In elementary school, we had to learn how to play Sakura (the Japanese classical piece) on at least one instrument (kiddie instruments like hand bells) and sing it in Japanese and English. And then, having been in school in 2001, we did a LOT of patriotic songs all of a sudden.
1. As a kid, I was taught to look through the circulars as the school year approached and find the best price for my school supplies. Took a great pride in it. Can remember that prices at Target tended to be lowest about two weeks before school started, after which they would go back up again. 2. Corporal punishment was still a thing in Texas when I started teaching in 1990. When I was a kid in the '70s, it was quite common even down to first grade to have "licks" (swats on the behind with a wooden paddle) administered for tardies - usually administered after the third unexcused tardy.
The language bit got me. It really explains why so few Americans speak a second language fluently. Even though these laws don't exist anymore, the culture persists.
yeah, when i heard that i was like "haha very american". in canada (in english-speaking provinces), french is mandatory from grades 4-12. french immersion, in which half your classes are taught in french, is optional and can start as early as grade 1. some schools offer a program in which all classes are taught in french except for english class. quebec students generally speak english even better than we speak french.
@@elisecode2212 That's great! I wish US schools did that with Spanish. I regret that I took German instead of Spanish, because Spanish would have been much more useful.
I think the lack of second languages has more to do with not really having the need for them unlike in Europe where a trip to another coutry with a different language is like going to another state here.
Yep. My school (as of about 6 years ago - and most likely it's still the case) had "Punishment Exercises" which were like homework that was just one phrase over and over again. Which we also used for detentions, on the rare occassion that detentions were deemed necessary. (For context, this was in Scotland.)
Had a teacher who gave "lines" but it was actually a 3 paragraph essay on self respect. He expected it to be written verbatim. I got assigned 6 lines once and was very motivated to not get caught misbehaving again.
I've never heard of that here (I finished school 8 years ago now in Yorkshire). Our detentions were usually either completing homework, or just sat in silence. Some teachers set extra work, but usually only if they thought you needed a bit more practice.
Yup, my English teacher in school was known as "500 Lines" as she'd dole it out to you in that quantity everytime... she'd then tell you the line which was usually something like.. "I promise to pay better attention in class" The priests in my school would usually give you something in Latin
2:34 - Did she just describe writing lines as something from the weird, old days? And in the same breath as corporal punishment? I'm 24 and I wrote lines as punishment for all kinds of things. It's still being used as structured punishment now. And why would that be a bad thing? It's just busy work.
Yeah, I'm 18 and my school still does "write offs". Granted, I'm from the southern town that features two private Christian schools, so things may have been a bit more traditional there, but this practice is still thriving. I wouldn't say it's cruel or corporal, either. Often times doing it got you out of something more serious like detention 😂
I was confused about that as well. During my short stint as a substitute teacher 2 years ago, I witnessed teachers still giving out lines as a form of punishment.
I don't see it as being effective... but yeah, not akin to corporal punishment or distressing to most children, and it could easily just not be used for children with conditions like Aspergers or ADHD who would be likely to find it distressing.
@@joshrauch9744 That's the whole point. The student needs to shut up. When you have one student who is ruining the learning experience for 24 other students, you have to find something that they hate that is still humane to punish them with. The whole point is that the student hates the task and will stop doing the behavior that is distracting or even dangerous to the rest of the class... and yes, as a teacher you will come across students that will put the health of other students in danger, and you 100% need to find a way to punish said students to prevent further repeats of the behavior.
I only distinctly remember being taught a whole song about making a bowl of jello in early elementary school...I don't know what educational value that had, but sometimes I'll wake up at 4 in the morning with it randomly stuck in my head
The left handed thing, in my experience, wasn't some concern over learning issues. It was superstitious claptrap that suggested that a guardian angel guides the right hand and a devil guides the left hand.
@@inkdreams5113 Not sure about that, but there's some interesting info about the Latin etymology (sinistra = left) and associations with evil here, though our fact checker would want me to say that none of it has been FC'ed. english.stackexchange.com/questions/39092/how-did-sinister-the-latin-word-for-left-handed-get-its-current-meaning
In preschool I was trained out of being left handed. I still remember getting time out for "holding the scissors wrong." I'm a college freshman now, so this is still probably going on in some places. Also, my mom and my girlfriend are both lefties.
I got in trouble for using my left hand, scolded for writing my letters wrong, holding the scissors wrong - I'm fairly ambidextrous now but still left handed... needless to say I don't do well with scissors...
I've never heard of "Fifty Nifty" before, lol. Also, we were still saying the Pledge in the 80s. We sang High Hopes, Ragg Mopp, and of course Xmas songs plus O Hannukah every December.
In grade school and junior high we sang pop songs of the '70s. One song I remember that was strange was the theme from M*A*S*H. The name was, "Suicide is painless." I guess kids were tougher in the 1970s.
"Turkey's United, no people invited Turkey's United, no people, please!" Can't remember the name, but it was a Thanksgiving song about Turkey's going on strike and suggesting we eat pizza instead?! lol
It surprises me how recent the left hand thing was done. My boss, who is 37, had this happen to him and as a result can write with both hands, but still prefers his left hand. I was taught the "Utah Train Song" in which you name all the counties in Utah. I still remember it. Edit: I had to sing it just to reassure myself that I still did. 😋
As a treat at the end of our music class, we got to listen to Bon Jovi's Livin on a Prayer. Just that song. It was cued up on a tape, and we danced like crazy.
My sister had a teacher who tried to "train" her not to use her left hand until we complained about it and the principal told the teacher she had to stop.
I second grade we always sang a patriotic song after the pledge like "My country Tis of Thee" or "Grand Ole Flag" . My grew up in New Orleans they didn't have school buses school kids just rode the street car or city bus.
