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Authors: Victor D. Brooks
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never tested or graded. This was the grim preparation for a possible nuclear attack launched from the Soviet Union. One of the most commonly shared experiences of almost all early Boomers was the shrill wail of sirens attached to the ritual known as âduck and cover.â World War IIâera pupils had been the first American children exposed to the possibility of enemy air bombardment of their schools and homes, but after the initial panic following Pearl Harbor, the threat of a serious Axis bombing of the mainland United States receded to the point that air raid drills became little more than a welcome relief from a scheduled spelling test.
It would be the Baby Boomers, the first cold-war kids, who would see animated and live âeducationalâ films that graphically demonstrated what an atomic bomb could do to a largely defenseless public. Some classrooms featured postersthat displayed an aerial map of the nearest major city with concentric rings showing the level of destruction to be expected if a nuclear weapon were dropped in the center of the city. Teachers affecting a matter-of-fact detachment sometimes helped pupils calculate the severity of damage to their school or neighborhood, depending on its distance from ground zero. Children went from week to week without knowing when the eerie whine of sirens would announce reality, signaling the end of the world they knew.
Most schoolchildren of the cold-war period became experienced veterans of duck-and-cover activities. Even the animated advice of Bert the Turtle and the suggestion that part of the exercise was in preparation for a natural disaster could not conceal the grim possibility of nuclear war.
(Bettmann/CORBIS)
Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union never deteriorated to the point where the protection of school desks against atomic attack was tested. Yet, just as the oldest Boomer children settled into their sixth-grade routine, a real threat from the skies rocked the American school system to its core. On Friday, October 4, 1957, the Soviet space agency successfully launched the first man-madeobject to achieve orbit around the Earth. A Soviet R-7 rocket lifted from the ground with a thunderous roar as five engines supplied over a million pounds of thrust. Speeding at more than 17,000 miles an hour, the rocket reached an altitude of 142 miles and released a 184-pound sphere studded with four antennae. Seconds later, radio signals beamed toward Earth with a distinct beeping sound. Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev soon announced to the world that the age of space exploration had begun with a âdemonstration of the advantage of socialism in actual practice.â
The launch of Sputnik was a fantastic propaganda triumph for the Soviet Union. Every ninety-six minutes a vehicle bearing a hammer-and-sickle insignia passed over the planet in an orbit that allowed Americans from New York City to Kansas an opportunity to glimpse mankindâs first tentative baby steps into the cosmos. American newspapers and commentators gave a grudging compliment to their ideological rivals: âOrbiting with an eerie intermittent croak that sounds like a cricket with a cold, picked up by radio receivers around the world, Sputnik passes through the stratosphere on an epochal journey.â
When American children returned to school the following Monday, the repercussions of this achievement were already creeping into the classroom. During much of the preceding decade a significant portion of American educational thought had argued that American children were exposed to a curriculum that sacrificed essential academic skills in favor of socialization, peer acceptance, and marginally beneficial school activities. Now books such as
Why Johnny Canât Read
, lamenting the shortcomings of American schools, were joined by
What Ivan Knows That Johnny Doesnât
and
The Little Red Schoolhouse
, which promised to divulge whatSoviet schools did
It would be the Baby Boomers, the first cold-war kids, who would see animated and live âeducationalâ films that graphically demonstrated what an atomic bomb could do to a largely defenseless public. Some classrooms featured postersthat displayed an aerial map of the nearest major city with concentric rings showing the level of destruction to be expected if a nuclear weapon were dropped in the center of the city. Teachers affecting a matter-of-fact detachment sometimes helped pupils calculate the severity of damage to their school or neighborhood, depending on its distance from ground zero. Children went from week to week without knowing when the eerie whine of sirens would announce reality, signaling the end of the world they knew.
Most schoolchildren of the cold-war period became experienced veterans of duck-and-cover activities. Even the animated advice of Bert the Turtle and the suggestion that part of the exercise was in preparation for a natural disaster could not conceal the grim possibility of nuclear war.
(Bettmann/CORBIS)
Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union never deteriorated to the point where the protection of school desks against atomic attack was tested. Yet, just as the oldest Boomer children settled into their sixth-grade routine, a real threat from the skies rocked the American school system to its core. On Friday, October 4, 1957, the Soviet space agency successfully launched the first man-madeobject to achieve orbit around the Earth. A Soviet R-7 rocket lifted from the ground with a thunderous roar as five engines supplied over a million pounds of thrust. Speeding at more than 17,000 miles an hour, the rocket reached an altitude of 142 miles and released a 184-pound sphere studded with four antennae. Seconds later, radio signals beamed toward Earth with a distinct beeping sound. Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev soon announced to the world that the age of space exploration had begun with a âdemonstration of the advantage of socialism in actual practice.â
The launch of Sputnik was a fantastic propaganda triumph for the Soviet Union. Every ninety-six minutes a vehicle bearing a hammer-and-sickle insignia passed over the planet in an orbit that allowed Americans from New York City to Kansas an opportunity to glimpse mankindâs first tentative baby steps into the cosmos. American newspapers and commentators gave a grudging compliment to their ideological rivals: âOrbiting with an eerie intermittent croak that sounds like a cricket with a cold, picked up by radio receivers around the world, Sputnik passes through the stratosphere on an epochal journey.â
When American children returned to school the following Monday, the repercussions of this achievement were already creeping into the classroom. During much of the preceding decade a significant portion of American educational thought had argued that American children were exposed to a curriculum that sacrificed essential academic skills in favor of socialization, peer acceptance, and marginally beneficial school activities. Now books such as
Why Johnny Canât Read
, lamenting the shortcomings of American schools, were joined by
What Ivan Knows That Johnny Doesnât
and
The Little Red Schoolhouse
, which promised to divulge whatSoviet schools did
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