How education is institutionally organized.
Test your knowledge with these top questions!
Which buses carried students to different neighborhoods to integrate public schools in the 1970s?
Paired schools often exchanged students in both directions, so many children rode long morning routes across town.
What did the Dewey Decimal number on a catalog card tell a library patron?
Melvil Dewey devised the 000-to-999 scheme in 1876, grouping books by subject so shelf neighbors share a topic.
Which volunteer schools drew students across neighborhoods to aid 1970s integration?
Magnets offered special arts or science programs that drew families across segregated zones.
Which office machine largely replaced the mimeograph in schools by the 1980s?
Xerox-style copiers made copies from plain originals, so schools no longer needed to cut stencils.
Library card catalogs filed a separate card for a book under which three headings?
Librarians filed three cards per book so patrons could find a known title even when they forgot the author.
Classroom filmstrips of the 1960s showed still images on what width of film roll?
A strip held dozens of stills that a teacher could hold on screen and discuss, unlike a movie that kept rolling.
Which shape of pizza became a classic US school cafeteria serving?
Cafeterias baked pizza on large sheet pans, so rectangular slices fed long lunch lines cheaply.
In 1960s classrooms, what did the beep on a filmstrip record tell the teacher to do?
Sound and pictures ran on separate machines, so the beep kept the record narration matched to the still on screen.
Mimeograph classroom copies were printed by wrapping a cut stencil around what?
Ink pressed through the stencil's cut lines onto each sheet as the teacher turned the drum.
What kept index cards from falling out of library card catalog drawers?
The rod slid through a hole in each card, so drawers could tilt open without spilling thousands of cards.