“JanitorsofBooks” orReading Specialists?

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size NotesNational Survey of the Education of Teachers. Bulletin 1933, No. 10. Six volumes. United States Office of Education, Washington, D. C, 1935.Data collected by Dr. Douglas Waples of the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago show that arts colleges spend for books and periodicals per year per student about two and a half times as much as do teachers colleges.Other inarticulations brought to light as a result of our visits are between: (1) the subject-matter teachers and the laboratory activities in the various subject fields; (a) the subject-matter teachers and their activities in public schools; and (3) the subject-matter teachers and the values and applications of their subject to life outside the school.See Gray, W. S. and Leary, B. E. What Makes a Book Readable. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1935.The writer has a colleague who says, “When you want to embalm an idea, you put it in a book!”When will we realize that librarians, nurses, Boy Scout masters or Camp Fire leaders, and parents are all teachers? When will we get back to the “modus operandi” of simple primitive peoples, where each adult is a teacher of youth?See: (a) Bobbitt, Franklin. How to Make a Curriculum, Chapter VI. Houghton Miffiin Company, Boston, 1924, and (b) Bagley, W. C. and Keith, J. A. H. An Introduction to Teaching, Chapter II. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1924.I again emphasize the necessity of all teachers who deal with books and other reading materials knowing and being able to utilize the evidence concerning reading. Of course most elementary teachers have had instruction in this area, but very few senior-high-school or junior-high-school teachers have this type of preparation. Likewise, librarians by all means must be prepared in this area.See McKee, Paul. Reading and Literature in the Elementary School. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1934.A minimum to be provided in every school is a good unabridged dictionary, such as Webster’s or Funk and Wagnall’s, and several good desk dictionaries such as Thorndike’s and Winston’s, at least a good one-volume encyclopedia, such as the Columbia Encyclopedia or the Lincoln Library of Essential Information, a good children’s encyclopedia, such as the Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia or the World Book, and the World Almanac. Note: the answers to a large proportion of common reference questions can be found in this latter manual, which costs 50 cents in paper cover, or $1 cloth, per year. The other reference tools are fairly permanent so the annual expenditure for reference materials need be slight. In addition every school must and can provide from the minimum budget of $1 per pupil per year a few periodicals such as a good newspaper, a weekly, a monthly, and a digest of magazine articles such as the Reader’s Digest. I would suggest also, the New York Times (Sunday edition), Scholastic, and American Observer.Reading Interest Blanks, Schedules I and II, by Douglas Waples, Graduate Library School, University of Chicago.