We sang the likes of " Yankee Doodle" and "To Dream The Impossible Dream" in the school choir, but we also sang really weird songs in class sometimes. The only ones I can remember was a song about brushing your teeth at every hour and the following: "Down by the bay, where the watermelons grow, Back to my home I dare not go For if I do, my mother will say, (followed by something ridiculous like) Have you ever seen a llama, wearing pajamas Down by the bay"
We had a "baby blanket" for misbehavior that was put on you in front of the class and then you had to go sit in the coat closet (a fairly large place, not really a closet). This was in the early 50's.
My dad (born in 1972) quit school in the sixth grade. My mom (born in 1974) quit high school on three separate occasions. Once in 10th, 11th, and 12th grade. It’s truly a miracle my two brothers and I ever graduated (2011, 2013, and 2016). And now my middle brother is getting ready to graduate from college in the spring. ❤️
I remember reading the script book for the first Fantastic Beasts movie and noticing that the spell Newt uses to shatter the window to the jewelry store that the Niffler is pilfering is "Finestra," which is literally just the Italian word for window. I like to imagine Italian wizards shattering glass every time someone mentions a window.
My dad, born in 1934 in rural Mississippi, started first grade at age four. He earned a Bachelor's and a Master's degrees, as well as a doctorate. As for music, I remember singing "Age of Aquarius" and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" in Phoenix, Arizona, circa 1970.
I remember singing "Sabinchen war ein Frauenzimmer" in third or fourth grade, but only because the song is so messed up. It's about a maid, being killed by an alcoholic shoemaker, because he stole silverware from her employers and she was upset about it. The moral of the story? Do not trust shoemakers. Wtf.
Germans love dark themes in music! I'm going to have to look that one up now, thanks! Look at one of the most popular German songs ever to be translated into English that became hits for multiple artists; "Mack The Knife", about a murdering, rapist thug. The English version is a little less brutal. I learned the original version for my German class in H.S. but I don't remember much of it now. I liked how the German version starts with "The shark has teeth and he wears them in his face, but Macheath has a knife, but the knife you do not see." My favorite English language singer of "Mack" was Ella Fitzgerald, especially a live version where she forgets the lyrics and just makes stuff up until she breaks into the scat she was so famous for. Brilliant!
We sang lots of songs in Elementary School...though the most notable one was when I was in 5th grade and one of the teachers taught us all to sing "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" We had to say 'darn' instead of 'damn' and we didn't completely understand all the lyrics, but we had a good time singing it at least. Pretty sure we sang it during one of our musical performances for our parents the school seemed obsessed with putting on every year. That and "Yellow Submarine".
at my elementary school (2000s) we had swimming as a class once a week. i've never even heard of another school with a pool, so apparently it was quite uncommon. the school building was from the 1800s so that might be the reason.
3rd grade in 1960. My favorite song was The Ants Go Marching, which is very long. In 6th grade we sang Hay Ho, Nobody Home and Celito Linda. In 8th grade I received 3 whacks with a paddle on my posterior for refusing to do what a teacher told me to do because, he would not tell why I had to do it.
My stepdad who started school in the late 60s said that the nuns that worked in the school would hit his knuckles because he was left handed and the nuns would say “the devil is in his hands”
Number 23, "Billy Don't Be A Hero" is a protest song against the Vietnam War. The ending, where the girl trashes the letter from the government commending the now-dead Billy for his heroism, is a classic mic-drop from that era.
On corporal punishment. It still happens in the rural US, with regularity. I have been beaten, more than a few times, just because I knew the people involved in the infraction. I didn't even know and was never told, why I was being beaten. I just was. That was in grade school (grades K-4) Later, in high school (grades 9-12) I was also beaten, just for not doing enough push-ups and also, again, for being too near an actual problem. I witnessed a teacher literally lift a young boy off of the floor with his impact of a "spank". We also used to have a, teacher enforced, rule that if you did too much, you'd be spanked with an electric paddle. It was just a normal paddle (as if that should be a thing) with a cord duct taped to it. I, to be honest, have an extreme tolerance for pain because of crap like this. Thanks?
I was "made" right-handed by school. Possibly because I already have a physical issue, Spina Bifida. I wasn't tortured or humiliated. They just strongly encouraged me every time I tried to use my left hand.
In my elementary school, they used to put the names of kids who got spanked on the wooden paddle; I worked at the elementary school I had gone to one summer for a teen summer work program, I found the stack of paddles(they retired them when there was no more room for names). My half-brother above me name was all over them; some of the paddles didn't have his name on them because he was not attending that school at that time.
I LOVE THE NEXT VIDEO ALREADY I'm kind of a hobby linguist, had latin, french and english at my german school, skipped HP because of raving reviews by people whose opinions i didn't like...met my gf, who is in LOVE with it, watched it, agreed with her over the linguistics and cinematography of it! I mean " sectum sempra " ? How do you not appreciate that? Can NOT wait.
Songs I sang as a kid in school in New Zealand: fish and chips (yeah!), ma is white (a Māori colour song), school is number one, Alice the camel, Oma Rapeti (in Māori) , Tutira mai nga iwi (also Māori), and few more I can remember parts of something about a hamburger and a fly, and one a keas ripping of window wipers rubber....
i get up in the 90s and we had to "do lines" (writing same sentence over over again up to usually 100, 200 but up 1000x each) i always thought it was a waste of my notebook paper, i thought this was normal, i dont consider this to be that bad at all.
My most distinct memory of a song learned in Elementary school is when we learned "God Bless the USA" by Lee Greenwood, mostly because it had that awkward 1 beat rest that tripped up so many small elementary school students who didn't quite have a grasp on music theory yet.
I left school in 1990, Corporal Punishment had only just been banned in public schools but I was in private school where your parents consented in the contract to allow corporal punishment.... I often got what we called "shots", which was a small leather strap across both hands 5 times each. Hurt like a b....
