the term has been defined by UNESCO for statistical purposes as a “non-periodical printed publication of at least 49 pages excluding covers,” - Britannica online
49? must be another of those mystical numbers.
I suspect like many benchmarks this is arbitrary and was derived by some equally arbitrary process like asking a whole buncha people at UNESCO headquarters then averaging all the answers. Either that or it has something to do with exceeding a six-octave range.
And I suspect it has to do with the number of pages in the sewn signature of a bound book: 25 would be to signatures would be two with forty-nine printed pages and that blank page that seems always to be there. Or 16 (the number Dover seems to use, at least for certain books) would be 3 is 48 plus a mystery sheet. If the definition comes from the ISO, it is almost certainly some such reason. (See their explanation of the A size papers).
Hmmm. According to UNESCO, my sons' bookshelves are chock full of ... printed, bound, nonperiodical objects which do not constitute books, since most them are about 30 pages long. I know this because I have to list the number of pages of each book - er, printed, bound, nonperiodical -- read by the kids for their stupid reading programs at school.
> stupid reading programs
ahem.
They are stupid. Reading is a normal, and should be enjoyable, part of everyday activity in our house. The kids have many good choices of reading material, and reading is part of their routine. But the school requires all these lists of what they've read, and the writing down of every book, and how many pages it was, and so on, takes all the joy out of reading and turns it into an exercise in accounting.
Counterproductive, in our case. Stupid reading program.
How can schools require this? Is every household activity subject to their authority? How is it any of their business?
The teachers where Theo and Sasha are in 4th and 2nd grades respectively use the reading reports as an incentive to get the kids to read more. Both teachers maintain, but do not make a big deal over, a wall chart showing the number and grade levels of the books the kids have read. It becomes a very mild competition among the kids, which I think is a good thing. I would not like it if this became a major part of a kid's day, though.
More concerning is the impact of the Federal legislation that gets right into every kid's school day and dictates that the teachers teach how to take standardized tests. The teachers hate it, but huge education dollars are up for grabs for those schools whose kids do the best on these tests. I deplore it, have written letters to Congresspeople and to the editor, but so long as (political rant omitted by the author).
> Counterproductive, in our case.
that's the kicker. in your case, reading is a normal, everyday activity. you would be astonished at the number of households where it is not. coupled with TEd's accurate account of the Federal requirements, schools have to do many unpleasant things.
I also know of websites and forums where people take a bit of deserved pride in keeping track of what books they have read.
as for Insel's questions, oh boy, where does one begin? it has nothing to do with authority, it has everything to do with trying our damndest to fight the social culture of a country that does little to reward intelligence and creativity, and a system (especially now) that thinks schools are factories.
its not the number of books her children read that is the issue, its that the school required that they track the number of pages.
if a fouth grader comes in and lists The Cat in the Hat as one of the book they have read, well, that is not appropriate reading for a kid who should be reading on a 4th grade level.
but to judge books by the pages.. UGH! what a habit to encourage! the teachers should be reasonable familiar with most of the books 4th graders are reading. they should know the titles, authors and age/reading level appropriateness. tracking the number of pages is stupid.
as a child, i had a huge book of hans christian anderson fairy tales. the kind of book that is normal read to children. (but, alas, i was never read to as a child)
i read these fairytales to myself. and i started doing so in 3rd grade or so--and i started with the shortest stories.
as i got older and older, i continued reading these fairytales, until in about 8th grade, i finally took on the tale of Ice Queen--a story about 30 pages long--but each page was about 8X 12! and the text was printed in two columns.
i recognize now, my behavior was childish--but i was a child, doing thing in a childish way. to teach a child to chose a book (or perhaps avoid a book) simple based on the number of pages? that is bad.
As for counting pages, perhaps it would be more appropriate and less of a chore for teachers and/or librarians to assess a large body of reading material for children and assign titles to lists that are appropriate for certain age/grades. Thus the student reporting to her teacher that she read
Number the Stars need not be concerned with the number of pages in the book. This way, even if educators feel that the crucial thing is the number of words read, rather than a more sophisticated grasp of the art of literature, students will not be penalized for variances between editions.
There is probably some benefit to "enforced reading" even if the details of the accounting are irksome to already-literary families. I read voraciously in elementary school, but was rarely enthusiastic about the required reading in high school English class; I was much more enthusiastic about Tom Clancy, Arthur Conan Doyle or Frederick Forsyth than I was about Austen, Melville, Hawthorne or Steinbeck. (I remember being frequently amazed at the depth of thought that some students -- usually girls -- in my high school English classes displayed in discussions about reading assignments.) Had I never acquired a love for reading for pleasure, though, I would never have had the chance to develop an appreciation for more literary works later in life.
On the subject of reading matieral, by the way, has anyone else read
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon? I read this on vacation last week and loved it.
you know, I don't think they whip the child for reading shorter books.
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tracking the number of pages is stupid.
no, it's not.
they want to encourage reading longer, more in-depth books, and one way to do that is to track the number of pages.
why don't some of you that are so down on teachers doing what they can in the classroom volunteer some time at your local elementary school.
