FOSTER GRADE SCHOOL
(Where we learned Geography, too!)

They called it grammar school back then,
so many years ago;
And I can still remember when
our desks were in a row,
Lined up by grades from one through eight
in that old two-room school
Where we were taught to calculate
and mind the Golden Rule.

So different are the schools today!
There kindergarteners learn
To type on keyboards as they play,
And teachers are not stern.
The homework, if it isn’t fun,
gets lost in a backpack,
And lessons often go undone,
while parents scream, “Alack!”

Though there aren’t simple answers to
the problems that we face,
Why don’t we try, before we’re through,
to swallow our disgrace;
Teach kids to read before they write;
To Three-R basics stick,
Til they have learned, as well they might,
Eighth grade arithmetic?

-- Helen Ewoldsen --5-5-98

Foster Grade School, in the 1930’s, stood on the west side of a
county road in Mound Township, Warren County, Indiana. It had
no electricity, running water or plumbing. It was the depths of the
Great Depression. It no longer stands, but some of its graduates
are still trying to tell educators what’s wrong with the schools today.
HJE