[Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: Making Connections: Moonlight Schools to LoC

[Anders, Patricia L - (planders)]

Tom, thank you so much for this elegant, informative message. I will use it in my classes. Patty Anders

-----Original Message-----
From: reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of tsticht at znet.com
Sent: Saturday, May 02, 2015 3:06 PM
To: reading-hall-of-fame at nottingham.ac.uk
Subject: [Reading-hall-of-fame] Making Connections: Moonlight Schools to LoC

5/2/2015


Making Connections: Sage Advice from the Moonlight Schools and the Library of Congress

Tom Sticht, International Consultant in Adult Education


In 1977, Daniel Boorstin, the Librarian of Congress, was successful in getting the U. S. Congress to establish the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. In early May of 1979, a conference entitled "The Textbook in American Education" was held in the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. The Conference was sponsored by the Center for the Book and the National Institute of Education (NIE) (Cole & Sticht, 1981).


The Textbook conference highlighted the role of functional contexts in the preparation of textbooks. In a paper entitled "Cultures and Textbooks,"
Sylvia Scribner, of the National Institute of Education, noted that "The instructional system in which the textbook and reader function is embedded in a larger social order which shapes the purposes and practice of instruction. ...Until a comparative perspective forces us to look at education in other times and places, we may overlook the pervasive influence which social context exerts on uses of text."


Functional Contexts in Textbooks for Rural Adult Illiterates


The importance of taking a comparative approach to understanding how social contexts influence the design and uses of textbooks is clearly illustrated in the early work of Cora Wilson Stewart, founder of the Moonlight Schools for illiterate adults in Kentucky (Stewart, 1922).  Starting in 1915, Stewart published the first of a series of three textbooks for illiterate adults living in rural areas as compared to city dwellers.  Her textbook series was entitled "Country Life Readers" and in the "First Book" she explained her reasons for publishing books for country folks:


Quote: "There is an increasing demand for the education of adult illiterates who have somehow missed their opportunity in early life, and also for the better education of adults that have a very limited degree of learning. The city has provided for this need to some extent with evening schools, designed mainly for foreigners. All the textbooks for evening schools have, therefore, been prepared strictly for immigrants and city dwellers. Rural America is coming to realize that there exists a need for education among adults in the rural sections as much as among those in the cities. For this reason moonlight schools, rural evening schools, which begin their sessions on moonlight evenings, have been established and have now been extended to fifteen States. The people attending these schools demand textbooks which deal with the problems of rural life and which reflect rural life, and to meet this demand this book has been prepared" (Stewart, 1915). End quote

Clearly, Stewart understood the role of the functional contexts -geographical, cultural, social-identified years later by those participants in the Textbook conference as central influences on the design and uses of textbooks.  In her approach to teaching adult literacy, Stewart explicitly recognized the importance of using textbooks for adults with content relevant to the adult students in their daily lives. So in her Country Life Readers she integrated the teaching of literacy with the teaching of content knowledge in farming, healthy living, civics, home economics, financial management, parenting and other important knowledge useful in the functional contexts of adults living on farms and in small, rural towns" (Stewart, 1920, p. 71).

Today, following the recommendations of the Secretary of Labor's Commission on Necessary Skills (SCANS, 1991) both the U.S. Departments of Education and Labor recommend instruction that is contextualized to cultural and social contexts of adult literacy and language learners.


Sage advice from the Moonlight Schools and the Library of Congress.


The Social, Intergenerational Effects of Textbooks for Adult Literacy Education


Three years following the publication of The Textbook in American Society, Daniel Boorstin prepared a report about the future of the book, including textbooks, for the U.S. Congress. He discussed the problems associated with illiteracy among adults and included a section on the intergenerational importance of books called READING BEGINS AT HOME in which he states:


Quote: "The best way to motivate people to read is to encourage reading at home and early in life. ...book reading is greatest among children whose parents or guardians value reading both for pleasure and as a key to achievement. ...More children would be reading-and would themselves become avid readers-if their parents were readers, talked about what they had read, and encouraged the family to read at home." (Boorstin, 1984, pp.
12-13). End quote


Some sixty years earlier, in her book about the Moonlight Schools, Stewart anticipated Boorstin's report to Congress about encouraging the family to read at home:


Quote: "Illiteracy begets illiteracy. The names of parents and grandparents on the illiteracy list are usually followed by the names of most of their progeny. A family name is duplicated many times on the list. As a measure for insuring the education of the coming generation, the illiterate adults should be taught, for even where compulsory attendance laws are well enforced, public sentiment back of them is the only thing that can make them completely effective" (Stewart, 1922, p. 172). End quote


In her textbook, The Country Life Readers: First Book, Stewart instills the importance of families reading together. On a page with a pen and ink drawing of a father reading a book to his three children and his wife, Stewart writes several lines for the adult literacy student to read:

Quote: "I can read.
I can read a book....
I will read many good books.
We will read at home."
End quote

Sage advice from the Moonlight Schools and the Library of Congress!


References (See addendum following the references)


Boorstin, D. (1984). Books in our future: A report from the Librarian of Congress to the Congress. Washington, DC: Joint Committee on the Library, Congress of the United States.


Cole, J. & Sticht, T. (Eds.). (1981). The textbook in American society.
Washington, DC: Center for the Book, Library of Congress. (Online LC Catalog Number: 80027657)


SCANS. (1991, June). What work requires of schools. Washington, DC:  U. S.
Department of Labor.


Stewart, C. (1922). Moonlight schools: For the emancipation of adult illiterates. New York: E. P. Dutton & Company.


Stewart, C. (1915). Country life readers: First book. New York: B. F.
Johnson Publishing Company.



Making Connections: Addendum

Making Connections are brief notes on relationships among work that I have done and the work of other researchers, practitioners, or policymakers.
During 1972-73 I worked with adult educators at the Appalachian Adult Education Center at Morehead State University in Kentucky and learned of the recent acquisition of a one-room school building on the campus named in honor of Cora Wilson Stewart, founder of the Moonlight Schools for adult illiterates. That's how I first became interested in the work of Cora Wilson Stewart and began to collect her textbooks for my home library. In 1975, I edited a book entitled "Reading for Working: A Functional Literacy Anthology" which included a chapter on how to design more usable textbooks and technical materials for education and training. This interest in making texts more readable and usable carried over into my work at the NIE where I was able to fund a Document Design Project with the American Institutes for Research. Then in 1978, while I was working at the NIE, I was invited by Dan Boorstin, the Librarian of Congress, to serve as a member of the National Advisory Board of the recently established Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. In 1978-1979, I worked with John Cole, Director of the Center for the Book, to bring about The Textbook in American Society conference.




_______________________________________________
Reading-hall-of-fame mailing list
Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
http://lists.nottingham.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/reading-hall-of-fame




This message and any attachment are intended solely for the addressee and may contain confidential information. If you have received this message in error, please send it back to me, and immediately delete it. 

Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this message or in any attachment.  Any views or opinions expressed by the author of this email do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nottingham.

This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an attachment may still contain software viruses which could damage your computer system, you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with the University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK legislation.