I have required reading for my kids over the summer. Even at 13 and 16, they are still allowed to read "The Cat in the Hat" and have it. It just doesn't count for much. I help direct them and I try to ensure that they are reading slightly more complicated things. They don't have much time for pleasure reading during the school year it seems, so I'm encouraging them to read things that are fun and that stretch them a little. Sometimes I force them to read a particular item - Animal Farm, Siddhartha, the Euthyphro, but that's a very small part of it. Most of the material is stuff they pick for themselves, comes out to maybe 1 - 1.5 hours per day during the summer. (I also have them do some math problems in the summer - just so they don't come back to school having forgotten everything the teacher was hoping they had learnt in the previous years.)
I strongly favor standardized testing. The tests are trivial for students who are getting the stuff and the hullabaloo about teachers having to teach to the test is gross exaggeration in most cases. If they're teaching what they're supposed to be teaching, then the students will pass the tests. I do not approve of every test and I do not approve of all the types of questions - but in general, it has my strong support. I also wish there were federal instead of state standards of learning.
OTOH, I also think there needs to be some differentiation. These tests tend to be trivial and I think that's right. The tests should be easy - did you get anything at all out of your schooling? But there should be higher level testing as well, for some students - and it could be that the various AP tests could fill part of this function. I don't see this happening any time in the near future, as there's this mythology that has come up about the "bad old days of tracking." Practices and Standards for some teachers reads like a socio-political manifesto. As every individual is held to be an interchangeable cog, then every student needs to learn the same things and be held to the same standard. We want to get the slower students up to speed and we want to hold the quicker students back.
In our school district, they're trying to flood the AP classes. In my kids' particular school the goal is that every single student take at least one AP class, because "everyone's good at something" - a questionable "fact," but more importantly it is both more expansive and more restrictive than the more probable case, "Nearly anyone can do nearly anything (at the hs level) if he applies himself."
As to page numbers, I don't know that they're necessary, but I'd be open to teachers using this as a primitive metric (it seems most are). Quantity is important early on, as well as quality. Students should get a broad swatch of things to read throughout K-12. The quality of the books should be high throughout, but the demand for quality of the reading done on those books should increase as the student progress through the grades.
There is hardly a day goes by that I don't disagree with the teachers about something. I generally don't get involved unless there's something egregious. Nor do I feel compelled to express my dissent to them. If a teacher is knowledgeable of the subject, is able to communicate it, and willing to do so, then I will make sure my kid does her part - and I will do whatever I can to help. I will do this even though I have extremely visceral opinions about some of the stuff. example: I've signed up to be a science fair judge even though I consider their implementation of it to be stupid and counterproductive - the ideal experience to destroy any nascent interest a student might have in the subject.
I don't disagree with any of that. well said.
>>has anyone else read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon? I read this on vacation last week and loved it.
<<
I have Alex. It was one of the better choices of an informal book club organized by some friends. Raised some very interesting questions about autism, and about Christopher's relationship with his father. I'd join you in recommending it.
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On the subject of reading matieral, by the way, has anyone else read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon? I read this on vacation last week and loved it.
Indeed, I have. We tried to get my autistic son interested in reading it, but so far, he is singularly uninterested in exploring the lives of others -- fictional or not -- like him. Right now, he is on a Raold Dahl kick.
Man--aren't we grateful for the authors who engage our children (and us, for that matter)??
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Right now, he is on a Raold Dahl kick.
Oh I love Dahl. I just read Boy: Tales of Childhood not too long ago. I think my favorite short story of his has to be the one about the hitch-hiker who is a "fingersmith."
Chapter 65 of Daniel Boorstin's "The Discoverers" is titled "Transforming the book."
p. 524
'Our "volume" (from Latin volvere, to roll) was first a name for manuscripts in rolls. In early Egypt sheets to write on wre made from the papyrus reed that grew in the Nile Delta. The reed was called byblos, from the port of Byblos, where it was first found, and whence comes our "Bible" for The Book.'
Summarizing a part of p. 525
Parchment comes from Pergamum, a kingdom in which tradition says it was developed. Vellum comes from the old french 'veel', for the skin of a calf.
next paragraph on p 525
'Parchment made possible the next and greatest advance in the technology of the book before printing ... The pages ... were bound together into a "codex." The name, from Latin codesx, or caudex, for tree-trunk board, or writing tablet ...'
The whole chapter is only 9 pages long, but very much worth the read. Speaking as a fellow who always despised the study of history and never had much use for the subject or its books, this entire book is worth reading. My entire outlook on the subject of history has changed from reading this (and 1 or 2 other books). Anyways, those 9 pages are worth the attention of those who find this thread interesting.
Well, I remember in high school not being able to read 148-page books that I was really interested in (literally), because my anal teacher upheld the 150-page minimum.
As a consequence, I would create my own books to fill up the reading log with fodder, or I would extend a 30-page gas-station book to 153 pages and read random passages and put comments for that reading day about how "interesting" this and that was. At least they were easy A's.
