This is not an April Fools Day joke. It is just a great story.
While searching for something on the web, I came across this intriguing story. It’s the story of a remarkable horse named Beautiful Jim Key, raised and trained by a man named Bill Key, who was born into slavery and became a free and very successful man. The story is told by David Hoffman, who bears a slight resemblance to Bernie Sanders.
The story is too complicated to summarize in a few sentences, but suffice it to say that the horse was exhibited many times to audiences of thousands to demonstrate his amazing intelligence and his seeming ability to count and spell.
I went to Wikipedia, where I found this entry:
Beautiful Jim Key was a famous performing horse around the turn of the twentieth century.[1] His promoters claimed that the horse could read and write, make change with money, do arithmetic for “numbers below thirty,”[2] and cite Bible passages “where the horse is mentioned.”[3] His trainer, “Dr.” William Key, was a former slave, a self-trained veterinarian, and a patent medicine salesman.[1] Key emphasized that he used only patience and kindness in teaching the horse, and never a whip.[4]
The horse became a celebrity thanks to the progressive promotion of A. R. Rogers. The horse performed at large venues from Atlantic City to Chicago.[1]
Beautiful Jim Key and his trainer periodically toured the United States in a special railroad car to promote the fledgling cause of the humane treatment of animals. They performed in venues in most of the larger American cities, including New York’s Madison Square Garden. The horse was among the most popular attractions at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Beautiful Jim Key was supposedly intelligent enough that he could calculate mathematical problems, possibly even trigonometry.
President William McKinley saw Beautiful Jim Key perform at an exposition in Tennessee and declared, “This is the most astonishing and entertaining exhibition I have ever witnessed.” The President also commented that it was an example of what “kindness and patience” could accomplish.[5]
The horse was made an honorary member of George Thorndike Angell‘s American Humane Association.[6] He also got 2 million kids to gather to pledge never to be mean to animals.
This is an education blog. The story is about the education of a horse.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
An inspiring story! Thanks for sharing and educating me.
As my grandmother used to say, “You get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.” I have found this to be true in education as well.
The story sounded so intriguing I had to check it out. It really is amazing & inspirational. After watching it, I saw that the presenter, David Hoffman, is a documentary filmmaker & there’s a whole collection of other stories on his YouTube page.
Being a musicIan, one about named Bascomb Lunsford, an Appalacian man who, in the 19202-60s, by collecting & popularizing traditional folk songs & dances of the region, conducted a personal campaign to counter stereotyping the culture of the region as one-dimensional “hillbillys.
He preserved in Library of Congress recordings hundreds of songs by residents of the area, presenting their music, lifestyles, & culture, succeeding in transforming many Americans’ perception of the region & its people. In the process, he apparently invented the concept of folk festivals (which, it occurs to me, today has expanded to festivals devoted to many other musical styles, from jazz to heavy metal; I can’t help wondering if his events started the whole thing).
Hoffman’s documentary on Bascomb Lunsford’s life & work is valuable for anyone interested in traditional American folk music. In its relevance to the current movement to reform stereotyping & caricatures of all cultures & ethnicities, both the film & its subject were ahead of their times. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdoA0swYKyI
I’m bookmarking Hoffman’s YouTube page, & will return for more. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=david+hoffman Thank you, Diane, for introducing us to this engaging storyteller!
I loved the story of the Beautiful Jim Key and will return to David Hoffman’s YouTube for more!
If that horse was alive today, the reform-school fraud-drenched testing industry would want to test it, and then claim the horse needed to be sent to a Charter School because it was behind in its learning.
Great story. Thanks for posting.
I’ve seen a lion talk. It was at the bottom of Chino. It was in for murder. It killed it’s previous owner who would feed it and then jave it fkher. He didnt like the way she topped from the bottom. It belonged to anton lavey before that. She had only had it for a few months after he lost his life in a particularly costly deal. He appealed to its hate on racist-type terms. He claimed to be the destroyer of mankind in order to get it to speak. It had to do some fancy gymnastics with its tongue and lips but it could indeed speak. It was quite an ugly thing to watch.
It was completely psychotic.
I liked him (: