I won't say that with the availability of the Internet that I've recently learned more than I did in my formal schooling. However, what the Internet has done is to enable me to continue my education, on a daily basis, on a variety of wide topics of interest, from medical issues to politics.

I think it is a great pity that children are no longer taught to memorize verse. I think having been forced to do this from an early age, the recitations gave me a real feel for rhythm and meter and musicality. Each year in my grammar school, we were made to memorize and recite such classics as "Horatio at the Bridge", "Sea Fever", and various works of Blake, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Marvell, Frost, Tennyson, and others. I've often wondered if this early exposure led to my writing verse from an early age and continuing into adulthood.

"Sumer is icummen in, lowd sing cukoo", I discovered byaccident, having been led to read a novel about the Middle Ages written for Young Adults. I have a friend my age who tells me they were made to sing this song yearly at the private academy she attended in New England.

I wasn't required memorize much in school, though we sang the States Song in chorus and I can still recited all the states in alphabetical order. For Greek School I had to memorize Greek Independence Day poems, which were very long, and then recite them in front of our church congregation. What a nightmare! I can't remember any bit of them, probably because I forgot them all just as I was going on stage.

My father, however, was forced to memorize in school and he never forgot much of what he memorized. He would often burst out into some verse or song, including "Il Etatit une Bergere", snatches of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Sea Fever. Thus he passed all those verses and songs onto his children. Sea Fever was his favorite poem, and he never really forgot it, even though he died of Alzheimers. Just goes to show what lasting memories one's education can make.

Here is a link that might be useful: Il Etati une Bergere

Frieda, First of all, that title is on my list of books to pick up or request at the library when I am there on Thursday. It sounds fascinating. Thank you.

Onto your questions. My own single memorization requirements were meager. In fifth grade, we had to learn the Gettysburg Address verbatim. The teacher was a wonderful old-school type who believed that children should read, be read to, and that they had to work hard to earn the time for the first two. In sixth grade, we had to learn and sing a solo of the national anthem - something I think should still be required as I never see enough mouths moving when the song is played. In ninth grade, at a Catholic high school, my Spanish teacher made us memorize the Hail Mary in Spanish... something I can still recite and am called upon to do so at Thanksgiving dinners. Other than those three examples, we did no rote memorization. For the record, I am 42 and graduated in 1985.

My own children do even less memorizing than I did. My son just finished first grade so he still has time to be assigned memorization work. My daughter just finished 6th and I am giving up hope of seeing an assignment come home that requires memorizing. What she DOES have are classes without textbooks - classes in which the students are assigned laptops and the textbook, homework, study guides, everything, is done via computer and internet. I am not a fan of this type of learning. The more senses that are involved in learning, the easier it is to learn, and even the act of highlighting a study guide or turning the pages in a textbook gets the mind more involved in the task in my opinion.

Now onto the autodidact vs. education question. It has been over 20 years since my formal schooling has ended if one includes college. While I agree with you that I have learned more since then than I have while in school, I do not believe I would have had the curiousity nor the foundation to continue learning on my own without those years of school under my belt. And while my self-education has soared in some topics since I wore that last graduation gown, my self-education in other topics, i.e. those I am not particularly interested in, has dropped to zero. In school, I learned math skills because, well, because if I didn't my parents would whallop me when they saw my test scores. Now, I can confess I was right when I said I'd never use most of my geometry skills in real life. So while self-education is glorious, without learning HOW TO study, HOW TO absorb, HOW TO test theories in a traditional school atmosphere, my inclination toward autodidactism would not be as successful as it is at present. And by continuing to learn, I am, through example, teaching my children to always retain that curiosity to learn so the advantages are multiplied.

Okay, now onto Renaissance men and women. A few years ago, I started a thread right here entitled "On Being a Rennaisance Person" which Martin so kindly saved in our...

I was shocked to notice that the above mentioned Renaissance thread was begun in 2002!

PAM

I attended elementary school in the 1970's when the more "progressive" schools were experimenting with open classrooms and self-paced learning, and many teachers valued creativity and expression over such mundane things as spelling and math facts. (I distinctly remember my very sweet and hippie-dippy 5th grade teacher telling my mother -- who had a Masters degree in Elementary Education -- that no, I couldn't spell, but goodness, I was writing so creatively, and wasn't that wonderful? Disaster!)

So in short, I don't recall having to memorize anything during those years. In junior high school we memorized Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken", and in my senior year of high school we were required to memorize either the opening lines of The Canterbury Tales in old English or Hamlet's soliloquy for our Brit Lit class. I can still recite most of the soliloquy, and the very first line of the Chaucer. Neither has done me much good, necessarily, although on one occasion reciting the Hamlet to the bouncer got me into a bar in New Jersey -- but that's another story entirely :)

Since I majored in English and read everything I could get my hands on, I can still quote a few snatches of poetry here and there, but certainly not much. I always envied those lovely Barbara Pym characters who could always pull up an appropriate verse from their Greater English Poets when the need arose.

As for history, we did both Presidents (middle school) and Kings and Queens of England (high school). I learned my list of Roman Emperors from watching I, Claudius on PBS, which stood me in very good stead for college Greek and Roman history.

I certainly credit my formal education for providing me with a sound foundation in basic skills, and am eternally grateful to my teachers for putting up with me. I recently went back to college and completed a second degree at the advanced age of 48 and was a source of exasperation for most of teachers this time around as well. In particular my young English Literature professor, who (whom?) I challenged at every turn. (Yes, I see the irony in that who/whom in such a statement.) She finally threw up her hands, literally, and admitted that someone with my experiences would interpret poetry and stories about adultery, death, and love differently than a 19 year old, or from the notes in her teacher's guide. My assertion that the beauty and value in these works actually derives from an individual interpretation of it was met with some exasperation on her part. But at the end she thanked me for not backing down from my convictions.

Having gone off the track a bit, I have definitely learned more on my own than I ever did in school. Without school, though, I would not have had the tools to strike out on my own educational path.

The internet has been the most influential tool in my own self-education. When I think of what I have learned here at RP and the paths of inquiry to which I have been led, I can't imagine what life would have been like without it. I do wish something like the internet had existed when I was a child, but I would not trade my education for what is mostly being doled out now. (Absolutely no offense meant to all the teachers out there - I just don't know how you do it - the administrative duties, the lack of discipline, the standardized tests, the over-the-top PC policies, etc. etc.)

