McGUFFEY, DICK, AND JANE: 20 TH- CENTURY FERNDALE LEARNS TO READ Jean Spang “That‟ll be the day!” (John Wayne) and Arnold Schwarzenegger‟s “I‟ll be back!” are two sentences from movies that have become iconic statements in America‟s popular culture. Another familiar sentence holds a special place in America history: “S ee Spot run.” It is from the 20 th Century Scott-Foresman reading primers commonly used in U.S. elementary schools, late 1920s through the 1970s. Dick and Jane, their family, pets (Spot and Puff), and friends, were characters in an adventure series that reflected kids‟ everyday life—and in the process taught kids how to read. A Dick and Jane special adventure with their dog included “See Spot run,” the most remembered sentence from the entire series. In retrospect, Dick and Jane primers, and their forerunner, the McGuffey readers, provide a revealing perspective on how kids were taught to read in the United States —and Ferndale—in the last century, and explain why drastic changes were made in late 20 th Century reading education. In Ferndale‟s earliest elementary schools, t he Porter School (1870s-1914, Nine Mile/Woodward) and Central School (ca. 1915-1920s, Woodward/Nine Mile), students learned to read through instruction based on common teaching methods sanctioned by the State of Michigan‟s Department of Public Instruction. This method, exemplified by the widely-used McGuffey texts (mid-1800s-early 1900s), emphasized phonics, a system which stressed the identification of letters, the formulation of sounds to pronounce them, word definitions, and sentence meanings —and, significantly, Calvinist morality. Illustrations were rarely included. By the time students reached McGuffey‟s Sixth Eclectic Reader level, they were reading Shakespeare, Milton, Sir Walter Scott, and Lord Byron, and, as well, had learned the basics of elocution: articulation, inflection, accent and emphasis, reading verse, voice, and proper gestures. By the mid-1920s, however, Ferndale‟s public schools began to adopt reading textbooks that were shaped by the nation‟s new “Progressive Era.” “Learn to Do by Doing,” the famous sentence by the foremost proponent of this new approach, John Dewey, remains carved in stone over the main entrance of Ferndale‟s Taft School (built 1928, Allen/Fielding corner) to this day. Dewey‟s “look-say” method stressed word recognition and meanings of everyday life with which kids could readily identify. In response, Scott-Foresman primers, introduced in 1927, featured main characters Dick and Jane and their friends and pets, employed the “look-say” method, and focused on realistic presentations of kids‟ adventures. These primers, originally illustrated by Robert Childress, a Norman Rockwell friend and fellow artist, soon became the standard texts in the teaching of reading to some 85 million students in the U.S. As a result, Dick and Jane became an integral part of mid-20 th Century American culture. The eleven stories included Scott-Foresman‟s 1956 edition of The New We Look and See primer are typical of the series. The stories introduced a 17-word vocabulary in a “meaningful context” and, as the primer‟s Note to the Teacher stressed, words were “adequately maintained by repeated usage in the naturally rhythmical speech patterns of children.” Dick and Jane faced many challenges: rescuing Sally (their little sister) from a puddle caused by Dick‟s (mis?)use of the garden hose and assorted dealings with other “situations” around the house and yard, introducing the words look, oh, Jane, see, Dick, and funny. Included in such adventures were the family cat Puff (originally named Mew) and the dog Spot, which required use of the words jump, run, come. Even Tim, Sally‟s teddy bear, gets the kids and pets into trouble and the words go, up, down, and see appear. Each vignette was presented against a background of implied white suburbia, with no hints of weather or geography. Authority figures, including parents, were “there” but, like Charles Schultz‟s presentations of adults in the iconic Peanuts comic strips (1950- 2000), seldom seen or heard. Fall 2014 NEWSLETTER OF THE FERNDALE HISTORICAL SOCIETY The Crow’s Nest McGuffey‟s Eclectic First Reader, late-19th century. Photo: McGuffey/Wikipedia. “Learn To Do By Doing,” John Dewey quote over Taft School entrance. Photo: Garry Taylor.
8
Embed
The Crow’s Nest - Ferndale Historical Societyferndalehistoricalsociety.org/assets/newsletter_fall_14.pdf · Page 2 Kids who attended Ferndale‟s elementary schools in the 1940s,
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
McGUFFEY, DICK, AND JANE:
20TH-
CENTURY FERNDALE LEARNS TO READ Jean Spang
“That‟ll be the day!” (John Wayne) and Arnold Schwarzenegger‟s “I‟ll be back!” are two sentences from movies that have
become iconic statements in America‟s popular culture. Another familiar sentence holds a special place in America history: “See Spot
run.” It is from the 20th
Century Scott-Foresman reading primers commonly used in U.S. elementary schools, late 1920s through the
1970s. Dick and Jane, their family, pets (Spot and Puff), and friends, were characters in an adventure series that reflected kids‟
everyday life—and in the process taught kids how to read. A Dick and Jane special adventure with their dog included “See Spot run,”
the most remembered sentence from the entire series. In retrospect, Dick and Jane primers, and their forerunner, the McGuffey
readers, provide a revealing perspective on how kids were taught to read in the United States—and Ferndale—in the last century, and
explain why drastic changes were made in late 20th
Century reading education.
