handwriting. It’s not quite dead - I attended a seminar by a writing teacher at a pen show in the spring. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untouched-unerased-school-blackboards-from-1917-discovered/721932/42 "2015-06-11T00:03:12Z")
If I may digress on cursive writing, if it is no longer taught in schools, how are people to sign their names? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untouched-unerased-school-blackboards-from-1917-discovered/721932/43 "2015-06-11T00:37:26Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > If I may digress on cursive writing, if it is no longer taught in schools, how are people to sign their names? > :dubious: Biometrics? ---
**Author:** ![Enter\_the\_Flagon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Enter\_the\_Flagon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enter_the_Flagon)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untouched-unerased-school-blackboards-from-1917-discovered/721932/44 "2015-06-11T00:45:28Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > Now they only need to find the 98 year old rascal that shirked blackboard duty. They taught multiplication to infants back then? I hope our newborns are at least better computer programmers. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untouched-unerased-school-blackboards-from-1917-discovered/721932/45 "2015-06-11T01:01:41Z")
> [@lieu](#): > > The number association with the days of the week doesn’t actually work for December, 1917, but it does for November. Plus the 4th Thursday is in red for Thanksgiving. Great reference to the term “red letter day”. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untouched-unerased-school-blackboards-from-1917-discovered/721932/46 "2015-06-11T01:21:37Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > If I may digress on cursive writing, if it is no longer taught in schools, how are people to sign their names? > :dubious: I guess they won’t be able to. The age of written contracts will grind to a halt as cursive-deprived children come of age and find themselves unable to interact with businesses or financial institutions. The entire modern economy, we will soon learn, was based on teachers buying ditto sheets from educational publishing companies to teach their students proprietary versions of handwriting. One of the last literate members of what’s now a nomadic hunter-gatherer society will find a cursive workbook and weep bitterly at the loss of the crucial unsung skill of putting loops and curlicues on letters. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untouched-unerased-school-blackboards-from-1917-discovered/721932/47 "2015-06-11T02:42:35Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > I guess they won’t be able to. The age of written contracts will grind to a halt as cursive-deprived children come of age and find themselves unable to interact with businesses or financial institutions. The entire modern economy, we will soon learn, was based on teachers buying ditto sheets from educational publishing companies to teach their students proprietary versions of handwriting. One of the last literate members of what’s now a nomadic hunter-gatherer society will find a cursive workbook and weep bitterly at the loss of the crucial unsung skill of putting loops and curlicues on letters. > > :dubious: Well, there you go. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untouched-unerased-school-blackboards-from-1917-discovered/721932/48 "2015-06-11T05:35:42Z")
> [@John\_Bredin](#): > > They may have been left-handers when they came into school, but by Jove they weren’t going to be left-handed when they left if the teachers had anything to say about it! ☹ This is true. My mother’s home-ec teacher hit her across the back of her hand with a pair of scissors for sewing left-hand(edly?) My mother stood up and hit her on top of the head with a book, knocking her to the floor. She was expelled. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untouched-unerased-school-blackboards-from-1917-discovered/721932/49 "2015-06-11T12:53:05Z")
[QUOTE=ZipperJJ] I wonder what’s up with the Stars of David at the top of the board, above the multiplication wheel? Wondering if it was related to the time of year (Chanukah) or the year itself (1917, Israel formed) or if some kids just liked drawing stars that way with colored chalk. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Sage Rat] One ventures to guess that children who are learning to multiply aren’t going to be drawing along the top of the board. [/QUOTE] > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > The [Balfour Declaration](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration) was 1917. Israel became a country in 1948. Balfour was Nov. 2 so the timing works. Nov-Dec, 1917 was also The Battle of Jerusalem between the British and Ottomans, so another reason to consider those stars (of David) as event oriented. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untouched-unerased-school-blackboards-from-1917-discovered/721932/50 "2015-06-11T14:16:36Z")
> [@lieu](#): > > Balfour was Nov. 2 so the timing works. > Nov-Dec, 1917 was also The Battle of Jerusalem between the British and Ottomans, so another reason to consider those stars (of David) as event oriented. Cool. Thanks, lieu. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untouched-unerased-school-blackboards-from-1917-discovered/721932.md?page=2)