The Splendor of Learning
An educational opportunity that taught me to recite the Presidents of the United States in order
As I continue writing this Substack I think back to moments in my life that define the person I have become. In Hillsdale County Michigan there was a remarkable educator, Jocelyn Jolayne D’Arkos who created a program she published as Splendor of Learning.
My brother David and I somehow ended up under her tutelage. Mrs. D’Arkos was a good friend of my father and as I have learned over the decades, boy did my father know a lot of interesting people.
I have distinct memories of my dad or mom driving us through the woods to her beautiful home, Stonecroft. There were news articles that were shared in the past few years in a Facebook group I am a member of that focuses on the history of my hometown of Jonesville, Michigan. One such article stated that Mrs. D’Arkos had developed ways to teach the “Unteachables.” Neither my brother and I were unteachable. I had taught myself to read when I was three. Apparently I recited the graphic details of a crime in the newspaper and since I wasn’t watching the 6’oclock news at three, my neighbor figured out that I could read the newspaper.
We would go to Stonecroft and work on different subjects. It never felt like schoolwork. Well, little did for me, I usually did my homework in high school during class. I had a serious wake-up call when I transfered to Interlochen Arts Academy my junior year and actually had to learn to study. That is a topic for another time. Back to the fun at Stonecroft.
We would take workbook pages and put them between the sheets in onion skin notebooks and trace the pictures and text into our books. It might be a poem, or math problems (minus the answers you had to do the math). The culmination of each visit to Stonecroft was being lined up and reciting the Presidents of the United States of America in order..in groups of five. The current President we always added their middle name.
When I was four and my brother was seven or eight we were taken to a Detroit television station along with a teenager and Mrs. D’Arkos was interviewed about her method then we performed the Presidents’ recitation.
I still have one of the copies of Splendor in Learning in book form. It was a wonderful time in my education. A few years ago during the pandemic I revived my ability of reciting the Presidents in order, only now I try to recite the middle names from FDR to present day. Gerald Ford trips me up and I add to his recitation the actual name he was given at birth, Leslie Lynch King, Jr. (there was domestic violence and his mother divorced young Leslie’s dad and when she remarried his name was changed to Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. after his stepfather.) If I can get through the 1840’s and 1850’s and Jerry Ford doesn’t trip me up I can still do it.
Mrs D’Arkos would be proud.
*Image found on the internet from Cardinal books ABAC/LAB London-Birr Ontario Canada which is selling a signed hardcopy of the two volumes.
Until next time when I revisit a few weeks late that time I won on Jeopardy! (baby…ooh,ooh ooh)
Leave the building