Tbh I would’ve loved night school as a high schooler, waking up at 4:30 to get ready and catch the bus and then stay after school for sports, theater, and marching band tired me out
The two songs I remember most are one called "Senor Don Gato" about a cat (obviously) who is in love with a pretty lady cat but falls from the roof and dies (only temporarily though. After all, it was a kids song.) There was one other that for the life of me I can't recall it's name, about the solar system. I've looked up SO many iterations of the few lines I remember (First comes the sun, the center of the solar system.... it gives us heat and light. It's mostly made, of hydrogen and helium, *something* is what makes it burn so bright. Solar system, something something something..... making up our cosmic stew.) But I can't find it ANYWHERE and I've been trying to find it again for 10 YEARS! off and on. (Graduated in 06', I think we sang it around 1998-2000? If that helps anyone willing to help me.)
9th grade where I went to school male teachers would take 2 boys who had gotten into a fistfight to a room attached to the gym. There they put on boxing gloves and would resume the fight. Other male teachers would attend the private event maybe they even wagered but that I do not know but it seems likely. This was about 1970 and the school was a fairly violent place, the town was half and half-Hispanic and White. Agricultural community and not quite a suburb. We had farmer/cowboy types "ropers", long hair types "dopers", "squares" and "jocks". Rifle racks in pickup trucks were common complete with rifles, shotguns which nobody used on another person, hunting was popular, ducks and pheasant. We could but ammo at 7/11 right off the shelf, 50 cents for a box of .22lr. We actually had classes like Civics and American History. There was no racism but you could be called "honky" or "beaner" or "nigger" when someone was mad about something. These things always simmered down as there was life to be lived and nobody got hung up on one thing for very long. I know for sure that a student whose grades suddenly nose-dived the problem was something wrong at their home-the parents. Blaming the student never helped but school did not interfere with the home life of a student.
I still remember some color spelling songs from kindergarten. R-E-D red R-E-D red, I can spell 'red', I can spell 'red', fire trucks are red, stop signs are red too. R-E-D...R-E-D One for all the primary and secondary colors.
I couldn't imagine using a slate for anything but basic topics. I still study a lot of STEM mostly math and electrical engineering even though I'm in my 30s and I find even standard sized sheets of paper with a well pointed pen/pencil don't leave me enough room. Somebody really needs to make parchments/scrolls for math.
I remember singing "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean", "Turkey in the Straw" and "Guess What I Saw At The Zoo Today". There were many others I don't recall.
#10 my dad went to a catholic school as a child in the 60s and regularly got his ass beat by nuns; the knuckle smack was for minor infractions, like laughing... the more severe infractions got him dragged into the hall by the short hairs on the back of his neck and beaten with a paddle that had holes drilled through it. Also, being punished by your teacher resulted in further punishment by your parents after school. Surprise surprise, he became a drunk with a major problem with authority.
In my elementary school we sang Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel for some reason. S&G is one of my favorite bands but between this and watching The Graduate, I still can't listen to Sound of Silence without feeling annoyed
My 2nd grade teacher tried to force me to be right handed. My Mother said emphatically no. This was 1957 on a Naval Base in the Philippines. Forced conversion can cause stuttering and other neurological issues.
Along with the Pledge of Allegiance, the students would salute the flag with what came to be called the Bellamy Salute, which was dropped after Hitler co-opted a visually similar salute for the Nazi party in Germany.
I don't know if this is a weird or odd song, but here goes...I have even sung it to my granddaughters. K-K-K-Katie, Beautiful Katie, You're the only g-g-g-girl that I adore, When the m-m-moon shines, over the cow shed, I'll be waiting at the k-k-k-kitchen door.
I was born in 1966. My father was 16 years older than my mother. He was born in 1916 I think. He had 14 brothers and sisters and lived through the great depression fairly poor because there were so many mouths to feed. My mother nearly nnnnnnnever got sick. But one day she got sick and my dad made us sandwiches to go to school. We didn’t think about it until we got to school and looked at what they were and they were truly disgusting. One of my brothers got a peanut butter and mayo and one got peanut butter and mustard. I might’ve blocked out what he gave me because I have no clear memory. I came to believe years later at my fathers hungry life as a child of the great depression caused him to believe that if it was edible…it was food!
I had to write lines in school for misbehaving and there were definitely a few nuns with rulers walking around. They weren't allowed to hit us but the threat was enough. And I graduated in 2010. Also, we only sang religious songs because catholic school.
Born in 1990 in eastern Europe literally experienced the No.10 and No.11 from the menu. No.16: my cousins in the rural area had different classes. Boys learned woodworking and other handy stuff, while girls learned stitching and making fried eggs (elementary school)
yes, in the 1960s-70s my mom did home economics and my dad did woodworking. at my elementary school, there were neither, but in high school (2012-2016) the following classes were open to all students: auto shop, fashion, foods & nutrition, and parenting.
I remember The Gettysburg Address put to music in the fifth grade. In general, I walked to school. I don't remember busses, but there probably were, for some schools.
@@GoddessFourWinds Mill Valley Calif was growing rapidly in the 50s. They kept redrawing the boundaries for each school. I ended up attending every school but one (Strawberry), at that time. Looking back, I must have taken a bus to Alto. But I had a bicycle for Tam Valley.
in elementary choir we sang good morning starshine from hair. this was the 70s but still.. nibby nabba nooby, sibby sabba sooby, la la la, lo lo. there’s just no good that can come from that
The only song I remember singing in school as a kid was a Christmas song fighting over what kind of Christmas Tree to have that year (real or plastic).
I would love to know where the three forbidden (imperius, cruciatus, and avada kedavra) curses got their names. Also I would love to know if the names of people like Albus Dumbledore or Bellatrix Lestrange have any meaning.