In Ferndale‟s earliest elementary schools, the Porter School (1870s-1914, Nine Mile/Woodward) and Central School (ca.
1915-1920s, Woodward/Nine Mile), students learned to read through instruction based on
common teaching methods sanctioned by the State of Michigan‟s Department of Public
Instruction. This method, exemplified by the widely-used McGuffey texts (mid-1800s-early
1900s), emphasized phonics, a system which stressed the identification of letters, the
formulation of sounds to pronounce them, word definitions, and sentence meanings—and,
significantly, Calvinist morality. Illustrations were rarely included. By the time students
reached McGuffey‟s Sixth Eclectic Reader level, they were reading Shakespeare, Milton, Sir
Walter Scott, and Lord Byron, and, as well, had learned the basics of elocution: articulation,
inflection, accent and emphasis, reading verse, voice, and proper gestures.
By the mid-1920s, however, Ferndale‟s public schools began to adopt reading
textbooks that were shaped by the nation‟s new “Progressive Era.” “Learn to Do by Doing,”
the famous sentence by the foremost proponent of this new approach, John Dewey, remains
carved in stone over the main entrance of Ferndale‟s Taft School (built 1928, Allen/Fielding
corner) to this day. Dewey‟s “look-say” method stressed word recognition and meanings of
everyday life with which kids could readily identify. In response, Scott-Foresman primers,
introduced in 1927, featured main characters Dick and Jane and their friends and pets,
employed the “look-say” method, and focused on realistic presentations of kids‟ adventures.
These primers, originally illustrated by Robert Childress, a Norman Rockwell friend and
fellow artist, soon became the standard texts in the teaching of reading to some 85 million
students in the U.S. As a result, Dick and Jane became an integral part of mid-20th
Century
American culture.
The eleven stories included Scott-Foresman‟s 1956 edition of The New We Look and
See primer are typical of the series. The stories introduced a 17-word vocabulary in a
“meaningful context” and, as the primer‟s Note to the Teacher stressed, words were “adequately maintained by repeated usage in the
naturally rhythmical speech patterns of children.” Dick and Jane faced many
challenges: rescuing Sally (their little sister) from a puddle caused by Dick‟s
(mis?)use of the garden hose and assorted dealings with other “situations” around the
house and yard, introducing the words look, oh, Jane, see, Dick, and funny. Included
in such adventures were the family cat Puff (originally named Mew) and the dog
Spot, which required use of the words jump, run, come. Even Tim, Sally‟s teddy bear,
gets the kids and pets into trouble and the words go, up, down, and see appear. Each
vignette was presented against a background of implied white suburbia, with no hints
of weather or geography. Authority figures, including parents, were “there” but, like
Charles Schultz‟s presentations of adults in the iconic Peanuts comic strips (1950-
2000), seldom seen or heard.
Fall 2014
NEWSLETTER OF THE FERNDALE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The Crow’s Nest
McGuffey‟s Eclectic First Reader,
late-19th century. Photo:
McGuffey/Wikipedia.
“Learn To Do By Doing,” John Dewey quote
over Taft School entrance. Photo: Garry Taylor.
Page 2
Kids who attended Ferndale‟s elementary
schools in the 1940s, as recalled by one
Washington School student, were surrounded by
Scott-Foresman‟s Dick and Jane primers in the
classroom. Pictures of Dick and Jane characters
were used as decorations on bulletin boards;
primers were kept on a table in the corner of the
classroom and students were encouraged to look at
them during “down” time. Formal lessons from
the text were enthusiastically taught by a teacher
who was adept at using gestures and sounds to
dramatize the actions—and words—portrayed. For
many students, the first day they felt the electrical
charge between a word on a page and the word‟s
meaning in their mind, was to remain a lifelong
memory, the momentous realization that reading
was fun!
