 The Month Poem for Your Schoolhouse
We memorized it as children and never forgot the words. We referred to it over the decades to organize our personal calendars. We retrieved the rhyme to teach it to our own children. We repeated the words out loud, but really only needed the first four months to set us straight. "Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November..." Known as The Month Poem, this memory gem hath served us well over the decades, but little did we know how many variations existed. An obscure website called leapyearday.com lists 98 versions, but after a closer look you might discount a few due to some questionable poetic license! Below is the version I learned somewhere along the way, but others are much more poetic, memorable, or clever. Thirty days has September April, June, and November. All the rest have thirty-one, Except for February, which has twenty-eight, In a Leap Year, twenty-nine. We know you want to check out the other 97 versions, so here is the link to the website.
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Rosenwald National Historical Park Campaign
The National Park Service is right in there pitching when it comes to the preservation of our country schools. There are at least six better known national parks or historic sites that include a restored one-room schoolhouse: the Fruita School at Capitol Reef National Park (UT), the Junction School at the Lyndon Baines Johnson National Historic Park (TX), the Greenbrier School at Great Smokey Mountain National Park (TN), the Freeman School at Homestead National Historical Park (NE), the Abiel Smith School of the Boston African American National Historical Site (MA), and the District #1 School at the Nicodemus National Historical Site (KS). All of them have a fascinating history. The Report Card will offer their stories in future posts, but there is good news on the horizon for adding another national historical site to this roster. The Julius Rosenwald and Rosenwald Schools National Historical Park has been making headway since 2021 and work continues to make this dream a reality. The park is to be dedicated to Rosenwald, president and part owner of Sears Roebuck Company, who collaborated with Booker T. Washington to bring new schools to the south. Rosenwald offered partial funding toward the building of one-room schools where local citizens would contribute the remainder to the effort. According to the National Park Service, "From 1917 to 1932, more than 5,000 Rosenwald schools were built in African American communities in fifteen states. During the 1920s, one in five schools for African Americans in the rural South was a Rosenwald school. By the time the last school was built in 1932, more than 600,000 African American children in the south had attended a Rosenwald school." The campaign offers the prospect of honoring Julius Rosenwald's philanthropy and the determination of black communities throughout the south to bring quality education to underserved children through the building of those schools. Notes: Many schools being restored today are indeed Rosenwald Schools. CSAA posts articles from southern newspapers about these efforts on our Facebook page. If you want more information about the national historical park campaign, follow the links below. For a definitive book about Julius Rosenwald and his friendship with Booker T. Washington we recommend, "You Need a Schoolhouse" by Stephanie Deutsch, linked below.  Union School- "Punkin Center School"- Marshall University, WV Details for the 2025 CSAA Country School Conference, June 8th-10th, are nearing completion and here we offer the list of our presenters and their programs for our 20th year anniversary celebration! We're piloting a 2.5 day conference format with a busy schedule, numerous activities, and the coach tour of area historic sites, (this year the tour is included in the conference registration price.) Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia will host our conference coordinated by Drs. Teresa Eagle and Isaac Larson. We thank them for their hard work and dedication to schoolhouse preservation. General conference information is available on this website at the following links and REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN. Join us for friendship and a shared love of the history, restoration and preservation of our remaining country schools. A full conference schedule will be provided soon. Information on dorm availability and hotels will be included. Registration form supplies many details. Presentation List for the 2025 CSAA Country School Conference Marshall University Huntington, West Virginia “Freedmen's Bureau Schools in West Virginia” Presenter: Ralph Buglass “University of Hard Knocks: West Virginia's College of Blood, Sweat and Tears” Presenter: Dr. Veronica I. Ent “Moving Mt. Pleasant School” Presenter: Dr. Douglas Sturgeon “Path To National Register of Historic Places” Presenter: Dan Hawley “Leading a One-Room “Country” School in the Heart of Remote Queensland, Australia” Presenters: Dr. Meegan Brown & Dr. Isaac Willis Larison “Ranger Mac and the Wisconsin School of the Air” Presenter: Robert Frenz “Saved - What Happens Now?” Presenter: Sarah Bent “The History and Travels of Two Rural Schoolhouses in West Virginia” Presenters: Dr. Teresa Eagle & Kimberly Brownlee “Achieving a Dream” Presenters: Dr. Paul Lutz & Dr. Teresa Eagle “Readers Theatre - My Great-Aunt Arizona “ Presenters: Dr. Isaac Larison and Marshall University Student Performers “Memories of a One-Room School Teacher in Poverty-Stricken Appalachia” Presenter: Chip Brabson “A History of Crafts in Danish Country Schools and The Flax Weaving Museum at Krengerup” Presenter: Lone Bodekaer “Roots of Education: How Communities Shaped the Curriculum of Historical One-Room Schoolhouses” Presenter: Magan Walters "Teaching History with Dolls" Presenter: Debbie Schaefer-Jacobs “It Started with a One-Room Log Cabin: Lutheran Schools in America” Presenter: Dr. Pam Stover "Approbation" for Good Work Time flies unless you're in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. In 2020 the CSAA was forced into lockdown with the entire country and had to postpone its annual national conference. We took a different route for 2021. We offered a VIRTUAL CONFERENCE on our own website that actually turned out to be both popular and productive! Twenty-one presenters submitted video and live-streamed programs to share with attendees who watched from the comfort of their home offices and iPads for a nominal registration fee. This fee went to fund numerous small grants for 2022! As I look back, it might not be a bad idea for the future to hold another VIRTUAL CONFERENCE those who are unable to travel. Attendees had almost two weeks to watch and enjoy the presentations! To give you a glimpse of what we offered in the 2021 VIRTUAL CONFERENCE, we've posted a few of those programs here on The Report Card since we started our blog in 2023. This month enjoy a program from one of our favorite all-time CSAA members and a CSAA director from 2006-2023, Susan Webb. Sadly, Susan passed away in November of 2023, but left behind a legacy of country school programs and publications that her husband, Bill Webb, is proud to allow us to share. Rewarding the Merit Susan Webb, "The Traveling Schoolmarm" See, Father, Mother, see! To my Brother, and to me, Has our Teacher given a card, To show that we have studied hard! To you we think it must be pleasant To see us both with such a present. Summary: This presentation will explore early American citations issued by teachers to young scholars, rewarding them for their good behavior and academic accomplishments. Numerous authentic Reward of Merit examples will be viewed as their origins are explored and their artistic and motivational value measured. Suggestions will be offered as to how Rewards of Merit can be adapted for current historical schoolroom interpretations and reenactments. The awarding of prizes and rewards for achievement can be traced back as far as those given by kings to loyal aristocrats, by civic rulers to worthy citizens, and by organizers of sports competitions to the best athletes. By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, parents in England and the newly established New England colonies were encouraged to make certain their children could read and write. Grammar schools developed a system by which scholars received praise and commendation for academic achievements, even in theological truths and instruction in Latin “Grammar.” Teachers rewarded students with encouragement, not punishment, issuing items such as medals, pens, books, thimbles, knives, and even kits and toys. The most common eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century Rewards of Merit in America were made of paper. They varied in size, physical characteristic, and color. Some were large enough for framing while others were merely slips of paper. Whether imprinted from a crude carved wood block, an artful pen, or by other means of lithography, Rewards of Merit were all treasured papers which declared “merit”, “approbation”, and “esteem” to the deserving scholar. |