Kids memorize video games commands and HTML, so I'm not too worried about their ability to memorize.
I think that schools tend to downplay the the role of commerce. I had many teachers and professors gas on about the 3rd murderer in MacBeth, without ever thinking that maybe the theater company had an actor that needed a role or that Shakespeare promised a friend a small part.
I've heard lectures about why artists painted certain pictures--creativity, self-expression, etc. are all "reasons", but money never seems to be one of those reasons. And yet, many artists, from the Renaissance to Andy Warhol and Julian Schnabel, considered running their studios as a business.

Firstly I will say that I started school in 1964 and finished in 1975.
I don't remember being required to memorise any poetry at school, although we had to know some to use as quotes in English exams in the last two years of high school, as well as Shakespearean quotes. However, my family enjoys reciting poems (don't get my mother started on 'The Lady of Shallot', please *g*) and I knew several. Ozymandias was one I learned while at school, of my own accord.

I have also always enjoyed memorising lists of things like the states of America, Greek alphabet and so on.

In primary school we did a little bit of basic Australian history, but mostly humanities involved geography and current events. We studied a country every term, and were required to learn all the main rivers, cities and mountains, but didn't learn much history. We 'did' Japan in Year 7, and my sons were amazed that I could still remember the islands of Japan 30 years later.

My interest in history is purely post-school, and I have learnt a great deal about mainly English history through fiction followed up by research. I am looking forward to finding out about the American Revolution in the forthcoming Diana Gabaldon book. My knowledge of American history is mostly of the Civil War era (interest sparked by Gone With The Wind).

However, as others have said, school provided me with study skills, and much of what I learnt is useful as general knowledge of the world, like physics, or to help in my private life, such as the chemistry meaning I could understand what my husband was doing in his PhD.

What is taught seems so different now, and many of the things I was taught at school would now be absorbed by students via the Internet or television. (I did learn stuff from TV, like the fact that Dennis the Menace's neighbour had colour telelvision in the 1960s - didn't arrive in Australia until 1974!!)

Oh, absolutely, the foundation my formal schooling gave me has been invaluable -- the study skills, etc. -- so I didn't mean to imply (if I did) that it wasn't. There's no way for me to know if I would have been intellectually curious enough to have educated myself on my own. I like to think I would have, but I have to concede that I might not have. As it is, even with schooling, I am often appalled at my ignorance -- the gaps, the things I never learned and perhaps never will. I often wonder about the folk who were taught by one or two tutors, homeschooled, or 'learned on the job' (so to speak) -- take the Mitford girls, for example, who moaned about their educational 'deprivation' -- yet they turned out to be quite-to-very accomplished (though notoriously so, in some instances).

PAM, reading through the Renaissance Person thread is a time machine!

merryworld, were the Greek Independence Day poems in Greek? I can still recall bits of German and Norwegian verses that I absorbed by osmosis as a kid while listening to folk around me recite them. I can say the words phonetically yet have no idea, for the most part, the meaning of what I am saying. Most of the poems and things I can still recite I learned forty to fifty years ago. I tried to learn the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem -- the one with "Goldengrove unleaving" in it -- a few years ago but try as I might it just won't stick.

Hee! Sheri, it's maddening when characters and real-life folk have appropriate lines for every occasion, just at the right time. Not me, I usually think of a good response three or four days later. And, Sheri, your "progressive" education doesn't seem to have hurt you, but I know others about your age who think they got shafted by the open-classroom concept. I was in the ninth grade when the authorities decided we should be taught New Math. I and most of my classmates were stunned and baffled with the colored rods piled on our desks (shades of kindergarten) -- they were trying to teach us Bases by manipulating the rods somehow. After a few weeks all the wooden rods, blocks and doohickeys disappeared and we were back to the dunce-cap method.

Ideefixe, so true! According to the art history classes I had, the real artist would never have had so crass a motive as money.

Kath, I learned Ozymandias on my own, too. I memorized the English counties as well, to the utter astonishment of my English flatmates. My DH is a geophysicist and I've absorbed a lot of the stuff he talks about. I obliged him by learning the geologic time scale, but since then it has changed -- just as some of the English counties have -- so my knowledge is outdated. In fact, many of my skills are now dinosaurs: Who needs and can read Gregg Shorthand these days?

PAM, thanks for posting the Renaissance thread. It was interesting reading some of the other threads in 2002. I must have joined RP shortly thereafter, the same year. I noted now many of the former posters are no longer with us.

Yes, they were in Greek and very long and were supposed to be recited very dramatically. I was doomed from the start.

Have you ever tried putting the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem (is it Spring and Fall?) to music? I don't know about you, but I can recall song lyrics from lots of songs, but not so many poems.

merryworld, yes, "Spring and Fall" -- see I can't even remember the title; I think what throws me is the word Fall because most people in the UK say autumn instead. Great suggestion about putting the words to music! When I get home I'll plink out something on the piano. I can quote most of Rupert Brooke's "Dust" because someone -- I think in one of the Fleetwood Mac incarnations (not the California one, though) -- set it to music.

Your memorization of the states alphabetically, reminds me of one way I was taught the states by song -- maybe you recognize it:
Oh, oh, what did Delaware?
She wore a brand New Jersey.

Oh, oh, how much did Iowa?
She weighed a Washington.
There were other verses that I can't recall...let me see, there would have been 24 pairs since there were only forty-eight states at the time. I don't know if Alaska and Hawai'i were ever added.

Kath, I'm curious: what parts of Australian history were emphasised when you were at school? Has the teaching of Aussie history changed much? US history is taught rather haphazardly I think; it varies a lot from state to state. For example, Hawaiian kids get a large dose of Captain Cook (he's not very popular), but mainland kids not so much or barely any at all. All Iowa kids are told of Marquette and Joliet, and all Texas kids know about Santa Anna.

Same with literature in Australia? When I was an adolescent we got the typical-American, at the time, Anglocentric syllabus: dustings of Shakespeare ("King's Rear" as we so irreverently called it); Silas Marner, which no one but me actually read; Great Expectations - ditto; British dystopians out our eyeballs (all the teachers were obsessed with dystopias). Bowing to localism, we got Sinclair Lewis and Ole Edvard Rolvaag, whom most of us kids thought were Gloomy Guses.

I also would like to hear about UK and US regional (or anywhere else) variations of the questions I asked Kath.

