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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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.
TEd
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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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).
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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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.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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> stupid reading programs
ahem.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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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.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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How can schools require this? Is every household activity subject to their authority? How is it any of their business?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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).
TEd
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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> 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.
Last edited by etaoin; 03/26/06 11:39 AM.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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.
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