By the late 1950s/early 1960s, Dick and
Jane had begun to recede as honored characters in
the teaching of reading in the U.S. In 1955
prominent writer Rudolf Flesch published Why
John Can‟t Read, a book that criticized the “whole word” method used in the “look-say” regimen of reading education, and claimed
that it did not teach children how to read or appreciate literature. The limited vocabulary and simplistic stories, he said, had to be
replaced with the phonics method popular in the McGuffey era. At the time, American culture was presented with the Cold War,
hippies, Elvis Presley, the Age of Aquarius, Vietnam, civil rights, and Lyndon Johnson‟s Great Society—all of which combined to set
the stage for major changes in American culture. The resulting Elementary and Secondary Education Act of the 1960s required that
school districts present methods and subject matter that would better teach underprivileged and urban school children in addition to
suburban children. Scott-Foresman, in response, introduced minority characters, Mike, his twin sisters Pam and Penny, and their
parents, into Dick and Jane‟s white world.
By 1965, however, Scott-Foresman had retired Dick and Jane primers, and in 1967 introduced its
Open Highways series, primers that included poems and classic children‟s stories, all focused on
multicultural characters and situations—which also was the focus of new learning-to-read textbooks offered
by other publishers. By the late 1960s the use of Dick and Jane texts had mostly ended in the nation‟s
schools due to what critics said were their continued lack of minority characters, use of gender stereotypes,
and questionable relevance to the changed culture. Nevertheless, Dick and Jane basic primers were still
routinely used until the early 1970s in Ferndale‟s public schools.
McGuffey primers and Dick and Jane texts are now recognized as important parts of American
history. Henry Ford, who had learned to read from the McGuffey texts, so recognized the nation‟s debt to
William McGuffey, that in 1934 he had the log cabin where McGuffey was born (in Pennsylvania) moved to
Michigan‟s Greenfield Village as a lasting reminder of one of America‟s premier educators. And by 1996,
buyers for Wal-Mart, and officials from the Penguin Readers Group which had acquired Scott-Foresman,
began joint efforts to put Dick and Jane readers back into print. Current sales indicate that since Fall 2013
alone, some four million titles have been sold to date. And today the nationwide collectors‟ market has a
healthy trade in Dick and Jane texts of yesteryear.
So McGuffey, and Dick and Jane and their gang, live on. A bumper sticker sometimes seen on cars
traversing metro Detroit streets says: “If you can read this message, thank a teacher.” McGuffey and the Dick and Jane primers might
also be thanked. And for Ferndale residents of a certain age especially, one sentence perfectly recalled their learning-to-read
experience in the city‟s schools of a simpler time: SEE SPOT RUN.
Note: John Wayne‟s “That‟ll be the day,” from The Searchers, released 1956; later the title of a hit song by Buddy Holly and the Crickets, 1957. Arnold Schwarzenegger‟s “I‟ll be back,” from The Terminator, 1984. “Memory of Washington School, 1940s,” Jean Spang, Long-time Ferndale resident. Sources: Associated
Press, “Dick and Jane‟ art trove to be in auction,” Detroit Free Press, April 21, 2014:8A. Bilz, Reed K, “Remember Dick and Jane?, attachment to Shermer article
cited below. Cole, Maurice F., Ferndale of Yesteryear (Ferndale Historical Society, 1971), schools passim. Collectible Books [Photo of Dick & Jane Primer (1946)], http://www.brightok.net/~wdmorgan-ss/Books/TransferFolder/, retrieved April 29, 2014. Genovese, Pete, “Look, look Dick and Jane are back,” Newhouse News
Service, http://www.media history.umn.edu/archive/dickandjane.html, retrieved April 29, 2014 [current markets for Dick and Jane texts; Wal-Mart/Penguin Readers
Group collaboration].Gray, Wm. S, Marion Monroe, Sterl Artley, May Hill Arbuthnot, Illustrated by Eleanor Campbell, The New We Look and See, The 1956 Edition (Chicago: Scott, Foresman Co.), passim. McGuffey, William, McGuffey‟s New Sixth Eclectic Reader (Cincinnati: Winthrop B. Smith & Co., 1856 reprint). McGuffey
Readers: From Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGuffey_Readers, retrieved September 13, 2014 [includes history of readers, Henry Ford/Greenfield Village
McGuffey memorial, and photo of McGuffey Eclectic First Reader]. Shermer, Elizabeth Tandy, Readings with and without Dick and Jane: The Politics of Literacy in c.20 America: A Rare Book School Exhibition, at The Rotunda, University of Virginia, 9 June 1-Nov. 2003, [includes description of phonic/look, history of the series],
at http://www.rarebookschool.org/2005/exhibitions/dickand jane.shtml, retrieved April 29, 2014. Sparks, J. History of Dick and Jane, at
http://www.tagnwag.com/dick_and_jane_books.html, retrieved April 29, 2014.
Washington School classroom (1923), with Dick and Jane decorations and
blackboard lessons. Photo: Ferndale Historical Museum archives.