“Grandfather” Time

I came upon an old recording this morning of Johnny Cash singing a childhood favourite of mine. Perhaps this is a song you sang as a child too:

My Grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf,
So it stood ninety years on the floor.
It was taller by half than the old man himself,
Though it weighed not a pennyweight more.

It was bought on the morn of the day he was born,
It was always his treasure and pride,
And it stopped short, never to go again, when the old man died.
~ Grandfather’s Clock, Henry Clay Work (1876)

The part I always liked the best was the “tick tock, tick tock” in the refrain. Today I am much more struck by the song’s emphasis on the reliability of the clock, and on its special place in the life of the man. That clock was what we might call a “fixture” in the life of the old man. Like the grandfather clock my father brought home when I was in my teens, it stood witness to the events of his household and it was a reminder of those things in life that don’t change. I read somewhere that a grandfather clock is an “anchor” to a room. For those who have lived even a portion of their lives in the presence of these majestic keepers of time, time moves forward but there is always a strong connection to the past.

Clocks, and watches especially, seem to be less important in our technologically oriented age. Not long ago I saw a news report on how most of the younger generation don’t even own a watch: they have clocks built into their cell phones, their BlackBerries and their MP3 players. Why bother strapping an “antiquated” device to their wrists?

Interestingly enough, I think there is a sort of counter-trend towards the old style time telling devices. Parents often express a desire for their children to learn how to tell time on an analog clock or watch, in addition to digital. It seems to me this makes good sense from a teaching point of view as analog time is more visual, and introduced to a child who is learning to skip count or identify fractions, it makes use of already established skills.

Of course, there is an element of tradition involved as well. Sometimes as parents we feel that our children are losing out as the curriculum leans too far in the direction of technology and standardized testing. There is a visible effort to balance the new methods and concerns with customs once perhaps in danger of being lost. Spelling bees are experiencing renewed interest; we are now seeing literature-based curricula, introduction of classic literature at a young age, the use of read-alouds in both classrooms and homeschools even for older students quite capable of reading on their own, math curricula that emphasize mental calculation and drill. Parents and teachers obviously see the value of modelling our contemporary instruction at least in part on the traditional, tried and true methods of the past.

Young people have an interest in the past as well, both in their education and in their day to day lives. So many of the young people I have met have taken up a traditional hobby of some sort, or count an author from the 19th century or earlier among their favourite writers. A young man I know proudly sports a pocket watch he received as a high school graduation present. He once spoke to me about it at length, discussing the type of clothing a gentleman would have worn in the time when this style of watch was popular, and how the watch would be secured to the waistcoat by means of the fob. He had actually read up on different types of pocket watches, and was quite pleased to find I was keen to hear what he had learned. Technology is definitely here to stay, but tradition has not faded away.

Did you know that the pendulum movement commonly used in grandfather clocks was invented in the mid-1600’s? I was able to find a delightful article discussing the history of the pendulum in timekeeping. A second article explained how these tall pendulum driven clocks were originally called Long Case Clocks (or sometimes Tall Case Clocks) before that very song I so loved as a child caused them to be known as the “grandfather clock” we know today.

With this year being a leap year, and “leap day” this very week, I would like to invite my readers to spend some time discussing time in their homes and schools in the coming days. There are so many wonderful traditions to discuss, from Cronus/Father Time to the history of grandfather clocks and other time pieces as discussed at the Grandfather Clocks Blog, to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity for the really keen science students among you!

A discussion of tradition would be interesting too. And what about comparing the throw-away devices so prevalent today with the craftsmanship of grandfather clocks made following ages old tradition? There’s a lesson on being a responsible consumer in there - and you might even manage to get around to talking about the work ethic:

My Grandfather said that of those he could hire,
Not a servant so faithful he found.
It wasted no time and it had one desire,
At the end of the week to be wound.

And it stayed in its place, not a frown upon its face,
And its hands never hung by its side…
~ Grandfather’s Clock, Henry Clay Work (1876)

If only more of us were as reliable and as devoted to the accomplishment of our own tasks!

Have fun with your exploration of “Grandfather” (Clock) Time. Let me know what you did with your kids to celebrate the grandfather clock and to explore the theme of time in your homeschool!