Imperius (imperitare) and Cruciatus (cruciare) literally mean to order/ to command and to torture in Latin. However, I'm not sure about Avada Kedavra, but I believe it is Aramaic or so and means let the thing be destroyed. It is also in some way connected to abracadabra. Albus means white in Latin and dumbledore is an old English word for bumblebee. Bellatrix means female warrior in Latin and a star in the constellation of Orion has the same name. Lestrange apparently came from France where it was given to people new to a place. Which makes sense, since l'étranger means the foreigner/ stranger.
All the spells are Latin or Anglicized Latin because it's English wizards casting spells in English, and since Latin is a dead language, it offers the same benefits to codification it offers the sciences. The words are a memory trick to tap into the parts of their brains needed to focus whatever they need to focus to cast the spells. The waving of a wand is a similar trick, connecting muscle memory to the memory of the feelings necessary to cast the spells. Sometimes you need a specific thing to channel the magic through, and sometimes that thing needs to be magic itself. Sometimes a wand is both those things. It's why dungeons and dragons uses Vocal, Somatic (hand movement), and Material components. There's a fourth component, that no one mentions until it's missing, and that's time. All of this put together is what lends gravity to wandless, completely unaided, BIG magic. The level of competency needed to do big stuff is beyond most people. But some folks are gifted in flashy ways, while others have equivalent or even greater power different scales. The gifted herbologist grows the best portion ingredients needed to cure an Auror that was cursed but would go on to heal and catch the villain that hurt him and uncover some dangerous magical mcguffin that grows plants. The best magic is when you find friends that make you feel that way all the time, no matter what. It's a god awful cliche, but I stand by what I said.
The original reason for making children write with their right hands was because the pens uses were fountain pens. If you wrote with your left hand you would drag it through the wet ink and smear everything. Unfortunately the rational was not clearly understood by all educators and was reduced to cultural biases.
I hope you can forgive the shameless self-promotion, but we actually just published a special edition! Not sure if they're still available, but you can check here: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mental-floss-2019-special-print-issue/34041432?ean=9781616884130&st=AFF&SID=Barnes+%26+Noble+-+Top+100%3A+Book+Bestsellers&2sid=Skimlinks_8231397_NA&sourceId=AFFSkimlinks&cjevent=1427c6f1cfdf11e9820d04940a24060b&dpid=tekz25v83
my mother was left handed in the 1930s and got her knuckles smacked with a ruler her mother put a small sugar sack on her left hand which forced her to use her right ,she became ambidextrous
Did anyone else do shurley english? There were little songs about grammar and similar. A sentence, sentence, sentence is complete, complete, complete when five simple rules it meets, meets, meets...
In elementary school, we had to learn how to play Sakura (the Japanese classical piece) on at least one instrument (kiddie instruments like hand bells) and sing it in Japanese and English.
And then, having been in school in 2001, we did a LOT of patriotic songs all of a sudden.
thank you to the sound guy, finally an intro that isnt twice as loud as the speaking voice
1. As a kid, I was taught to look through the circulars as the school year approached and find the best price for my school supplies. Took a great pride in it. Can remember that prices at Target tended to be lowest about two weeks before school started, after which they would go back up again.
2. Corporal punishment was still a thing in Texas when I started teaching in 1990. When I was a kid in the '70s, it was quite common even down to first grade to have "licks" (swats on the behind with a wooden paddle) administered for tardies - usually administered after the third unexcused tardy.
The language bit got me. It really explains why so few Americans speak a second language fluently. Even though these laws don't exist anymore, the culture persists.
yeah, when i heard that i was like "haha very american". in canada (in english-speaking provinces), french is mandatory from grades 4-12. french immersion, in which half your classes are taught in french, is optional and can start as early as grade 1. some schools offer a program in which all classes are taught in french except for english class. quebec students generally speak english even better than we speak french.
@@elisecode2212 That's great! I wish US schools did that with Spanish. I regret that I took German instead of Spanish, because Spanish would have been much more useful.
I think the lack of second languages has more to do with not really having the need for them unlike in Europe where a trip to another coutry with a different language is like going to another state here.
having a child write a single phrase over and over again....... yeah thats still pretty common in the UK. not really a harsh punishment tbh,
Yep. My school (as of about 6 years ago - and most likely it's still the case) had "Punishment Exercises" which were like homework that was just one phrase over and over again. Which we also used for detentions, on the rare occassion that detentions were deemed necessary. (For context, this was in Scotland.)
I used four pencils at once. Don't remember ever getting caught.
Had a teacher who gave "lines" but it was actually a 3 paragraph essay on self respect. He expected it to be written verbatim. I got assigned 6 lines once and was very motivated to not get caught misbehaving again.
I've never heard of that here (I finished school 8 years ago now in Yorkshire). Our detentions were usually either completing homework, or just sat in silence. Some teachers set extra work, but usually only if they thought you needed a bit more practice.
Yup, my English teacher in school was known as "500 Lines" as she'd dole it out to you in that quantity everytime... she'd then tell you the line which was usually something like.. "I promise to pay better attention in class" The priests in my school would usually give you something in Latin
We sang Puff the Magic Dragon, This Land is Your Land, and I'm Leaving on a Jetplane. I still remember how all of them go. ^^
I played those songs on the radio when two of them were current.
2:34 - Did she just describe writing lines as something from the weird, old days? And in the same breath as corporal punishment?
I'm 24 and I wrote lines as punishment for all kinds of things. It's still being used as structured punishment now. And why would that be a bad thing? It's just busy work.
Yeah, I'm 18 and my school still does "write offs". Granted, I'm from the southern town that features two private Christian schools, so things may have been a bit more traditional there, but this practice is still thriving.
I wouldn't say it's cruel or corporal, either. Often times doing it got you out of something more serious like detention 😂
I was confused about that as well. During my short stint as a substitute teacher 2 years ago, I witnessed teachers still giving out lines as a form of punishment.
