Technologies I Used in My Classroom in the 1950s: Recapturing How I Taught A Half-century Ago
When I began teaching U.S. and world history in 1956 at Glenville High School (Cleveland, Ohio), there were many technological aids that I had available and used often in my five classes each day. Seven years later, when I left Glenville to train returned Peace Corp Volunteers to teach at Cardozo High School in Washington, D.C., I had added a few more items to my technological repertoire. At no time in those years did I ask myself whether they were productive, (i.e., did they get students to learn more, faster, and better?) or efficient (i.e., did I teach more, faster, and better?). They were available, I tried them out in lessons, and I used them to help me teach. Period.
Between 1956-1963, every day I used the blackboard, the textbook, and theditto machine to make student hand-outs (ah, just typing in the phrase brings back memories of smelling alcohol and purple stained fingers from handling those “spirit masters”). For the blackboard, I even used different colored chalk to make diagrams and draw pictures to make a central point of the lesson. Every few weeks, I would use a film-strip projector and film strips that were available in the social studies department or the district’s audio-visual department located downtown. Once a month or so, I would borrow a film from the Cleveland