Word of the day: orthography (the box - pt 2!)

orthography

noun, plural orthographies for 3–5.

1.

the art of writing words with the proper letters, according to accepted usage; correct spelling.

 

Imagine my surprise as I continued on with my de-cluttering and I found another blue box!  Exactly like the other one, but this one had a tiny note paper taped on top- with the combination!  (I tried it on the destroyed box from yesterday and it worked on that box too. If I had just been a little patient and found both boxes I could have opened them both).
 

 

This second box was obviously tended by Mom.  It contains lots of great papers: enlistment and discharge documents from both of them (Navy for Dad and Marines for Mom). The booklet from their wedding, complete with a full picture of the pastor in the front cover! Original Social Security cards, teaching certificate and more.  So fun to read through it all, very neatly preserved.

 

One of the real treasures was a bundle of Mom's report cards - all the way from 1st (!) grade back in the 1930's through her junior college/teaching school days.  From early on her highest grade was in Orthography.  Now I know why she loved writing so much.  But imagine my surprise from the high school and college report cards to see C's and D's!!  The woman that gave me so much grief if/when my grades dropped to a B and she had these!  Hmmmmmmm.  I also LOVED on the high school card: "whispers too much" - for 2 grading periods!  Too much fun. The elementary cards have wonderful words printed on the cards: instructions for parents, pupils and life guidance in general.  Imagine if we held our children (and parents!) to these high standards today - I believe our world would be much different.  The Pledge of Allegiance was printed proudly on the front of each card.

 

 

The instructions to the pupil on the front of the high school card are very interesting.  I love #4.  "Cultivate promptness, energy and patient industry. They are worth more to you than money or influence in securing success in life."
 

 

The words on the elementary card are also becoming a lost relic: these days it seems the teachers are expected to do all, our parents are so consumed with busy-ness and hectic lives that their children don't witness the "home and school" working together.  Also, for parents to visit school these days, to see what is happening in the classroom takes an act of congress, or at least a stack of signed papers to gain admittance to the teacher - oh and an appointment.  We are so overrun with violence and terror that our schools need to be on lockdown, so very sad.

 

 

I think this one got to me most of all. The back of the high school report card.  Notice it is to be read, signed and returned EACH WEEK!  By the time I was in high school in the 1970's our 'progress reports' came out each 6 weeks, and now it really takes effort to see what your student is doing,  we don't want to 'abuse the student's rights'.  The suggestion to talk over the report with the child, each week - in high school - imagine if we still had that kind of communication in our families.

 

 

I know there are many families today that do a fantastic job with communication and being involved with each other, but sadly we have lost some of these virtues and the accountability with our children.  It has been fun to explore these boxes, and I think what I take away from it is a greater desire to teach my grand daughters some of the values that are slowly disappearing from our culture.  I want America to be great again, like the country it was when my parents went to war in 1944 to secure our future.  Do I want to go back to the difficulty they endured? No.  But I'm sorely afraid that if we don't change as a nation things will be much worse.