Photo: Oklahoma City Public Schools
Drawings and script on 1917 school chalkboards were recently uncovered in Oklahoma.
In June 2015, student drawings and script from 1917 were uncovered on Oklahoma blackboards.
Elahe Izadi wrote at the Washington Post, “Teachers and students scribbled the lessons — multiplication tables, pilgrim history, how to be clean — nearly 100 years ago. And they haven’t been touched since. …
“Contractors removing old chalkboards at Emerson High School in Oklahoma City made a startling discovery: Underneath them rested another set of chalkboards, untouched since 1917.
“ ‘The penmanship blows me away, because you don’t see a lot of that anymore,’ Emerson High School Principal Sherry Kishore told the Oklahoman. ‘Some of the handwriting in some of these rooms is beautiful.’ …
“A spokeswoman said the district is working with the city to ‘preserve the “chalk” work of the teachers that has been captured in time.’
“A wheel that apparently was used to teach multiplication tables appears on one board. ‘I have never seen that technique in my life,’ Kishore told the Oklahoman.
“The boards carry not just teachers’ work, but also that of students, and every room has a lesson on pilgrims, according to the district.” More here.
The principal’s comment on the penmanship was interesting to me because just a few weeks ago, my husband unearthed his mother’s student chapbooks from around the same period. All she did was copy Chaucer. Not only was there no analysis, there was nothing about whether she even liked what she read. Not required.
I’d like to think that today’s loss of elegant penmanship signifies that teachers are spending time on more important learning.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
I remember reading about these chalkboards when they were uncovered. I think they’re a fascinating peek at that era–i hope at least some of them are preserved,
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Goes to show that it can be preferable to cover things up when renovating rather than destroying the old stuff.
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What a find!! When growing up, I had a teacher who didn’t care if one chose to print or to use cursive but that your paper came in tidy and very readable, if not your paper was rejected as incomplete. Needless to say having to rewrite a lesson a few times soon taught me the value of caring about my school work.
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“Neatness counts,” our teachers used to say.
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