I don't see it as being effective... but yeah, not akin to corporal punishment or distressing to most children, and it could easily just not be used for children with conditions like Aspergers or ADHD who would be likely to find it distressing.
Because you can't defend it actually making you better. shut up honestly
@@joshrauch9744 That's the whole point. The student needs to shut up. When you have one student who is ruining the learning experience for 24 other students, you have to find something that they hate that is still humane to punish them with.
The whole point is that the student hates the task and will stop doing the behavior that is distracting or even dangerous to the rest of the class... and yes, as a teacher you will come across students that will put the health of other students in danger, and you 100% need to find a way to punish said students to prevent further repeats of the behavior.
I only distinctly remember being taught a whole song about making a bowl of jello in early elementary school...I don't know what educational value that had, but sometimes I'll wake up at 4 in the morning with it randomly stuck in my head
The left handed thing, in my experience, wasn't some concern over learning issues. It was superstitious claptrap that suggested that a guardian angel guides the right hand and a devil guides the left hand.
JoRiver11 so is this connected in someway to the dexter and sinister sides of heraldic imagery?
@@inkdreams5113 Not sure about that, but there's some interesting info about the Latin etymology (sinistra = left) and associations with evil here, though our fact checker would want me to say that none of it has been FC'ed. english.stackexchange.com/questions/39092/how-did-sinister-the-latin-word-for-left-handed-get-its-current-meaning
My brother's Kindergarten teacher wanted to try to make him right-handed. My mom had him switched to the other teacher.
Left handed, we are just wired different.
Also Gauche is French for Left. How gauche.
In preschool I was trained out of being left handed. I still remember getting time out for "holding the scissors wrong."
I'm a college freshman now, so this is still probably going on in some places. Also, my mom and my girlfriend are both lefties.
lefties unite! stupid fucking people bruh
Honestly that sounds borderline abusive.
I got in trouble for using my left hand, scolded for writing my letters wrong, holding the scissors wrong - I'm fairly ambidextrous now but still left handed... needless to say I don't do well with scissors...
I've never heard of "Fifty Nifty" before, lol. Also, we were still saying the Pledge in the 80s. We sang High Hopes, Ragg Mopp, and of course Xmas songs plus O Hannukah every December.
But the one 100 years ago didn't contain the words "One nation under God."
In elementary we sang “This land Is Your Land”
In grade school and junior high we sang pop songs of the '70s. One song I remember that was strange was the theme from M*A*S*H. The name was, "Suicide is painless."
I guess kids were tougher in the 1970s.
"Turkey's United, no people invited
Turkey's United, no people, please!"
Can't remember the name, but it was a Thanksgiving song about Turkey's going on strike and suggesting we eat pizza instead?! lol
Out of context, it just sounds like a Turkish anti-immigration rally.
my old school had girls and boys doors. we didn’t use them like that, but the old signs were still there.
Interesting, which state is this school located in?
We sang "Go tell Aunt Rhody" Six-year-old me found a song about a dead goose a bit disturbing.
It surprises me how recent the left hand thing was done. My boss, who is 37, had this happen to him and as a result can write with both hands, but still prefers his left hand.
I was taught the "Utah Train Song" in which you name all the counties in Utah. I still remember it.
Edit: I had to sing it just to reassure myself that I still did. 😋
As a treat at the end of our music class, we got to listen to Bon Jovi's Livin on a Prayer. Just that song. It was cued up on a tape, and we danced like crazy.
This actually sounds like a pretty awesome use of 4 minutes of class time. More physical activity in schools and semi-structured play!
My sister had a teacher who tried to "train" her not to use her left hand until we complained about it and the principal told the teacher she had to stop.
"the ghost of John" was a weird eerie song to sing as a second grader in school. A ghost with no skin..no nightmares at my house
Matthew Sneed how dare you pull this song out of the back of my memory. Why can I remember all the words
Oh yeah! Was that the version with the weird synthesizer sounds? I thought that was so bizarre in 1973.
I second grade we always sang a patriotic song after the pledge like "My country Tis of Thee" or "Grand Ole Flag" . My grew up in New Orleans they didn't have school buses school kids just rode the street car or city bus.
We sang the likes of " Yankee Doodle" and "To Dream The Impossible Dream" in the school choir, but we also sang really weird songs in class sometimes. The only ones I can remember was a song about brushing your teeth at every hour and the following:
"Down by the bay, where the watermelons grow,
Back to my home I dare not go
For if I do, my mother will say,
(followed by something ridiculous like)
Have you ever seen a llama, wearing pajamas
Down by the bay"
We had a "baby blanket" for misbehavior that was put on you in front of the class and then you had to go sit in the coat closet (a fairly large place, not really a closet). This was in the early 50's.
My dad (born in 1972) quit school in the sixth grade. My mom (born in 1974) quit high school on three separate occasions. Once in 10th, 11th, and 12th grade.
It’s truly a miracle my two brothers and I ever graduated (2011, 2013, and 2016). And now my middle brother is getting ready to graduate from college in the spring. ❤️
4th grade music. Mrs. Powell. "Lean on Me." Over and over again.
When I was 7yo, my school gave us toothbrush that we had to bring daily & we are to brush our teeth after recess...
HOT CROSS BUNS!!!!!!!!!!!!
I remember reading the script book for the first Fantastic Beasts movie and noticing that the spell Newt uses to shatter the window to the jewelry store that the Niffler is pilfering is "Finestra," which is literally just the Italian word for window. I like to imagine Italian wizards shattering glass every time someone mentions a window.
I know "50 Nifty," but I appreciate the Animaniac's songs even more.
YES! Might need to go watch that video a few dozen times...
