Really old books!!

One of the books I came across in my research was called “American Schoolhouses” so of course I immediately picked it up and added it to my pile of books.

Once I got around to flipping through it, I realized it was from 1910. That makes this book over 100 years old! I’m sure the book has had the binding changed multiple times but the book itself is in pretty good shape.

This book went into pretty deep detail about the layout and function of classrooms. It talked about the areas for the girls and boys being separated. It talked about how sometimes they would go to school at different times of the year because they each had different chores to do at home. It had a very insightful view of life as a school kid before classrooms as we know them today. It was also interesting to see the language used in the book because it came from very different ideas than the ones we have today. The language in the book still looks at males as superior and as females as supposed to be teachers or educators. The chores that the girls are set to do are more of the around the house chores whereas the chores for the boys are the harvesting and outdoor chores.

Finger Plan Schools

Finger plan schools were introduced in America in the phase after one room school houses. One room school houses had to be phased out because more and more children were going into school and towns and cities were exponentially increasing in size. This made it so one room school houses no longer fulfilled the education requirements necessary for a successful education.

The finger plan was one where schools had long corridors that connected all of the classrooms. These classrooms had the main room, but then also had smaller areas for lavatories, craft or lab areas, as well as an outdoor exit to the play yard. This made it so you could fit more students in a smaller land area since the land area that schools were afforded was still small in comparison to today.

Books galore

As I really got to delve deep into the research paper, I went a little crazy at the library. I found a couple of books on the libraries website that looked interesting so I went up to the stacks to find these books. Since our libraries are using the library of congress style of organization, the books in the stacks are sorted and arranged by topic. So when I got up to the stacks, I hit the jackpot. I ended up checking out over 10 books that first time, then I went back and kept checking out more and more books.
After retrieving these books, I ended up checking out a locker at the library so I didn’t have to take things all the way back to my dorm. I have been slowly getting through the books one at a time. Some of them were useful for the research paper, and others weren’t. A lot of the books were based upon school planning. I got a lot of books from various time periods in order to get the best feel for a good range of the ideas that were popular at different times. These were mostly focused on American education. I did accidentally pick up a couple of books that were based on school systems elsewhere. I hope to be able to find out more about what these books hold so it can help to strengthen my research base for my thesis proposal and eventually my thesis itself.

Thesis research serving dual purpose

I’m not sure if anyone else in the class is finding this, but I have been finding a lot of interesting companies to apply for jobs with via my readings. All of the readings I have been doing have had case studies or examples in them from industry.
With recently published (2000s and beyond), I have started having my notes page(s) and then also having another sheet to write down all of the company names that are working on these kinds of things.
It has been an interesting way for me to expand my horizons and learn about new opportunities out there. Some of these companies have been busts and not as up my alley as I expected but others have seemed (from their websites) to potentially be pretty good fits!

Le Corbusier nursery schools

When I was looking for sources for my ten page paper, I came across a book in Rotch library called “nursery schools” . It was a tiny book and it almost slipped my notice. I ended up being inherited by the title and add it to the stack (very quickly growing out of control) of books I was checking out.
Once I got home and was reading through the various books, I started with the nursery schools book. It was the smallest so I figured it would be the easiest to get through. It ended up being a super interesting book by Le Corbusier about his style of nursery schools in France. Part of his theory was based upon the school being part of the living environment. There were these complexes of residential areas in a single series of buildings and one of the areas was meant for the school.
This school area was significantly smaller in size (ceiling height) than the rest of the bidding because he felt that would be the best way for young chosen to feel comfortable. He also (at a very early time compared to the rest of the world) focused some on how outside light was entering the building. He had these interesting box Windows that look like room decorations that would put up today. It ended up being a very interesting book, even though out strayed a little from the topic I am focusing on.