Sean Redmond

Parents and teachers are always trying to make learning sound fun—and while Columbia College’s new exhibit, "Reading, Writing and ‘Rithmetic: The Way We Used to Learn," isn’t exactly a trip to an amusement park, it is a whole lot more interesting than the premise might have you believe. Readers, spellers, old math and grammar books, nineteenth-century stitched samplers, flash cards and a roomful of international penmanship books spanning the past 500 years might sound a bit dull for those of us who’ve already mastered the basic educational challenges (and don’t harbor a particularly passionate interest in the evolution of the industry), but the exhibit is quite comprehensive—spanning two large rooms—and has enough spice in it to keep it interesting for even the most casually curious. For example, there’s the "Psycholinguists Reading Series," which provides a glimpse into the way teachers tried to combat the differences in African-American oral and written verb use back in 1968. And there’s a spotlight on the "Dick and Jane" books, with a twist—pages from a modern-day version called "Yiddish With Dick and Jane" hang on the wall, whose story branches into more adventurous topics like two-timing wives and guys who, in the words of Dick, are "more than gay, they’re overjoyed." And the whole exhibit takes place in a one-time press building for the American Book Co., which may just have published a number of the titles on display in the exhibit today.

"Reading, Writing and Rithmetic: The Way We Used to Learn" shows at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts, 1104 South Wabash, 2nd Floor, (312)344-6630, through October 27.

(2007-09-18)

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