1950s Teachers' aids

     Velma MacKay, ed. Arts and Activities (March 1950, Vol.27 No.2) A magazine for elementary and middle school teachers, very interesting as a historical document. Most of the contributors are teachers describing activities and teaching aids. The magazine is clearly aimed at teachers with limited budgets and supplies. the publishers promote other titles aimed at other subject areas. The ads promote everything from hectograph masters of arithmetic and spelling exercise sheets, to film strips “centered around a new activity program” with and without recordings, and art supplies.
     I have no idea how the magazine was received, but the whole thing has the air of making do. There's an article about how to use papier mache, a discussion of sand paintings, instructions for making kites, and so on. This magazine is for teachers eager to widen and enrich their pupils’ school experience beyond the 3Rs, which in 1950 was still an ambition not so much discouraged as benignly disregarded. Nevertheless, the assumption motivating the magazine and its advertisers is that these teachers have a great deal of freedom in devising lessons and “activity programs” within the guidelines of the curricula. The horrors of objective testing and narrowly defined learning outcomes were still in the future.
    I found the contents variable. But as information about teaching and learning in mid-20th century America it was well worth the time spent reading it.