Tag Archives: students

New in Isis: Cybernetics and Chinese Linguistics; Constructing “Gifted” Students Post-Brown v. Board

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The September 2017 issue of Isis, the official journal of the History of Science Society, is now online. Two articles in this issue may be of especial interest to AHP readers: one documenting the relationship between cybernetics and modern Chinese linguists and the other exploring the construction of “gifted” and “academically talented” students in the context of efforts to desegregate schools following the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling. Full details follow below.

“From Modernizing the Chinese Language to Information Science: Chao Yuen Ren’s Route to Cybernetics,” by Chen-Pang Yeang. Abstract:

As one of the most famous Chinese intellectuals of the twentieth century, Chao Yuen Ren is known primarily for his founding of modern Chinese linguistics. This essay examines a less familiar part of his career: cybernetics. When he taught at Berkeley in 1947, he read Norbert Wiener’s book manuscript and gravitated toward the subject. His participation in the 1953 Macy Conference marked the beginning of his decades-long work that used the concepts of feedback and information to understand language in general and Chinese in particular. This essay argues that Chao’s exploration of cybernetics was influenced not only by the rise of information science in the midcentury United States but also by the movement to modernize the Chinese language two decades earlier. His phonetic research for dialect surveys, involvement in language reform, and appropriation of structuralism when he worked in China in the 1920s and 1930s shaped his cybernetic interpretations of language in the 1950s and 1960s. This article enriches the current historiography of information science, which stresses disunity and internationalism, by showing how an East Asian context affected an aspect of the early development of cybernetics. It also demonstrates the value of an immigrant scientist’s intellectual biography for studies of transnational science.

“A “Precious Minority”: Constructing the “Gifted” and “Academically Talented” Student in the Era of Brown v. Board of Education and the National Defense Education Act,” by Jim Wynter Porter. Abstract: Continue reading New in Isis: Cybernetics and Chinese Linguistics; Constructing “Gifted” Students Post-Brown v. Board →

More Lester Beck Film Footage: Human Growth

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As a followup to last week’s post of psychologist Lester Beck’s Photographic Studies in Hypnosis we bring you more of Beck’s film footage. The above film, Human Growth, was produced in 1947 under Beck’s guidance as an introduction to human reproduction for American students. The film is described as follows:

The “Oregon film” was the first film about human reproduction to be shown in U.S. public schools. It was written by Dr. Lester F. Beck, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, and produced by Eddie Albert Productions. Sy Wexler directed and shot the film. The film was sponsored by the E.C. Brown Trust, a non-profit foundation associated with the University of Oregon since 1939, whose mission was to promote healthy sexuality and family life. Intended for seventh grade students, HUMAN GROWTH was seen by millions of schoolchildren in 20 countries, and won numerous awards. At its height of popularity, there were 2,000 prints in circulation, although only a handful currently exist. Two subsequent editions were released in 1962 and 1976.

As pointed out on the blog 16mm Lost and Found, the film received rave reviews from a number of publications, including Life magazine (which can be read online here). The blog goes on to note that,

Human Growth approaches its sensitive subject in a calm, facts-based manner. It demonstrates how families and classrooms can discuss sex openly and without embarrassment. Boys and girls are not segregated, and there is no moralizing. The film also models good pedagogical methods and exemplified how it should be used in actual classrooms. In the film, junior high students watch a film called “Human Growth” and the teacher leads them in discussion before and after the film. “Every single aspect of a film being made must have an educational purpose ultimately related to the classroom so that the film will aid the teacher, but never substitute for him,” Dr. Beck wrote in a 1964 article.

The film won every national and international award for documentary film, including the Golden Eagle Award from the Committee on International Non-theatrical Events (CINE). Thousands of schools from all over the United States and 20 countries worldwide adopted the film, with widespread approval from parents and teachers.

Other, similar films written by Beck can also be viewed online, including Human and Animal Beginnings (1966), Fertilization and Birth (1967), and Human Heredity (1969).