The Legacy of Dick and Jane
Beyond being the book* from which I learned to read,
Dick and Jane left me another legacy.
I was dreading another professional development sessions we teachers were required to attend after school. Seldom did these meetings do more than eat up valuable time. Most of us who had years of teaching under our belts carried papers with us to check and sat near the back. After a few minutes elapsed, long enough to ascertain what the speaker was discussing, we shifted our attention to our work. Usually, I was guilty, but not on this occasion.
I wasn’t sure why the man was discussing how children could not relate to the illustrations and adventures of Dick, Jane, Sally, Mother and Father. It had been years since these basal readers were used but I was intrigued. They were my first reading books.
It was true that I could not relate my life on the farm to anything except the “aeroplane” that flew over and from which I learned to read the words, look, see, and up. Airplanes did fly over our farm. True, I could not relate to the way Dick and Jane dressed. They wore shoes when they were outside playing. I played outside barefoot to save my shoes. They had roller skates; I didn’t know what those were. Father wore a suit and tie; my daddy wore patched overalls. The contrasts were many.
I could not relate, but I could aspire and I can remember looking longingly at those pictures and saying to myself, “When I grow up. . .”
That was the book that lit a burning fire inside me. Many others were fuel for that fire that took me beyond the narrow physical confines of my early years.
I came very close to challenging the speaker, but I did not need to defend Dick and Jane and Sally or their illustrators. That I was the only one in my large family with a college degree—three college degrees—was defense enough.
*The first Dick and Jane Primer Book by William S. Gray and May Hill Arbuthnot. Illustrated by Keith Ward. Published by Scott, Foresman & Co.