At school in the late '40s to end of '50s in Wales, we were given a great deal to learn by rote - mainly from the English poets and the Bible. I still remember much of it. I also had a memory which automatically retained a great deal of verse, even if I only read it once and I used to nearly come unstuck in school exams which required you to quote for illustration because once started (quoting), I couldn't stop!

Looking back though, the oddest thing was that we were required to learn not only from the English but from the Welsh as well, whether we spoke it or not. I don't speak it, but I still often find myself going around singing songs without understanding what they mean.

Dido

Frieda, you ask about furthering our education since formal 'lessons' ended and for me that would have been in the mid-60's after college.
As someone who likes to suck-up information and reads more non-fiction than novels, I hope I always continue 'pick up' things, although I now realise the ability to retain what I have read/heard is fast deserting me.
I'm not a great internet user and mainly refer to it for odd snippets of info. I don't really trust some of its offerings and often notice a mistake is picked up on 'as true' and repeated thereafter.

You ask about rote learning at school. Certainly at Junior school we were read to every day and we seemed to pick up poems (they were never written down for us and I don't remember poetry books).Hiawatha was one, The Pied Piper, The Lady of Shallot etc. Many of the ancient Greek classical tales via Hawthorne. Stories such as Kidnapped and Treasure Island we heard perhaps for 10 minutes at the end of the afternoon.
When older we 'did' set books Austen, Eliot (I enjoyed Silas Marner!), Bronte etc and always a Shakespeare play each year . . . I still can spout from The Merchant of Venice. Always some poetry, 'narrative verse' eg Lochinvar, or modern poets . . .the very old books always finished in 1914!
Maths was still the 'old fashioned' sort . . .thank goodness, It was when I got to secondary school that fear of the Maths teacher led to brain-cell freeze-up. I could cope with geometry because you could see what you were doing . . .but to this day I believe algebra was put on the Earth to confuse me.
Now Science is a subject I know little about, much to the disgust of John, a biochemist. He cannot understand how uninformed I am. "Didn't you do the Leblanc process or learn about Bessemer converters? What did they teach you at that place?" "Well, I can draw and label a neat diagram of the parts of a flower."
Re Geography and History (both subject that fell of the syllabus for many years in English schools in the '70-80's) we 'did' the British Isles, manufacturing, fishing etc and physical geog. corries, cwms, U shaped valleys and so on.
As far as 'abroad' went I remember drawing maps of S and N America and lots about the St Lawrence Sea-Way (must have just opened). Everything we ever needed to know about Australia and the rest of the Commonwealth after HM Queen's World tour . . .which, in those days, was about a quarter of the planet. No much about Asia or, surprisingly, mainland Europe (all those foreigners).
Enjoyed history from about 8 years old and we worked our way through from small hairy cave men via Greeks, Romans to about the mid nineteenth century . . .with gaps. What happened in England between mid 17-mid 18 centuries? I only learnt the dates of Kings and Queens when the history teacher was away. It was a task to keep us quiet.
'Foreign' history was only taught in relation to English history. So we did colonisation, Philip II of Spain, Luther, Napoleon, battles and more...

Dido, you reminded me that I too learned a lot of things from the Bible -- The King James Bible. Except for kindergarten I went to state-funded schools so there was no emphasis on religion, but the Bible was considered a legitimate source for poetry, history, and just good old storytelling.Entreat me not to leave thee,
Or to return from following after thee...We learned and sang hymns too. I'm guessing that Ruth's declaration to Naomi has been nixed in American public schools. I'm not sure how teachers in such schools handle biblical allusions in literature these days; it would seem impossible to avoid them entirely.

Vee: Bore me? Never. I'm fascinated.
Ah, yes, Perry Como. Mother never missed The Perry Como Show. My sons, nephews and niece think I and my brothers are musically schizo: they laugh about us loving the likes of Perry, Bach, The Sons of the Pioneers AND Led Zeppelin.

Hee! I recall the labeling of the flower thing: the pistil, the anther... Oh, and I just remembered another lost skill: diagramming sentences. I loved those whilst most of my classmates loathed 'em.

What strikes me about my own schooling was how random it was. We had set curricula, but still a lot depended on the personality of whichever teacher I happened to draw. My brother teaches science to middle-schoolers (his second career after he retired from the first). He's discouraged after this past year because the school district has adopted what I call the French Method: Everyday each classroom should be on the same page, same paragraph, and same sentence at exactly the same time. It's all about teaching the test -- and ONLY what will be on the test. Brother says he can't be spontaneous, though lip service is given to "teachable moments" when a student expresses interest or an explanation that is not already planned. It sounds seriously off-kilter to me, and I'm sorry to see my brother disappointed because he's so very good at explaining things to kids.

Oh, yes, I know Gregg shorthand and used it for 45 years. In elementary school, I memorized the U.S. states and capitals, the presidents and vice presidents, and the 120 KY counties and county seats. I was very small as well as very young, and one of my uncles by marriage was forever trying to get me to parrot the latter for his friends.

In high school we learned some Shakespeare as well as other poetry and all the verses of the national anthem, not that I remember them. I can still do tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow . . .

In 7th grade, we had KY history the whole year. My sister-in-law was a middle school teacher, and when the powers that be nixed the study of KY history, she got state maps and declared that no student would leave her classes without knowing the major cities, rivers, and crops of the state they lived in.

Good question, Frieda, and Hawaii is still as beautiful as ever.

Vee, I assure you that nothing is boring about your post, or any of your posts for that matter.

I must have been required to memorize things for school but I have no memory of it...however my mother encouraged us to memorize poems and anything else we liked, and our grandfather was a great singer of obscure folk songs. I surprised my co-workers the other days with my ability to reel off The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear. No, I didn't subject them to the whole thing. Also I spent a great deal of time reading to younger siblings and to this day can recite 20 or so Dr. Suess books.

Despite this, I feel I have a horrible memory, and certainly my short-term memory is deplorable. Now, what was I doing?

Siobhan, for some silly reason I denied myself Dr. Seuss as a child; I probably thought I was too old for him or he was beneath my dignity or something. But when my boys were small they clammered for me to read Seuss to them, and that did the trick -- much like your recent Austen experience, I imagine. :-) Twenty-plus years later I can recite most of Oh, the Thinks You Can Think and bits of several others.