My dad, born in 1934 in rural Mississippi, started first grade at age four. He earned a Bachelor's and a Master's degrees, as well as a doctorate. As for music, I remember singing "Age of Aquarius" and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" in Phoenix, Arizona, circa 1970.
I remember singing "Sabinchen war ein Frauenzimmer" in third or fourth grade, but only because the song is so messed up. It's about a maid, being killed by an alcoholic shoemaker, because he stole silverware from her employers and she was upset about it. The moral of the story? Do not trust shoemakers. Wtf.
Germans love dark themes in music! I'm going to have to look that one up now, thanks!
Look at one of the most popular German songs ever to be translated into English that became hits for multiple artists; "Mack The Knife", about a murdering, rapist thug. The English version is a little less brutal.
I learned the original version for my German class in H.S. but I don't remember much of it now. I liked how the German version starts with "The shark has teeth and he wears them in his face, but Macheath has a knife, but the knife you do not see."
My favorite English language singer of "Mack" was Ella Fitzgerald, especially a live version where she forgets the lyrics and just makes stuff up until she breaks into the scat she was so famous for. Brilliant!
We sang lots of songs in Elementary School...though the most notable one was when I was in 5th grade and one of the teachers taught us all to sing "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" We had to say 'darn' instead of 'damn' and we didn't completely understand all the lyrics, but we had a good time singing it at least. Pretty sure we sang it during one of our musical performances for our parents the school seemed obsessed with putting on every year. That and "Yellow Submarine".
I’ve always loved the wordplay in Harry Potter. Diagon Alley (diagonally) and the Mirror of Erised (Desire) are two of my favorite examples!
i noticed those immediately, but similarly, did you notice that knockturn alley = nocturnally? my dad pointed it out.
Elise Code Sure did, so clever of her really! As soon as I realized the wordplay going on I started rereading and rewatching.
I remember singing "Waltzing Matilda" in elementary school 😁
We sang "Dixie Land" in school. Although I lived in Ca. at the time and had no idea what or where Dixie Land was.
A song with all the prepositions to the tune of "Yankee Doodle Dandee"
Anyone remember singing "Baby Beluga"?
Also, up until about 1960 you were required to be able to swim in order to graduate.
Not everywhere
I feel like I don’t mind this
at my elementary school (2000s) we had swimming as a class once a week. i've never even heard of another school with a pool, so apparently it was quite uncommon. the school building was from the 1800s so that might be the reason.
@@jupiterblue2776
I remember this being a thing in NYC as well. It was probably very universal back then.
That is still a requirement at some colleges.
3rd grade in 1960. My favorite song was The Ants Go Marching, which is very long. In 6th grade we sang Hay Ho, Nobody Home and Celito Linda. In 8th grade I received 3 whacks with a paddle on my posterior for refusing to do what a teacher told me to do because, he would not tell why I had to do it.
In my head I was thinking before the video started "Hi I'm John Green welcome to my salon and this is Mental Floss. Did you know _____" instead.
Those were the days.
My stepdad who started school in the late 60s said that the nuns that worked in the school would hit his knuckles because he was left handed and the nuns would say “the devil is in his hands”
Yikes. Hopefully that mindset is out-of-favor now. My mom was hit on her knuckles by the nuns, too, and she wasn't a lefty!
My Grandma told me how she was beaten for writing with her left hand. Oh and wingaurdia leviosum
Number 23, "Billy Don't Be A Hero" is a protest song against the Vietnam War. The ending, where the girl trashes the letter from the government commending the now-dead Billy for his heroism, is a classic mic-drop from that era.
"The caissons go rolling along"...and "Some one stole the cookie from the cookie jar", terrible choices for Grade 6 music class, in 1984!
I just remember that our teacher made us sing a bunch of songs with curse words awkwardly censored/replaced
On corporal punishment. It still happens in the rural US, with regularity. I have been beaten, more than a few times, just because I knew the people involved in the infraction. I didn't even know and was never told, why I was being beaten. I just was. That was in grade school (grades K-4) Later, in high school (grades 9-12) I was also beaten, just for not doing enough push-ups and also, again, for being too near an actual problem. I witnessed a teacher literally lift a young boy off of the floor with his impact of a "spank". We also used to have a, teacher enforced, rule that if you did too much, you'd be spanked with an electric paddle. It was just a normal paddle (as if that should be a thing) with a cord duct taped to it. I, to be honest, have an extreme tolerance for pain because of crap like this. Thanks?
Songs we sang at school:
Lemon tree
Seven nation army
Ode to joy
And yes, Für Elise
Vocal practice can be weird
We sang "Deutschland Uber Alles", "Bonnie Blue Flag" and Bach's Goldberg Variations.
@@shanewright2772 You sang "Deutschland über alles"? When and where did you grow up, Germany in the 1940s? :D
Für Elise has lyrics? TIL. I only knew it as an instrumental piano track.
@@jangxx No. I just went to a very, hmmmm, conservative school.
@@jangxx it doesn't have lyrics. We sang the notes. Yes. That IS pathetic
I was "made" right-handed by school. Possibly because I already have a physical issue, Spina Bifida. I wasn't tortured or humiliated. They just strongly encouraged me every time I tried to use my left hand.
We sang Michael Row Your Boat Ashore.
4:28 fact 17 is wrong. Yes, Brown v Board was passed in the 50s but school segregation lasted until around 1960.
In my elementary school, they used to put the names of kids who got spanked on the wooden paddle; I worked at the elementary school I had gone to one summer for a teen summer work program, I found the stack of paddles(they retired them when there was no more room for names). My half-brother above me name was all over them; some of the paddles didn't have his name on them because he was not attending that school at that time.
I LOVE THE NEXT VIDEO ALREADY
I'm kind of a hobby linguist, had latin, french and english at my german school, skipped HP because of raving reviews by people whose opinions i didn't like...met my gf, who is in LOVE with it, watched it, agreed with her over the linguistics and cinematography of it! I mean " sectum sempra " ? How do you not appreciate that?
