Read Online Boomers: The Cold-War Generation Grows Up by Victor D. Brooks - Free Book Online
Authors: Victor D. Brooks
Ads: Link
âa special device will enable pupils to interact with the televised teacher hundreds of miles away,âmost 1950s children spent their school day learning from textbooks that were not greatly different from the lessons their parents had received. The centerpiece of instruction at the elementary level was still literacy teaching, and in many cases this meant an encounter with a âtypical American familyâ featuring Dick and Jane, their toddler sister Sally, Spot the dog, Puff the cat, a pipe-smoking father, and a pretty, well-organized mother. Short repetitive sentences, such as, âSee Spot. See Spot run. Run Spot Run,â interspersed with colorful pictures of family activities and interaction, began the great adventure of reading in an era when the printed word had far less competition for attention that it would in the twenty-first century.
While many parentsâ groups and child psychologists warned of the dire consequences of televisionâs effects on Boomer children, much of the educational establishment welcomed the video revolution as a means to broaden pupil horizons and help overstretched teachers and administrators.
(Bettmann/CORBIS)
The repetition pervasive in reading instruction was rivaled by mathematical activities. In an era when personal calculators were still decades in the future, a passerby could have heard children shouting in unison a numerical litany based on âtimes tablesâ (four times six is twenty-four, five times six is thirty, etc.), suggesting that with enough repetition a child could become a human calculator with an array of correct answers readily on call.
If the typical fifties elementary school curriculum concentrated on reading and mathematical skills, the school day was peppered with a variety of other activities. The recently ended world war and the ongoing cold war with the Soviet Union, China, and assorted client states encouraged attention to history, geography, and basic government structure (often called âcivicsâ). American history was presented in the traditional heroic model of triumph over British tyranny, struggle for existence on the frontier, and the rise of cities and industrialization, but two major themes differed substantially from the experience of the Boomersâ parents. First, of course, was the enormous impact of World War II, which seemed to straddle a position between history and current events. Since students were often encouraged to use parents as resources for war-related projects, and virtually all teachers had experienced the conflict on some personal level, the period could often occupy a significant portion of the history curriculum in the upper grades of elementary school.
The second change, just beginning to emerge in the 1950s, was a consideration of individuals and groups that had been underrepresented in earlier generations of history teaching. The exploits and accomplishments of Native Americans, African Americans, and women were now beginning to be interwoven into the tapestry of the American experience, evenif the process was often tentative and occupied a relatively small portion of the narrative.
A category increasingly identified as social studies was heavily influenced by the nationâs sudden emergence as a superpower and the reality of its competition with the Communist bloc. Civics courses often presented American democratic government in sharp contrast to the tyranny of communism while geography texts sometimes contrasted the experience of a typical American family with the far harsher existence to be found on a Soviet commune. Geography textbooks with titles such as
Our Latin American Neighbors
emphasized the strategic products of these nations; textbooks on European geography frequently displayed bold lines of demarcation dividing Western Europe from the nations behind the Iron Curtain.
Probably the most disturbing element of the 1950s social studies curriculum was an experience that was
While many parentsâ groups and child psychologists warned of the dire consequences of televisionâs effects on Boomer children, much of the educational establishment welcomed the video revolution as a means to broaden pupil horizons and help overstretched teachers and administrators.
(Bettmann/CORBIS)
The repetition pervasive in reading instruction was rivaled by mathematical activities. In an era when personal calculators were still decades in the future, a passerby could have heard children shouting in unison a numerical litany based on âtimes tablesâ (four times six is twenty-four, five times six is thirty, etc.), suggesting that with enough repetition a child could become a human calculator with an array of correct answers readily on call.
If the typical fifties elementary school curriculum concentrated on reading and mathematical skills, the school day was peppered with a variety of other activities. The recently ended world war and the ongoing cold war with the Soviet Union, China, and assorted client states encouraged attention to history, geography, and basic government structure (often called âcivicsâ). American history was presented in the traditional heroic model of triumph over British tyranny, struggle for existence on the frontier, and the rise of cities and industrialization, but two major themes differed substantially from the experience of the Boomersâ parents. First, of course, was the enormous impact of World War II, which seemed to straddle a position between history and current events. Since students were often encouraged to use parents as resources for war-related projects, and virtually all teachers had experienced the conflict on some personal level, the period could often occupy a significant portion of the history curriculum in the upper grades of elementary school.
The second change, just beginning to emerge in the 1950s, was a consideration of individuals and groups that had been underrepresented in earlier generations of history teaching. The exploits and accomplishments of Native Americans, African Americans, and women were now beginning to be interwoven into the tapestry of the American experience, evenif the process was often tentative and occupied a relatively small portion of the narrative.
A category increasingly identified as social studies was heavily influenced by the nationâs sudden emergence as a superpower and the reality of its competition with the Communist bloc. Civics courses often presented American democratic government in sharp contrast to the tyranny of communism while geography texts sometimes contrasted the experience of a typical American family with the far harsher existence to be found on a Soviet commune. Geography textbooks with titles such as
Our Latin American Neighbors
emphasized the strategic products of these nations; textbooks on European geography frequently displayed bold lines of demarcation dividing Western Europe from the nations behind the Iron Curtain.
Probably the most disturbing element of the 1950s social studies curriculum was an experience that was
Similar Books