I always remember The Owl and the Pussycat for the "beautiful pea-green boat" and "runcible spoon," the latter puzzling me mightily. I didn't find out until I was grown that runcible was just a fanciful, made-up word, but by then I had already fixed in my mind that a runcible spoon was one of those serving spoons with a shell-shaped or fluted bowl, and I still call those types "runcibles" and so do my DH and sons. They probably don't even know the kooky derivation.

Carolyn, Kentucky sure has a lot of counties, especially for a tiny girl to learn -- along with all the county seats. No wonder your uncle wanted to show you off to his friends.

Are you in Hawai'i right now? I'm not! I'm usually away in June, July, and August, but come September I don't want to be anywhere but home. Do you eat Spam musubi? Perhaps only a resident would understand, but the urge for it does come upon us. I need to make up a batch, but don't know if I can find the nori. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the Islands while I'm wishing I was.

Kath, if you're reading, I need help with a pronunciation. I will be in Maroochydore, QLD in July and I think it might be good if I can say it properly.

Well, of the poetry I learned in grade school, it's all Canadian. As far as I know, just about every Canadian child can recite the poem "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae. It's always learned in preparation for Remembrance Day. I do think it is a fabulous poem.

I also had to learn "The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert Service. It's a long one, but I still remember the first 2 stanzas of it. The book it is published in has fabulous art in a very Canadian style of art by Ted Harrison. We had to learn to paint in this style for art class.

I actually remember these poems more than anything I learned in High School.

Frieda, the pronunciation is Mah-ROOCH-i-door, with the i sound very slight, like an 'uh'. I hope that helps.

I have been trying to remember what history we learnt, and it seems it was mainly about the exploration of Australia, starting with Cook, then Wentworth, Blaxland and Lawson who went over the Blue Mountains inland from Sydney; Sturt, who went up the Murray and inland; the ill-fated Burke and Wills who died trying to cross from south to north and so on. We learnt some local history for our suburb, but I can't remember any political history. I didn't know about Federation in 1901 until I found out for myself.
Most of what we studied was the physical landscape and the industries. Each term we did a personal 'project' on some topic, and I did a big one on wool, another on timber, and the one I did in Grade 7 on the USA was rather spectacular. For the industrial ones, we got a booklet at school and could write off to the industry body for information. It was very exciting to receive a large envelope in the post with brochures and booklets, with information to be copied and photos to be cut out.

My favourite poem that I can still remember is 'Clancy of the Overflow' by A B 'Banjo' Paterson, who also wrote the words to 'Waltzing Matilda' and 'The Man From Snowy River'.

May I ask a few questions please?

What is a grammar school in the US? I'm sure it cannot be the same as a gs in GB.

Did you learn/study Art (ie painting drawing etc) when at school? Do you remember making models out of clay . .. I can feel and smell those slimy balls of the stuff as I write this.

What about music lessons? Did you mainly do singing, as we did, and trill out Nymphs and Shepherds or folk-songs . . .very popular after the early 20c revival . . .the ones we did had been heavily 'cleaned up'. No madrigals but 'rounds' with the kids coming in all the wrong places.
I never enjoyed 'music theory' even when learning piano and violin.
I understand from a friend who is just giving up music classes at our village school, that modern kids just bring in CD's to singalong to; seems a waste when so much good stuff is out there.

Lastly Religious Education. It used to be called 'Scripture' in Junior School (reading round the class from the King James Bible), then 'Doctrine' at RC secondary school. I understand this is not taught in the US public school system, Kath do you have it is Aus?
Also in England a school assembly is held each day with some sort of 'religious' content, usually a hymn and a couple of prayers, although the over-pupiled secondary schools often try and get out of them . . . and many inner-city schools have fewer kids from 'Christian' backgrounds so there is often emphasis on the customs and beliefs of other Faiths.

We had art and craft at primary school at the teacher's fancy - my Grade 4 teacher taught us sewing, and I can still remember 'blanket stitch' although I have never used it.
Art was a subject at high school - I hated it as I can't draw a stick man. We did do some clay work (I was crap at that too) and some things like the boards with nails along the side, painted black, then you used coloured string or wool to make a geometric pattern.
We had RE (Religious Education) for some of my primary time, but it was conducted by priests or ministers who came into the school. You nominated your sect and went to the appropriate lesson on the day. I don't remember doing this in later primary school and there was no religious education of any kind at high school. We did have a school hymn, but I knew it from my sister, seven years older than me, and I'm not sure if I ever heard it while I was there. At primary school, the infants had a nativity at Christmas (I wanted to be an angel but as a loud mouth I got to read part of the Christmas story from the King James Bible - age 7). We had a reading of the Christmas story over the school loudspeaker system (into each classroom) in Grade 7 and I had to read part of that too. Unluckily for me, I got the bit when Mary says 'How can this be since I know not a man?" - hilarious for kids of 11 and 12.
There is no RE in Government schools now to my knowledge, although some schools have voluntary pastors at the school to help students. Private schools, which are nearly all religiously based, even if not strongly, often have compulsory RE, especially the Catholic ones.

Music in primary school had two parts. All classes had piped into their room once a week a programme from ABC Radio (the Aussie equivalent of the BBC, Government funded), and we had a book to go with it. We learnt a new song every week or so, and they varied the songs a lot - Japanese, Gilbert & Sullivan, traditional songs and so on. We sat at our desks and learnt the history of the song and then how to sing it.
In Grade 7 we also had a school choir, that joined with other school choirs to take part in the Festival of Music. I missed out on a place in 1970, but my son took part in 2002.
At high school we had music lessons in first year, with lots of theory and virtually no practical, and after that it was only for students who chose it. My sons got a lot of hands on practice in first and second year, playing the drums and doing some digital stuff. Now my younger son is a hiphop artist who can use one of the complicated programs to manipulate music.

Kath, thanks for the pronunciation. It seems straightforward, but I feared there was something to trip me up after some of the other pronunciations with which you've enlightened us. :-)

Vee, thanks for jumping in with questions. I'd love it if everybody would.

In my neck of the woods, a grammar school refers to the first six grades (after kindergarten). Elementary, primary, and grammar school are used interchangeably in the US but usually with one preferred, depending on region. To distinguish a school where the classics are the basis, the qualifier is usually added (e.g., a Latin Grammar School).