Can NOT wait.
Wait I thought my text books were from 100 years ago
Songs I sang as a kid in school in New Zealand: fish and chips (yeah!), ma is white (a Māori colour song), school is number one, Alice the camel, Oma Rapeti (in Māori) , Tutira mai nga iwi (also Māori), and few more I can remember parts of something about a hamburger and a fly, and one a keas ripping of window wipers rubber....
i get up in the 90s and we had to "do lines" (writing same sentence over over again up to usually 100, 200 but up 1000x each) i always thought it was a waste of my notebook paper, i thought this was normal, i dont consider this to be that bad at all.
My most distinct memory of a song learned in Elementary school is when we learned "God Bless the USA" by Lee Greenwood, mostly because it had that awkward 1 beat rest that tripped up so many small elementary school students who didn't quite have a grasp on music theory yet.
I left school in 1990, Corporal Punishment had only just been banned in public schools but I was in private school where your parents consented in the contract to allow corporal punishment.... I often got what we called "shots", which was a small leather strap across both hands 5 times each. Hurt like a b....
Tbh I would’ve loved night school as a high schooler, waking up at 4:30 to get ready and catch the bus and then stay after school for sports, theater, and marching band tired me out
The two songs I remember most are one called "Senor Don Gato" about a cat (obviously) who is in love with a pretty lady cat but falls from the roof and dies (only temporarily though. After all, it was a kids song.) There was one other that for the life of me I can't recall it's name, about the solar system. I've looked up SO many iterations of the few lines I remember (First comes the sun, the center of the solar system.... it gives us heat and light. It's mostly made, of hydrogen and helium, *something* is what makes it burn so bright. Solar system, something something something..... making up our cosmic stew.) But I can't find it ANYWHERE and I've been trying to find it again for 10 YEARS! off and on. (Graduated in 06', I think we sang it around 1998-2000? If that helps anyone willing to help me.)
Our music teacher always had us sing " dead skunk in the middle of the road" lol
In middle school, a public school in the Bay Area of California, in 2000, my music teacher taught us “hava nagila.”
9th grade where I went to school male teachers would take 2 boys who had gotten into a fistfight to a room attached to the gym. There they put on boxing gloves and would resume the fight. Other male teachers would attend the private event maybe they even wagered but that I do not know but it seems likely. This was about 1970 and the school was a fairly violent place, the town was half and half-Hispanic and White. Agricultural community and not quite a suburb. We had farmer/cowboy types "ropers", long hair types "dopers", "squares" and "jocks". Rifle racks in pickup trucks were common complete with rifles, shotguns which nobody used on another person, hunting was popular, ducks and pheasant. We could but ammo at 7/11 right off the shelf, 50 cents for a box of .22lr.
We actually had classes like Civics and American History. There was no racism but you could be called "honky" or "beaner" or "nigger" when someone was mad about something. These things always simmered down as there was life to be lived and nobody got hung up on one thing for very long.
I know for sure that a student whose grades suddenly nose-dived the problem was something wrong at their home-the parents. Blaming the student never helped but school did not interfere with the home life of a student.
Don’t forget that if you were a little kid and you broke the rules that your teacher could literally beat your back side
I still remember some color spelling songs from kindergarten. R-E-D red R-E-D red, I can spell 'red', I can spell 'red', fire trucks are red, stop signs are red too. R-E-D...R-E-D
One for all the primary and secondary colors.
In middle school I did walk to school up hill both ways. They weren't that steep though. It was something that I didn't realise though until college.
I went to school in San Francisco in the 1980's. All music teacher were old hippies and they made us sing hippy folk songs.
I couldn't imagine using a slate for anything but basic topics. I still study a lot of STEM mostly math and electrical engineering even though I'm in my 30s and I find even standard sized sheets of paper with a well pointed pen/pencil don't leave me enough room. Somebody really needs to make parchments/scrolls for math.
We sang "Bad, bad Leroy Brown" in fifth and sixth grade music classes. It was a class favorite, which gives you an idea how old I am.
I remember singing "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean", "Turkey in the Straw" and "Guess What I Saw At The Zoo Today". There were many others I don't recall.
#10 my dad went to a catholic school as a child in the 60s and regularly got his ass beat by nuns; the knuckle smack was for minor infractions, like laughing... the more severe infractions got him dragged into the hall by the short hairs on the back of his neck and beaten with a paddle that had holes drilled through it. Also, being punished by your teacher resulted in further punishment by your parents after school. Surprise surprise, he became a drunk with a major problem with authority.
In my elementary school we sang Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel for some reason. S&G is one of my favorite bands but between this and watching The Graduate, I still can't listen to Sound of Silence without feeling annoyed
My 2nd grade teacher tried to force me to be right handed. My Mother said emphatically no. This was 1957 on a Naval Base in the Philippines. Forced conversion can cause stuttering and other neurological issues.
Being given an assignment to write a sentence over and over is NOT corporal punishment.
I still remember the words to "Naughty Pussy Cat" which seems to be a theme of old timey school lessons
We sang Puff The Magic Dragon. It was the 70’s. And parents were oblivious.
Along with the Pledge of Allegiance, the students would salute the flag with what came to be called the Bellamy Salute, which was dropped after Hitler co-opted a visually similar salute for the Nazi party in Germany.
I don't know if this is a weird or odd song, but here goes...I have even sung it to my granddaughters.
K-K-K-Katie, Beautiful Katie,
You're the only g-g-g-girl that I adore,
When the m-m-moon shines, over the cow shed,
I'll be waiting at the k-k-k-kitchen door.
I was born in 1966. My father was 16 years older than my mother. He was born in 1916 I think. He had 14 brothers and sisters and lived through the great depression fairly poor because there were so many mouths to feed.
