8 Things Only a Georgia Childhood Teaches You

Not everything you learned as a kid came from a textbook.

People who grew up in Georgia may find that some of what they took for granted looked different in other states.

Here’s a look back at how a Georgia childhood differs from Americans growing up elsewhere.

Note: This is general information, not legal or financial advice. Driver education and scholarship requirements are subject to change, so confirm the current details with the Georgia Department of Driver Services and the Georgia Student Finance Commission.

1. Joshua’s Law

Georgia lets you apply for a learner’s permit at 15, while South Dakota issues an instruction permit at 14.

New Jersey doesn’t issue a probationary license until you’re 17, but Georgia’s Class D license can come at 16.

Joshua’s Law applies to you if you’re 16 or 17 and want a Class D license in Georgia.

It requires 30 hours of instruction.

That can be a classroom course or an online course from a certified virtual program.

One behind-the-wheel path takes six hours of training.

It also takes 40 hours of supervised driving with a parent or guardian, and six of those hours have to come at night.

The other path swaps both for 40 hours of parent-taught behind-the-wheel training.

If you’re on a learner’s permit, you have to hold it for one year and one day before a Class D license.

2. Georgia Studies

Georgia Studies is an eighth-grade course in Georgia’s geography, history, government and economics.

Virginia’s version, Virginia Studies, is a fourth-grade course.

Students study land policies from 1789 to 1840, including the headright system, land lotteries and the Yazoo Land Fraud.

They also explain why the University of Georgia was established and why Georgia’s capitals moved west.

Students distinguish among Georgia’s five geographic regions and locate features including the Fall Line, the Okefenokee Swamp, the Chattahoochee and Savannah Rivers, and the barrier islands.

The course covers the purpose of the committee system in the Georgia General Assembly.

If you took it, you learned the process for making a law in Georgia.

It also covers the removal of Cherokee people from Georgia, called the Trail of Tears.

Students study the events behind it, including the Dahlonega Gold Rush and Worcester v. Georgia.

3. State Park Junior Rangers

The Junior Ranger program is free at all 59 sites in Georgia, and each site has a different activity book.

Washington State Parks, in contrast, uses a free Junior Ranger booklet at its participating parks.

Kids finish a site’s activity book before a ranger swears them in.

Any age qualifies.

Junior Rangers can learn about alligators in South Georgia, forts along the coast, or bears and hemlock trees in North Georgia.

They can also earn up to five more embroidery stickers, in categories called Outdoor Fun, Wet Zone, Blaze a Trail, Kids Care and Camp Out.

Outdoor Fun includes building a fort and flying a kite, and Kids Care means attending a volunteer day at a park.

If you’ve fished, paddled or spent a night in a tent at a state park, you’ve already done activities from the Wet Zone and Camp Out lists.

Schools can ask a nearby park or site to send a ranger to swear in a class.

4. HOPE GPA

Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship stands for Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally.

The Georgia Lottery for Education pays for it.

A number called the HOPE GPA decides academic eligibility.

It counts core-subject grades from ninth through 12th grade.

If you were a freshman, your grades counted too.

Students need a minimum 3.0 HOPE GPA and four full rigor credits from an eligible high school to qualify.

HOPE doesn’t set an SAT or ACT minimum if you graduate from an eligible high school.

Florida’s lottery-funded Bright Futures Medallion Scholars award pairs a 3.0 weighted GPA with a minimum SAT or ACT score.

5. Georgia National Fair

The state-sponsored Georgia National Fair in Perry is held the fifth Thursday after Labor Day.

That puts the fair in October.

Iowa’s state fair runs in August, and Minnesota’s ends on Labor Day.

The fairgrounds there opened in 1990.

For the fair’s livestock shows, 4-H and FFA advisors approve entries online.

Events have also included displays of sheep, rabbits, swine and chickens, along with demonstrations of sheepherding, milking and honey-making.

Through the Georgia National Schoolhouse program, admission is free for Georgia schools’ Pre-K through 12th grade students with an approved field trip form.

Homeschool groups are welcome too, with a minimum of 20 students.

If your class went, you could visit livestock, agriculture and art exhibits.

6. Georgia Children’s Book Award

The Georgia Children’s Book Award was established in 1968.

Children in grades K-4 vote on the picture books, and children in grades 4-8 vote on the novels.

Texas’s Bluebonnet Award draws its voters from third through sixth grade.

If your school took part, you helped pick the winners.

The award’s stated purpose is to foster a love of reading in kids.

A committee of teachers, school media specialists and public librarians selects the final lists of 20 nominees.

The award site encourages teachers and media specialists to read the books aloud.

7. Rock Eagle 4-H Center

Rock Eagle 4-H Center sits beside the Oconee National Forest, north of Eatonton.

The center’s namesake is the Rock Eagle Mound, a stone effigy shaped like a prone bird.

The mound is eight feet high at the breast and made of milky quartz rocks.

The animal-shaped mounds at Iowa’s Effigy Mounds National Monument are made of earth.

Georgia 4-H says Native Americans probably built it about 2,000 years ago.

The U.S. Department of the Interior listed the mound on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

The center covers nearly 1,500 forested acres, including a 110-acre lake.

Did your class go?

The Georgia 4-H environmental education program is open to students in grades K-12.

The programs complement the Georgia curriculum standards, with a primary focus on science.

The centers welcome homeschool groups planning their day whenever there’s space available.

8. Lottery-Funded Pre-K

Georgia’s Pre-K is a lottery-funded educational program for four-year-olds.

It runs 6.5 hours a day, five days a week, 180 days a year, at no cost to families.

Your child is eligible for Georgia’s Pre-K based on age and residency.

Texas requires a four-year-old to meet at least one condition beyond age, such as being educationally disadvantaged or having a parent on active military duty.

Children learn through play and learning centers.

DECAL’s classroom resources cover art, blocks, dramatic play, language and literacy, math, music and movement, and science.

Each classroom has a lead teacher and an assistant teacher.

Georgia’s Early Learning and Development Standards describe what children from birth to age five should know and be able to do.