In Iowa public schools when I was kid, art instruction started in kindergarten (or first grade for those who didn't attend kindergarten -- it wasn't compulsory back then). About grade 4, for some reason art slacked off and the curriculum usually didn't include it again until high school (grades 9-12). I did the mucking with clay thing too, but wasn't much good at it. I had a hard time with drawing until I got a teacher who was fantastic at teaching perspective -- I can still do the one-dot, two-dot and three-dot tricks. When DH was doing mineralogy and crystalography instruction I was able to draw the crystal structures for him using the perspective trick. But when it came to drawing people and animals, I was hopeless.

Music: First came singing, with some percussion self-accompanying if the poor teacher could stand the din.
Piano and violin lessons were usually only taught outside school, privately. About fourth grade every student was given the opportunity to see if they had any musical talent by learning to play a recorder (wooden in my day, plastic later). Those who showed promise got to take band. Choosing one's instrument was so exciting! I wanted so much to play a real 'silver' flute. Alas, the band director had a different idea. Because I happened to have a good ear -- and because he needed brass players -- I was assigned to learn the French horn. At first I hated the director and hated the horn, but I was a stubborn toot and was determined to conquer it -- it took me about a month before I developed enough breath to even blow the darn thing. Well, I eventually fell in love with my instrument, joined the marching band in high school, played in high school and college orchestras, and still play in quartets and quintets.

I was self-taught on the piano after a few lessons from my mother and another teacher, both of whom I nearly drove crazy -- I put too much rhythm into everything; I could make Handel's Water Music sound like "Beat Me, Daddy, Eight to the Bar."

Vee, elementary school in Connecticut used to be K through 6th grade, and is now K through 5. Junior high school is now middle school and encompasses grades 6 - 8.

Living in New England, we were repeatedly taught about the Pilgrims -- I think we did a unit on them every blessed year of school! It got to the point where it became a joke whenever the Pilgrims were mentioned. I was sure there had to be more interesting bits of American history they just weren't telling us about. We also spent a lot of time on the Revolution and the Civil War. I took one Modern European History class in high school and we got so far behind that we covered WWII in two days before school ended, hardly a satisfying history lesson!

What I remember annoyed me most about the history offerings in high school and college was a distinct lack of more current history, the Vietnam War in particular. Having grown up watching Walter Cronkite read the the daily body counts on the evening news, I was desperate to understand just what was going on and what started the war in the first place. No enlightenment was forthcoming from the educational system, that was for sure. I know now that it was all too recent and raw back in 1977 or so, not to mention polarizing, but geez! I would have appreciated something.

We had music from Kindergarten on, first voice, then those plastic recorders, followed by 4th grade band or orchestra. For some reason I never took band (though I had a guitar class in junior high), but one of my sisters played the flute through high school.

Our town is known for its music program (I'm still living where I grew up) and we can boast a few TV actors, an Emmy-nominated documentary editor, and a Grammy winner from our two high schools.

In South Australia, Kindergarten is for four year olds, is usually in a separate place to a school, and is not compulsory. In my day (ha!) those with a birthday between Feb and June started school in the middle of the year and did half a year of 'Prep'. Those, like me, whose birthdays were in the second half of the year, went straight into Grade 1 in February. Primary school was Grade 1 to Grade 7, then high school was First - Third year, Leaving and Matriculation.
Now we have four terms instead of three, there is an additional year at the beginning called Reception, and all students must do at least 2 terms of Reception, with most schools making it at least 3. High school is now Year 8 - Year 12, with some schools having Year 13 for those who need to come back and do better (obviously you can't repeat Year 12, as my colleagues had to, it might disturb your self esteem if you realise you didn't do well enough the first time around).

Most university courses now have no prerequisites either, except for a couple of Engineering degrees which require maths and/or physics. I fail to see the sense in this - if you want to study Chemistry at university, surely you need to study it at high school!

I apologise if this is Too Much Information.......

In my day, Grammar School was grades 1-7, and High School, grades 8-12. I went to a public grammar school and we had mandatory music and art lessons. There were specialized art and music teachers for this. I still recall the black plastic "recorders" we were forced to whistle through, a cheap version of a flute. (?)

We did a lot of singing: I still recall the state song, "Georgia Land, Dear Georgia Land." As well, we had special song books, with tunes such as "My Darling Clementine" and "Botany Bay." And we were made to learn and to sing all 3 of the armed services "hymns", e.g. "From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli...." etc.

In my public grammar school in Atlanta, we were forced to learn Spanish, rather unusual for that day and age. Our teacher was fiery and impatient and would throw a flower pot when she was not pleased with us. In those days, we had good relations with Cuba, which was rather close and exchanged swim teams. The parents were given a choice of French or Spanish and voted for Spanish.

I recall in 2nd grade some corporal punishment administered to a little boy who was rather bad. Our teacher slung him across her knee and administered a vigorous spanking. No one batted an eye. There were no parents to file suit; the poor lad lived with his elderly grandmother.

My knowledge of the US Civil War was greatly lacking, as our teacher was from New England, and having recently moved down to the land of "Gone with the Wind", was afraid to broach that topic. So we lingered a great deal on the Revolutionary War instead. What I learned about the Civil War, I had to get by osmosis and reading on my own, later.

Oh dear, I am afraid this will be boring to some of you....

Let's see.. in my town, the run down is thus:
kindergarten through fifth grade = elementary
sixth through eigth = middle school
ninth through twelfth = high school
Children may legally quite school at age 16 in the US, but the job market for high school drop-outs is not too promising. One gets a diploma after the successful completion of grade 12. If one drops out, one may study and earn a GED which isn't quite the same thing as a diploma.

In our school distric, we start foreign languages in sixth grade, musical instruments in fourth, computer in kindergarten. Library classes also start in kindergarten. My sixth grader didn't have reports to write this year, just many many power point presentations - this could be a whole other topic in and of itself. My first grader is already getting intros to stuff like algebra and geometry and although they are but smatterings of the math disciplines, it is more than I learned before ninth grade way back in the dark ages when I was in school.

It is interesting that several of you mentioned the Civil War. I am a Yankee born and bred, my husband is from south of the Mason/Dixon Line in Maryland and grew up on what used to be an ante-bellum plantation. The two of us compared notes about what we learned in school about this war. At least for the two of us, our schools approached this war from VASTLY different angles.

This thread is fascinating... NONE of you are boring! It is exactly the opposite! Write MORE!

PAM

I am so old (and Kentucky is so poor) that I attended one-room schools a la Laura Ingalls until 8th grade when we moved to a community that had a four-room school--with a lunch room, yet. At any rate, at the bigger school we had "chapel" once a week where we sang patriotic and other songs from a paperback yellow songbook I have seen for sale in catalogs over the years, and a Bible reading and short talk by the principal.