My mother nearly nnnnnnnever got sick.
But one day she got sick and my dad made us sandwiches to go to school. We didn’t think about it until we got to school and looked at what they were and they were truly disgusting. One of my brothers got a peanut butter and mayo and one got peanut butter and mustard. I might’ve blocked out what he gave me because I have no clear memory.
I came to believe years later at my fathers hungry life as a child of the great depression caused him to believe that if it was edible…it was food!
A hundred years ago everything was diffrent not just schools. 🤫
Writing a single phrase over and over again isn't from one hundred years ago. I'm 34 and I remember doing that in third grade.
really? i'm 21 and that's always been considered a weird thing of the past at my schools. must have petered out in the 90s.
I had to write lines in school for misbehaving and there were definitely a few nuns with rulers walking around. They weren't allowed to hit us but the threat was enough. And I graduated in 2010. Also, we only sang religious songs because catholic school.
My favorite Potter spell was always 'Nox' I just liked the way it sounded. But the unforgivable curses are always interestingly aweful
? ?
In 6th grade, our music teacher decided we needed to learn the fight songs of colleges. 😜
The song I liked singing as a kid was leaving ol texas... and deep in the heart of texas... I bet you can't guess where I was raised (thats a joke).
...Utah?
Born in 1990 in eastern Europe
literally experienced the No.10 and No.11 from the menu.
No.16: my cousins in the rural area had different classes. Boys learned woodworking and other handy stuff, while girls learned stitching and making fried eggs (elementary school)
yes, in the 1960s-70s my mom did home economics and my dad did woodworking. at my elementary school, there were neither, but in high school (2012-2016) the following classes were open to all students: auto shop, fashion, foods & nutrition, and parenting.
I remember The Gettysburg Address put to music in the fifth grade. In general, I walked to school. I don't remember busses, but there probably were, for some schools.
Usually, you have to live outside a certain radius to ride buses.
@@GoddessFourWinds Mill Valley Calif was growing rapidly in the 50s. They kept redrawing the boundaries for each school. I ended up attending every school but one (Strawberry), at that time. Looking back, I must have taken a bus to Alto. But I had a bicycle for Tam Valley.
in elementary choir we sang good morning starshine from hair. this was the 70s but still.. nibby nabba nooby, sibby sabba sooby, la la la, lo lo. there’s just no good that can come from that
The only song I remember singing in school as a kid was a Christmas song fighting over what kind of Christmas Tree to have that year (real or plastic).
My mother is in her 50s and has told me the nuns at her catholic school hit people on the knuckles with a ruler
I would love to know where the three forbidden (imperius, cruciatus, and avada kedavra) curses got their names. Also I would love to know if the names of people like Albus Dumbledore or Bellatrix Lestrange have any meaning.
Imperius (imperitare) and Cruciatus (cruciare) literally mean to order/ to command and to torture in Latin. However, I'm not sure about Avada Kedavra, but I believe it is Aramaic or so and means let the thing be destroyed. It is also in some way connected to abracadabra.
Albus means white in Latin and dumbledore is an old English word for bumblebee.
Bellatrix means female warrior in Latin and a star in the constellation of Orion has the same name. Lestrange apparently came from France where it was given to people new to a place. Which makes sense, since l'étranger means the foreigner/ stranger.
We sang "What will we do with the Drunken Sailor?" in elementary school. "Put him in the bed with the Captain's daughter' 😳
All the spells are Latin or Anglicized Latin because it's English wizards casting spells in English, and since Latin is a dead language, it offers the same benefits to codification it offers the sciences.
The words are a memory trick to tap into the parts of their brains needed to focus whatever they need to focus to cast the spells.
The waving of a wand is a similar trick, connecting muscle memory to the memory of the feelings necessary to cast the spells.
Sometimes you need a specific thing to channel the magic through, and sometimes that thing needs to be magic itself. Sometimes a wand is both those things.
It's why dungeons and dragons uses Vocal, Somatic (hand movement), and Material components. There's a fourth component, that no one mentions until it's missing, and that's time.
All of this put together is what lends gravity to wandless, completely unaided, BIG magic. The level of competency needed to do big stuff is beyond most people. But some folks are gifted in flashy ways, while others have equivalent or even greater power different scales.
The gifted herbologist grows the best portion ingredients needed to cure an Auror that was cursed but would go on to heal and catch the villain that hurt him and uncover some dangerous magical mcguffin that grows plants.
The best magic is when you find friends that make you feel that way all the time, no matter what.
It's a god awful cliche, but I stand by what I said.
The original reason for making children write with their right hands was because the pens uses were fountain pens. If you wrote with your left hand you would drag it through the wet ink and smear everything. Unfortunately the rational was not clearly understood by all educators and was reduced to cultural biases.
I had to wear a dunce cap in 4th grade for a day, for talking to someone who asked me about my leather loop belt, in 1973!
My sister, In kindergarten (about 1966) learned “Little Brown Jug”.” That is a song about moonshine. This was a catholic school!
Haha I learned (an apparent school-safe-version of) "Little Brown Jug" roughly 25 years later and didn't know it was about moonshine until right now.
You are a very good presenter, please do more hosting!
HP spells: obviously 'Wingardium leviOsa'
(I'd say 'expelliarmus but I think that one speaks for itself...)
Thanks for the suggsetion. Check out ua-cam.com/video/nUsLAXpinj8/v-deo.html
I MISS THIS MAGAZINE!!!!
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my mother was left handed in the 1930s and got her knuckles smacked with a ruler her mother put a small sugar sack on her left hand which forced her to use her right ,she became ambidextrous
Did anyone else do shurley english? There were little songs about grammar and similar.
A sentence, sentence, sentence is complete, complete, complete when five simple rules it meets, meets, meets...