[HN Gopher] Unpublished children's notebooks reveal poignant vie... ___________________________________________________________________ Unpublished children's notebooks reveal poignant view of history Author : pepys Score : 58 points Date : 2020-04-24 04:37 UTC (18 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.collectorsweekly.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.collectorsweekly.com) | djaque wrote: | I can't believe that the design of composition notebooks is | practically unchanged since the 1930's. Like I had that exact one | just a few years ago. I guess "if it aint broke then don't fix | it", but I thought somebody would have tried to change it at some | point. | anateus wrote: | Related: Onfim is a 13th century Novgorodian kid whose writing | exercises and drawings survived: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onfim | | I love these windows into the past. Student exercises also help | preserve a lot of cuneiform writings as semi-standardized | exercise texts can then be found in fragments all over | Mesopotamia. Here's an example of such a thing from Sumeria | around 4000 years ago, involving a kid being made to go to | school, being late, being punished, and admonished to study | diligently: http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/408 | codezero wrote: | This is absolutely fascinating. It's right up my alley and I | can't believe I haven't heard of Onfim before! | | Birch bark is so darn useful, I didn't even realize it was also | used as a writing surface, which makes all kinds of sense. | | Thanks for sharing this. | qzw wrote: | I know that good penmanship is no longer necessary, and my own | handwriting is rather inelegant due to reluctance to practice | when I was a child, but I can't help but feel a little sad that | beautiful handwriting is rarely seen anymore. | seph-reed wrote: | > A passage in this book by a second grader in Buenos Aires, | Argentina, reads: "Mr. Brown, owner of the building, gave us a | wonderful present. Eighty sprouts of trees. Our teachers explain | to us how we must plant them. Let's get to work! In a few years | we will walk in the shadow of beautiful paradises. But--I say to | my mother--when these trees are grown, I will not be in school | anymore. That is indeed true--said my mother--but it is also nice | to sow things so that others can enjoy them." | | I don't know if children still believe in creating paradises. | Maybe things were just as bad then and all children imagine such | things. Maybe this child is merely sheltered. But so confidently | looking forward to the future like this; it breaks my heart a | little bit. | saagarjha wrote: | What paradise is really depends on your point of view, doesn't | it? | dkmn wrote: | Thank you! A very welcome thread. It's been very interesting to | watch children during this current period of restriction... to | see both their internal robustness (in some ways improved, I | think, by the lack of constant ephemeral stimulation) and also | how they respond to the cultural memes and currents. | | E.g. as the author notes: "I think the most important thing that | emerges is the influence that adults try to have on children. | Even nowadays, in a subtler way, adults try to mold children and | make them adapt to the society they live in." ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2020-04-24 23:00 UTC)