My mother taught first grade at that school, later having only one grade per teacher. She attempted to have a sing-along type music session each morning; but, unfortunately, she didn't have a good voice. My niece, who could sing beautifully from babyhood, came home after her first few days of school and said to my sister, "Mama, Granny can't even sing Ten Little Indians."

Frieda, I'm just home from Hawaii. My husband, my daughter, two stepdaughters, and I spent ten days at Waikiki. We rented a car and drove around the island one day, but otherwise we just hung out at the beach. It is so gorgeous.

Carolyn, my husband went to a one room school house in upper New York state. Evidently the students were all ages, and the older ones had the duty of keeping the wood stove going. He walked daily several miles to this school, often in deep snow. When I lived in PA some years back, there were several one room school houses dotting the landscape, none of which were in use.

PAM, I completely agree with you: I could read all day long about people's educational experience, at school and out of school. It's funny how similar it sometimes is and yet individually, culturally, and generationally unique at the same time, if that makes sense. It's just fun to compare, in my opinion.

However, I got a scare yesterday because I was getting a white screen with this thread and feared it might be getting too long for me to read and to post. Sigh.

PAM, it's interesting how differently you and your DH were taught about the Civil War. Particularly so, because to me, not being from that region, it appears that you were raised so close together. Of course I've heard and read about the Mason/Dixon Line but that its demarcation still lingers after so long is intriguing. Though most of my family settled in the upper Midwest, and Iowa in particular, one branch wound up in Alabama. My Alabama cousins are thoroughly steeped in Civil War history, so much so that you'd think they had grandpaws and great-uncles who were in the Confederacy -- but, no, their ancestors are the same as mine, Germans and Norwegians who weren't immigrants until long after the war had ended.

Sheri, if it's any comfort to you, I'm still in a fog about the Vietnam war. I don't know if it will ever be sorted out -- and there's so much revisionism -- but I understand how baffling it must have seemed and why wasn't it explained better. You're right: rawness is the only explanation.

woodnymph, I too had my share of tempermental teachers -- my second-grade teacher shook me hard one time to get me to shut up. My mother's attitude was I had it coming...she knew what a non-stop talker I was. Of course neither teacher nor mother had any idea about 'shaken-child' syndrome. I think every band director I had was choleric -- they screamed, threw batons, and stomped out in huffs when we flubbed. Invariably though, the band director was usually voted by the kids as a favorite teacher.

The one-room schoolhouse is the ultimate in the open-classroom concept. The former seemed to work very well or at least well enough, the later 1960s/70s experiments weren't always so successful. It occurs to me that the difference was there were all age groups in the former, with the older ones helping the younger ones, and just the fact of overhearing the other kids' lessons must have helped.

Oh-oh! I almost forgot that I wanted to ask: What topics did you delve into for Research Papers?

I've been wondering what Kath covered in her 'USA Project'. It seems such a large topic to me. :-)

I loved, loved, loved Research Papers. The whole process of reading the encyclopedias and other books, taking notes on index cards, writing outlines, composing, revising, footnotes, and the neat typed-up finished product. So satisfying.

One of my projects was Abu Simbel -- they were in the process of dismantling and moving it to higher ground before the flooding behind the Aswan Dam. Another was Salisbury Cathedral, which I got a lousy grade on at first because my teacher said I had got all my information from books. Well, of course I did, you nincompoop, is what I thought -- I didn't exactly hop over to England or time travel to when it was being built. What he meant, though, was he thought I had plagiarized. I was infuriated at the accusation, but I managed to demonstrate that I had used my own words for my general understanding and had properly used quotation marks and attributions in footnotes and biblography. He changed my grade to a better one. It was an invaluable lesson for me, actually, both in being careful about attributions and standing up for myself.

Now, I want to hear about your experiences with Research Papers/Projects. :-) Were they as big a deal in your schools as they were in mine?

My first research paper was as a college freshman. That was the 1952-53 school year, and the professor assigned the topics. Several of us did various segments on General Eisenhower, and my paper was on Mamie.

A few years later when one of my maternal aunts was finishing her degree and had to do a research paper, my mother offered her my Mamie paper that she had kept. When my aunt suggested that topic to her teacher, the response was, "Who on earth would want to do a research paper on Mamie Eisenhower?" So she wasn't able to plagarize me!

My most interesting project was a quarter of a century later when I finished my own degree (English Lit, as you might suspect). This was in a Dickens course, and I was assigned his illustrators. Fortunately, the public library had just gotten a new book on the subject.

Frieda, I often get a white screen, too, when the threads are particularly long. I am learning patience! ;-)

We had to do term papers starting in the prep school I went to. I can vividly recall staying up all night long to finish writing one on author F.S. Fitzgerald. I read every book I could find on him and became fascinated by the man and his wild wife Zelda. I still find his life interesting, although not admirable.

Another term paper had to be illustrated and I chose poet E.A. Poe, and illustrated certain of his poems with my hand colored drawings. I just came across that one a few days ago when I was going through old papers from girlhood.

When we were in grammar school, we had to choose one of the (then 48) states and research and write everything we could find about our particular choice. I selected Oregon.

Most of them I enjoyed writing, until I went to University, then, I can recall the stress of staying up all night long in the dormitory "study smoker", sitting on the floor with my index cards laid out in front of me, piecing together a long "thesis" on artist Van Gogh.

Carolyn, hee! I remember liking Mamie and still know to this day that her favorite color was pink. Mamie's bangs were quite the thing, too -- I had mine cut that way. The fringe went out with Jacqueline Kennedy, I guess, and didn't come back in a big way until Lady Di sported hers.

Oh, I can think of several reasons why someone would write a paper on Mamie. Which reminds me of my Helen Taft skirt that I made as a home ec project: it had a high, tight waist and a full circle skirt that fell to just above my ankles. My classmates (during the time of the miniskirt) were mystified. "Who's Helen Taft?" they asked. I always wanted one of those big tub hats like Helen wore, too.

And your Dickens project, along with Mary's mention of keeping her illustrated term paper about Poe poems, made me think of my Great Expectations notebook that I did in the ninth grade. I still have it in my cedar chest.

