Schools of yesteryear and now.

Article - thanks to Vijayan M E
Recently my 8 year old Son, Ashwin, took an interesting book from the Dublin City Public Library "How have things changed? At School"

The book takes us through 11 very interesting subjects. Being an Irish book, the pictures and details relate to the Class rooms here in Ireland and I remember the School/Class room I went  Can you visualize the School/Class room that you went to and the present day School/Class room that your children or friends go to?...

I will cover the first 5 subjects for the moment

(1) "how have schools changed?"This Chapter gives the pictures of Schools of 1910 in a big Gothic building and it seems that then, most children went to School until the age of 12, whereas now they have to go to school until they are 18.The building itself have changed from the Gothic  huge scary ones having a bell tower,chimneys....to the ultra modern designed schools, in fact Special Needs Schools are more focused on the design to accommodate, wheel chairs,lifts,wide bathroom's, low urinals........

(2)"the classroom" It seems that children sat in rows on wooden desks and everybody faced towards the front, the windows were high up so that children could not look out of them and the few pictures that hung on the class room walls were of war Heroes or big maps ......... These days children sit around the tables in groups having a carpet area where the whole class can sit down together and also a play area in the class room for all to play together.The windows are large making the Classrooms brighter and allowing natural light to fall in the room and the whole class room is decorated with their own pictures and displays.

(3)lessons - In the past classes were told to chant and sing lists over and over again to help them learn facts by heart and it was very common for pupils, then, to spend hours in silence copying work from the blackboard or their textbooks. Now my son uses dominoes to learn maths, work out shapes/colours etc etc with lego, and instead of sitting at their desks, children move in groups around the class.What is more interesting is that text books and Blackboards have been replaced by computers and interactive  white boards and also iPads.

(4)Subjects  - In the past lessons were mainly reading, writing or arithmetic and the local language along with English. Boys and girls were split up and sometimes boys would do woodwork lessons while the girls would do needlework or cookery. A modern day School has the boys and girls being taught together and more and more subjects to learn and with better equipment's PE and Music...

(5)pens and paper (very interesting) - Earlier writing,was very basic. Learnt writing and sums scratching on slates,where it could be rubbed off so that the slate could be used over and over again.Some of the rich used a steel nibbed pen that had to be dipped in ink. Schools had the hole in the desk where ink was kept.Today, it is all bright - colourful pens, pencils, rulers, erasers,  more of cartoon or comic characters....children type out their work or assignment on laptop/computers in class. Schools have an "IT Suite" where the whole class can work on computers...in fact i call my son a "tech-boy" at age 8 because he uses computers and such technology interactive products more than me.

I will get back with the remaining points very soon

signing off for the moment

Vijayan for VAT family. Eire