February 9th, 2010
While reading a book on Formation and Management of Educational Institutions, I was surprised and humored to find the following rules supposedly applicable to female teachers in New Zealand in 1915.
- You will not marry during the term of your contract
- You are not to keep company with men
- You must be home between the hours of 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. unless attending a school function
- You may not loiter downtown in ice-cream stores
- You may not travel beyond the city limits unless you have the permission of the board
- You may not ride in a carriage or automobile with any man unless he is your father or brother
- You may not smoke cigarettes
- You may not dress in bright colors
- You may under no circumstances dye your hair
- You must wear at least two petticoats
- Your dresses must not be shorter than two inches above the ankle
- To keep the schoolroom neat and clean, you must: sweep the floor at least once daily; scrub the floor at least once a week with hot, soapy water; clean the blackboards at least once a day; and start the fire at 7am so the room will be warm at 8am
As my inquisitive nature got the better of me, I decided to find out how New Zealand’s teacher regulations had evolved over the last 100 years. Hoping that the internet might bring me joy, I was again surprised to find the above (or similar) so called rules of conduct attributable to the teaching profession in more countries that one. Not finding any authentic source to confirm if the above prescriptive rules did indeed enjoy any degree of authority at any time (sic there was no internet in 1915), it seems that the rules may be a product of a humorous person’s highly active imagination.
Having no cause to continue with my quest to find out more about New Zealand teacher regulations, I decided to post these rules here with the hope that it will evoke a smile and raise some brows.
There is a message here – one should not assume that all information one comes across is accurate / correct – even in academic literature.
Do let me know if you have come across instances where the information made available to you, though seemingly from a credible source or having been paid for by you was inaccurate or misleading.
In my next blog, I will write about the new set of problems being created by information explosion and the new skills required by the users of such information.
Tags: Information, information accuracy, information age, lighter moments, reliability of information, teacher rules in 1915
Posted in Education, Technology in Education, Web 3.0 | No Comments »
October 14th, 2009
Publically launched in April 2009, the World Digital Library (WDL) is easily the most exciting e-learning tool on the web. It exemplifies what Web 3.0 is about and its power to transcend geographical boundaries and reach global audiences promoting cross-cultural awareness and understanding.
Developed by a team at the U.S. Library of Congress in partnership with UNESCO, WDL makes available on the Internet significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world. The digital library contains materials from over two-dozen libraries around the world, searchable in 7 different languages. The library will continue to add content and will be the largest collection of the world’s cultural riches that would tell the stories and highlight the achievements of all countries and cultures.
The digital library makes it possible to discover, study, and enjoy cultural treasures from around the world on one site. One of its many exciting features includes multiple forms of search and browsing capabilities that allows items to be browsed by place, time, topic, type of item, and contributing institution, or can be located by an open-ended search, in several languages. Special features include interactive geographic clusters, a timeline, advanced image-viewing and interpretive capabilities.
Home Page – Interactive Search Browser
The library’s cultural treasures include manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, and architectural drawings and more. Item-level descriptions and interviews with curators about featured items provide additional information.
Even with its current limited range of resources, it can easily be seen that the library has the potential to transform teaching – learning in a classroom. The variety of literary resources that will be available to seekers of information can have wide implications for collaborative learning (including international collaborative learning between grades) and in bringing multiculturalism and the real world into the classroom.
Thank you Nancy, for bringing this to our attention.
Tags: Digital libraries, e-Learning, Electronic learning, Library of Congress, Technology/Internet, U.S. Library of Congress, UNESCO, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, World Digital Library
Posted in Education, Internationalism, Learner centric teaching, Web 3.0, e-learning | 1 Comment »