Instead of writing a regular book report, I took a scrapbook and covered it in red velvet overlaid with white lace. The title was pasted-on shimmery black sequins. I thought it looked oh-so Victorian. In between sections of the text of my report I drew a couple of pictures -- the graveyard was one -- but because, as I mentioned above, I was inept at drawing people, I cut photos and line drawings from various magazines and glued them onto pages to illustrate the dramatis personae.

Fast-forward thirty years: my elder son had to do a book report in the fifth grade on Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game so I suggested to him that he make a notebook for it like I did for Expectations. He did; and because he's more artistic than I, he did most of his own drawings. He covered his notebook with gift wrapping paper that looked like dollar bills -- cash money being a big part of the story. He deservedly got a better grade than I did. Naturally, his notebook has joined mine in the cedar chest.

Mary, the papers got more tedious for me, as well, in college and university. After my MA thesis, I was done in and swore I'd never get a doctorate. It didn't inhibit me, though, with other sorts of writing...as I'm sure you can tell. ;-)

Actually, I much prefer reading and that's why I love this sort of thread. I can read but it seems as if I'm really conversing.

I remember more memorization in Sunday School than in regular school, but "Hiawatha" was one poem we learned.

We sang in all through elementary school. 1st grade I remember because I didn't understand our songs. They weren't like the hymns we sang at church and they weren't like anything I heard on the radio. I decided we were singing them wrong and during one of those cute little kid songs I started belting it out a la Patsy Cline. I also remember singing "Seventy-Six Trombones" from Music Man in 7th grade until I was thoroughly sick of it.

I switched schools between the 1st and 2nd grades and found myself confused by something called phonics at the new school. I was terribly worried because I didn't know what the teacher meant and I feared I'd never learn. I could already read just fine, but I didn't like not knowing about phonics.

As near as I can figure, in the South trade and tax issues were emphasized in discussions of the lead up to the Civil War.

Engineering school didn't leave much time for liberal arts studies, but that didn't matter much to me because I have always read widely. I am by nature a researcher. Sister laughs at me because I am always looking stuff up on the internet. But because I'm building on interests that developed from High School, this also means that I have huge lacuna in my knowledge base. This first came to my attention when Russ (remember Russ?) was surprised that I, who love drama, didn't have a clue about Aphra Behn. I was educated before we made an effort to include women in our syllabi. My innumerable lists of books to be read never included women invisible to educators of the mid-20th century.

I sometimes wonder who I would be if I'd grown up illiterate, or even in a community with a very limited number of books, most of them on theology.

This subject is quite interesting to me. In high school and college I always had the attitude that history and classic literature were of not much use for someone majoring in business. I memorized things for tests, and forgot about it quickly thereafter. As I got older I wished I had taken advantage of the learning opportunities that I had in the liberal arts. Now trying to make up for lost opportunities, I try to read widely on a variety of subjects. I'll also read some classic literature on occasion.

Some interesting books that I've read lately include:

Shakespeare's Lives (Schoenbaum)
The Discoverers (Boorstin)
Adventures in Unhistory (Davidson)

If you have any interesting non-fiction books that you think would be fun to read for a "wanna be" rennaisance man, please post them.

elliottb: Have you read Neil Postman's Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future? I thought it was an intriguing perspective, to get a grasp on how we ended up in the 20th/21st century as, basically (it seems), a world inhabited with dunderheads in spite of the technologies and educational opportunities we've had at our fingertips, so to speak. Perhaps it's a bit dated (it was first published in 1999), but I've been meaning to reread it because I keep recalling bits and pieces of his argument that seem to have grown in relevance. The rationalists of the 18th century seem more and more interesting to read about in a world gone haywire (in my opinion as well as Mr Postman's).

I read Avram Davidson's The Other Nineteenth Century, not my usual sort of reading fare at all, but perhaps that's why I was quite taken with it. Somebody told me his stuff is 'steam punk'. I had never heard the term and had to look it up and, yeah, from the description, that sounds right. What do you think about Adventures in Unhistory, elliottb?

Do you have any history/nonfiction interest you're leaning toward? I read lots of nonfiction but in such a scattered fashion that I don't know where to begin to recommend something that might interest you.

Frieda and Eliot, should we start a thread on Non-fiction book recommendations? Here are some I found engrossing: "Rising Tide" by John Barry. This dates to the flooding of the Mississippi and deals with racial and social issues, exposes a corrupt New Orleans, and errors made by the Corps of Engineers.If you read this you'll have a better understanding of what occurred when Hurricane Katrina hit N.O. Barry leaves no stone unturned, and there was a lot of wrong-doing and mismanagement by all parties, going back to the 1920's.

Another recommendation is "Albion's Seed" by David Hackett Fischer. The author analyzes 4 distinct cultures from 4 distinct parts of the British Isles in the settling of the colonies in America, which have carried on even today in the regional differences.

Lastly, Nathaniel Philbrick's "Mayflower" had this reader enthralled. He makes the settling of the New England Colonies in the 1600's and the dicey relationships with the resident Native Americans fascinating. But then--- I am a history buff. ;-)

In my school, one of the first research papers we had to do was on something to do Bonnie Prince Charlie and his crowd so my friend and I decided to make a newspaper instead of a research paper and did "notes from the field" and updates as though it was happening. It tooks ages and was great fun and we had a good grade at the end. I even still have it and I must admit, it's not bad for two little not-very-academic girls.

Older, we had to do a research paper on Australia - lots of koala pictures if I recall correctly - and then one on the Russo-Japanese War (for some reason).

Then there were the university years where we did so many research papers and then graduate school - even more. One essay I especially enjoyed doing was studying the differences linguistically between the genders. I was teaching a class of freshmen students and assigned them the topic of "what would you do if you woke up one day and were the opposite sex?" Very interesting as it was obvious the females thought it would be a better deal and the guys thought it would be awful. (Sad but true.) Anyway, this essay about the gender-related linguistic patterns was fascinating - girls suddenly started to swear more (trying, I suppose, to be like boys) while the boys made no attempt to change their gender except to look at it from the outside in.

I love studying gender and language - so interesting even in this day and age of "equality".

friedag and woodnymph2, thanks for the recommendations...I'll check them out on Amazon. I read in a scattered fashion also, and just look for things that will hold my attention. I like reading a variety of things related to history and science (as long as it's not very technical).

friedag, Avram Davidson's Adventures in Unhistory is good, but Davidson digresses a lot in these essays which might aggravate some readers. However, if you're interested in the myths of werewolves, mermaids, and dragons this may be something you would like.

lemonhead, thanks for picking up on the research paper/project question. I find the responses very interesting and informative. I'd bet that you still remember more about Bonnie Prince Charlie than many of us ever learned. If I hadn't had a brother who loved Sir Walter Scott's Waverly and anything by Robert Louis Stevenson, I would have gone through elementary and secondary school without hearing a thing about the Jacobites.

