School days, school days
Dear old Golden Rule days
‘Reading and ‘riting and ‘rithmetic
Taught to the tune of the hick’ry stick
You were my queen in calico
I was your bashful, barefoot beau
And you wrote on my slate, “I Love You, Joe”
When we were a couple o’ kids
Today marks the first day of school in many places in Texas. Hard to believe that summer came and went in such a short time. Summer ends on the calendar when the sun’s direct rays cross the equator, which will happen September 22. Summer ends in the minds of the general public after Labor Day, and that’s due next week. But summer ends for school kids when the school says so. That’s today.
The song above speaks of the curriculum, but it’s woefully outdated. There’s a new way of doing things in the school house these days, and kids are studying many subjects that did not exist in the days of the one-room school with the slates.
Today’s schools are loaded with extra-curricular activities. For all practical purposes, school really started a few weeks ago as kids prepared themselves ahead of time for all sorts of things, such as football and band. The faculty and administration folks have been hard at work, too, preparing for the classes. All the rest of the employees, contract workers, auxilliary workers, volunteers, and probably others have already been on the job.
The days of the girl in calico and the barefoot boy walking hand in hand down a sandy trail to the little school house with one “school marm” are gone forever, except for unique situations like the Amish schools. The education scene today is many-faceted with parochial schools, private schools, prep schools, home schools, special education, classes for the gifted and talented, vocational classes and other forms of public and non-public pedagogy. One guy says to the other guy: “Things aren’t like they used to be,” to which the other guy replies, “They never were.”
Many years ago, poor children went to work in factories and mines, etc. for long hours six 
days per week and received no education until a great man in England by the name of Robert Raikes started “Sunday School,” at Gloucester in 1780, in which the children were taught reading, writing and arithmetic along with the Bible (image at right), laying the foundation for public education in England. We take a lot for granted in America in 2014; schools are almost everywhere, resulting from efforts that began after the American Revolution.