Goofus and Gallant Teach History and Ethnography—Dishes, Checkers, and Li'l Bros

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On this date on Round and Square's History 

14 April 2013—China's Lunar Calendar 2013 04-14
14 April 2012—Fieldnotes From History: Temple Divination
14 April 2011—Beginnings: Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

[s] Highlights Magazine 1959

You probably didn't see this coming. Here is one of the oddest pedagogical experiments in the twentieth century, and it makes the Republic of China (on Taiwan) primary school readers look almost tame in comparison (well, sometimes). It began as early as 1936, depending on the hoary sources you investigate. By 1948, it was a part of Highlights magazine for children, and I got my copy every week (several decades after 1948, I might add) at Randall School in Madison, Wisconsin, back when the Badgers lost eighty percent of their football games. 

[b] Good Boy

This series will teach us a great deal about culture, society...and history. I lived some of it. I would be lying if I said that I didn't aspire to be Gallant...even as I recognized the stupid lack of irony in all of these unreflective adults-writing-for-children-DIDACTIC posts. Still, I wanted to be Gallant. W...T...you decide.

Remember Goofus and Gallant? 

Well, I do, and I suspected even back in the day that those monthly Mr. Jerk engages with Mr. Cherub would be the stuff of analysis, at least when I knew more about life. 

The introduction to this series will have more of my thoughts on these matters, but let's take a specific look at a few issues here. 

[c] Gallant RF

Even though it's covered in the introduction, let's remember the gendering of it all. "Good Girl/Bad Girl" had profoundly different connotations in 1959, and I suspect that we haven't come all that far in our reckoning as a society, fifty-five years later. So there we have it—Goofus is a little jerk; Gallant is domesticated to such a fever pitch that he has become a cartoon poodle. There is so much to discuss here about "overreach" that it will take many posts just to cover all of  that. 

But what about today's specifics? "You wash dishes? I don't." And on it goes in terms of inability to read the currents of social acceptance...all of the way up to the little brother. Even American society doesn't have much tolerance for people who openly mouth dislike for the very existence of siblings.

And still, here is my thinking right now. Isn't there a kind of male model of success (I would argue that it is a skewed one, and I hate it) that privileges Goofus's arrogance? Even in academia, and certainly in politics and business, isn't there a kind of caché—a sort of frustrated fascination—with the jerk who is just smart enough to lord his advantage over others? Think about it.

Feel free to comment on this. I am just saying, that I think American society has a kind of perverse admiration for Goofus. 

I could name names, but I won't (for now). Just sayin'...

[d] "I said 'checkers'...RF