I took an anthropology class in gender language differences and found it both fascinating and dismaying. For instance, females often have a 'voice' they speak with around other females, but if a male enters an otherwise all-female group some of the gals' voices change immediately (often becoming breathier), no matter if the females are eight or eighty years old. I already knew this from observation and often found it annoying; but that it is largely an unconscious thing on the part of some females irritated me even more because I had thought it was a matter of choice, a mere affectation or a bad habit.

elliottb: I'm intrigued how and why myths come to be, though the myths themselves don't interest me much. I will take a look at the 'Unhistory'. I know what you mean about anything "that holds interest" -- so in furtherance to your dilemma and mine, I will respond to woodnymph:

woodnymph, I would enjoy a nonfiction thread and I would certainly contribute. Nonfiction seems to get short shrift here at RP. I know you mention the NF you read, Mary, but I'd say the "What are you reading?" thread runs something like 70/30 or 75/25 percent, favoring fiction over nonfiction. I can never keep up with all the bestselling fiction -- sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm only one person while there are dozens of people here at RP (and multitudes elsewhere) following the fiction trends.

Yet nonfiction is even wider than fiction, so it's hard to comprehend that reading through post after post and there's hardly a mention of it. Maybe a thread devoted entirely to NF would bring more of it out -- I hope it would.

Another reader chiming in to shout an enthusiastic "YES" to a non-fiction thread. May I suggest that we add a few headings to our lists? Maybe bio, history, science, and other? I know it would sure help me when I copy down titles.

Currently reading several non-fictions... LOVE them. I also tend not to read much on bestseller fiction lists. Gee, maybe we should grab that outline from the renaissance person thread and start working on it. I remember once, years ago, a feeble attempt here for some of us to read a book on one nation and then discuss it. It petered out quickly. But I'd be up for having a "topic of the month" or a quarterly topic and then reading whatever we want to read and sharing what we've learned. Like many of you, I am all over the rainbow with my interests, wanting to learn everything and following wherever my currents interests may lead. Anyone else up for a sharing the knowledge topic/thread?
PAM

I'm up for a non-fiction thread. I tend to read both fiction and non-fiction as I really enjoy learning about new things and so I'd very interested in seeing what other people are reading...

Looking forward to it.

I'm also enthusiastically saying "yes" to a non-fiction thread since a lot of my reading is travel, history or science related.

Looks as if there's at least four to five of us who would enjoy a designated thread for nonfiction. There are probably more but they might not be likely to read this thread. I start too many threads and then I am apt to yap too much.

Woodnymph hasn't weighed back in yet, but since it was her suggestion maybe we could prevail upon her to start the new thread for nonfiction. :-)

PAM, you have excellent ideas that surely can be incorporated somehow. I especially like the one about specific topic headings.

I've never been sure why nonfiction is so hard to discuss -- it sometimes seems too narrow or too wide, or too topical, too arcane, too politically sensitive...too something. Of course many readers have little interest in nonfiction or the interest they have is too specialized to appeal to a broad range of readers -- I tend to think that's why it gets lost in a general monthly reading thread where fiction is considered the thing. I know I've read nonfiction that I thought was entrancing but never bothered to post anything about it.

Well, what the hey! Let's give it a whirl.

Feel free to use this thread if you think there's a need to bat things around before starting the new one.

I'm about to go out of town, so would prefer that someone else start the NF thread, as my computer usage will be sporadic, at best.

Here's one I liked when I read it a few years ago: "Mrs. Paine's Garage and the Murder of JFK" by Thomas Mallon. Evidently Mrs. Paine agreed to store the weapon of assassination in her garage, not knowing, of course, of Oswald's intent. The book caused some fascinating spin-offs and speculation. Frieda, I think you might like this one.

Woodnymph, indeed, Mrs Paine's Garage sounds right up my alley. I usually like Mallon's writing. Thank you for mentioning it.

Well, I will start the NF thread if no one volunteers. I didn't want to usurp your role, though, Woodnymph. But, frankly, I find NF so unwieldy that I don't quite know how to handle it. I'm thinking: keep it simple; something like the general reading thread where each poster writes about whatever NF s/he currently is reading or has just finished.

PAM, you have greater ideas than mine: would you like to construct it?

Frieda, as you know I read quite a bit of non-fiction, especially if you count bio's, auto-bio's, memoirs etc.
Many of the works I choose tend to be rather heavy tomes, which means I don't always finish them in one go . . . I like to be able to pick them up, read a couple of chapters and come back to them later; sometimes very much later. It isn't as though the 'plot' will be forgotten or I'll get the characters mixed up. For eg, I have shelves of books about London that had been collected by my late mother. Sometimes I will just pick up a copy and flick through part of it or just look at the illustrations/photos. I'd be happy to share the titles here, but I'm just not the sort of person who feels the need to read x number of books a week or even count the words at the end of the day. :-)

Okay, it is done. I hope it it what everyone envisioned. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to begin the non-fiction thread.

Thanks to everyone for their interest in non-fiction. And a special thanks to woodnymph for the suggestion.

PAM

PAM, you did a splendid job with the intro! You covered so many bases that I never would have thought of, and I appreciate your effort. Thanks again.I like to be able to pick them up, read a couple of chapters and come back to them later; sometimes very much later.Vee, often that's exactly what I like to do as well, and I agree with you that NF doesn't demand you pay attention to every little nuance in a time-sensitive fashion. However, you and I might be in a minority thinking that way.

While growing up or at school, did you favor NF or fiction?

I never had any particular interest in how many pages I read in totality, but in some of my schooling I was required to keep track. We had a reading program in grade school (I think it was called SRA but I can't recall what the letters stood for) that consisted of 'reading cards' of different sorts of material to train readers, I suppose. The student read the cards, took quizzes, and if the marks were good enough, she passed on to the next level (there were 12 or maybe 20 levels). We were required to do one card per day. It nearly drove me crazy, so one slack afternoon I proceeded to finish off the dratted SRA box. Teacher wasn't pleased, so for 'punishment' I had to go to the library and sit and read books alone for a whole week. Teacher never knew that I didn't consider it punishment.