Different people are at different levels, and these kinds of standardizations marginalize some people. I grew up in the ADD-generation of TV and Internet. Just reading a book that doesn't have any pictures and is over 50 pages is a milestone for me.
The concept of reading an entire book that is 200 pages is beyond my comprehension (especially when you have hundreds of other things to do). Although, when I finish with this semester I'm going to force myself to read the books I have lying around.
When I was in the sixth grade, our teacher decided we should all learn speed reading. We were assigned a book report a day. I read all my books the old-fashioned way, one word at a time. If I was too busy to read a book each night, I simply wrote my report on a book I'd read previously.
Teachers need to gradually push students. Not all reading is "reading" any more than all thinking is "thinking." Being part of the internet generation doesn't mean students should get a free pass. Surely they will be happy to have less demanding work. That doesn't mean it's good for them in the long run. My oldest is 16 and in 10th grade honors english/history. It's a program called IGCSE, that comes out of Oxford. They have to meet the state SOL standards and they have to pass this test from the UK system. It's a two year program that started in 9th grade and combines English and History together (a very good match, I think). She complained vociferously in the beginning about all the reading and about how hard it all was. It was a terrible experience. She was so accustomed to coasting and learning almost nothing. Finally she had a teacher who pushed her. She hated it - absolutely loathed it - but eventually came to appreciate it.
I recall coming to her on a weekend once. I walked into her room with a cup of tea and maybe some cookies (I don't recall). I sat it down and she never looked up. She started complaining (still without looking up) and it was something like "Daddy, you just wouldn't *BELIEVE* how much homework I have!" and then she looks up at me very briefly and very seriously, "GOD, I LOVE THAT WOMAN!" and then turns back to her work. I left.
The injustice that kids are getting these days isn't just that they aren't learning all that they could learn, but that they are not learning to push themselves. They're not learning to stretch their limits. That's obviously not true of every kid in every class, but I think it's true in the cases where it's true. The biggest problem my daughter has was having an 8th grade English teacher who didn't push her - to prepare her.
The injustice that kids are getting these days isn't just that they aren't learning all that they could learn, but that they are not learning to push themselves. Oh! I agree! Absolutely! My son's high school, especially, was just awful. They actually told me that they don't give much homework because "the kids won't do it".
I know they're worried (rightfully so) about low test scores, and I'd bet money that a large percentage of the reason they won't push kids is that they're afraid there'll be a lot of dropouts, which will cost them funding. But...they are NOT doing these kids a favor. My son loved it--he just skated through; but now he's trying the same thing in college, and it just isn't working. He's dropped a couple of courses, and some of his grades are terrible. And it's just killing me, because I think he may actually be even more intelligent than his sister, who has gotten near-perfect grades her entire school career. (She went to a different high school--one where she could stay in the AP. His had a program he wanted, but did not have the AP.)
Too little focus on discipline as a means to focus motivation and passion. Also discussed in the ongoing music lectures by D. Barenboim mentioned elsewhere.
we just sang at a private (read very expensive) hs in New Hampshire where they are receiving an exemplary education. oh that we could do the same for all the children...
can you say "military budget?
Is it exemplary if we can't do the same for everyone?
well, my dictionary says:
"serving as a desirable model; representing the best of its kind"
so, unfortunately, I think we can.
Hm mm. Yes and no, I guess.
ex·em·pla·ry P Pronunciation Key (g-zmpl-r)
adj.
Worthy of imitation; commendable: exemplary behavior.
Serving as a model.
Serving as an illustration; typical.
Serving as a warning; admonitory.
[From Middle English exaumplarie, exemplere, an exemplar. See exemplar.]
exem·plari·ly (gzm-plâr-l) adv.
ex·empla·ri·ness or exem·plari·ty (gzm-plr-t) n.
[Download Now or Buy the Book]
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
exemplary
adj 1: worthy of imitation; "exemplary behavior"; "model citizens" [syn: model(a)] 2: being or serving as an illustration of a type; "the free discussion that is emblematic of democracy"; "an action exemplary of his conduct"; [syn: emblematic, typic] 3: serving to warn; "shook a monitory finger at him"; "an exemplary jail sentence" [syn: admonitory, cautionary, monitory, warning(a)]
well, I guess I was using it as in the first def.
but this is a strange dichotmy:
"Worthy of imitation" vs. "typical"
and I don't understand this example sentence:
"the free discussion that is emblematic of democracy"
where's the word "exemplary"?
Aren't books aperiodic crystalline structures?
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What is a book?<<
I make little folded books, eight pages, out of a single sheet of paper. I also make accordion-folded "flutter books" - for which we have just learned the name "orihon", thanks to Anu. I consider these books just as much as my longer, sewn, more conventionally booky-looking books. I'm working now on a book combined with an origami fold to contain it. What some institution or organization chooses to designate as a "book", excluding other things which could legitimately fall into that category, is not going to affect what I call my less-than-49-page creations. 
> I consider these books just as much as my longer, sewn, more conventionally booky-looking books.
boy, I had to read this sentence a couple of times before I could get it. that understood books midway through just wouldn't show up for me.
heh.