Small Town School Curriculums

Sometimes I forget what a small town we live in. When you are kind of sandwiched in between a few other bigger towns you forget that they really are separate entities. One thing about small towns, they do not update their school curriculums with every passing fancy. When they find something that works… they stick with it. For instance, in the car the boys had a conversation about their school day.  Dill had “THE talk” today at school. They separated the girls from the boys and had the school nurse come in to show each of the genders a film about hygiene and growing up. There were permission slips that came home and we could opt out if we did not wish him to go through the program. (Having been through this with our other kids I was hoping we could just “opt out” of puberty and the teen years altogether!- No such luck!)The film was called “Just around the corner” and has a great jingle that all Dill’s siblings can still sing. This was not about: Where babies come from…. That is in the 7^th grade curriculum. This was mainly about interestingly located hair growth and why boys need more showers. Dill and his Dad got through the movie with only a few snickers (according to Dill). The funniest thing was when we were at Uncle K’s house later that evening and he told us HE saw the same film…. And could sing the jingle too! Dill said he wondered why the kids in the film all had bell bottom jeans on and afro’s! Love the small town…. School Curriculum circa 1973!

Pete talked about his day too. He said they talked about “noon trees”. If you aren’t from a small town (at least this small town) you my not know that noon trees are the trees you see in the middle of farmers fields. Those trees have a couple purposes. The main reason is that they are planted on the highest point of the field… thus if there is lightning, the hope is it will strike there.  (not where Pa is plowing with the only two horses the family owns) It also has grass planted around it. Rather than take the horses all the way home at noon so the farmer could eat lunch, the farmer packed a lean cuisine (just checking to see if you are really reading this) and let the horses rest in the shade of the noon tree and graze on the grass. Wow… they just don’t teach this stuff in places like Detroit and Chicago! School Curriculum circa 1873! J