The Heinlein Society Educator's CD

Teachers and Librarians may request a CD here

Many of us found our introduction to science fiction and the works of Robert A. Heinlein through his wonderful series of young adult novels written for Scribner's in the 40's and 50's. Usually, the school library provided those books that our eager young minds devoured.

Sadly, these days the school library, if not a dying breed, is at least a seriously wounded one. Many of those libraries, if not closed altogether, only purchase books on approved reading lists or part of the curriculum. This means if we do not want today's children foreclosed from the route we followed to discover Heinlein's works we need to make it possible for those works to fit in that paradigm.

With that goal in mind, the Society agreed to collaborate with Cascadia Con, the Science Fiction Museum, and Reading for the Future (RFF) in the preparation of a CD of materials. It would be used both for an Educators' Conference and as a continuing resource for the much larger number of teachers around the world who could not attend the conference but would be open to such a program in their school if they had some help getting it started. Our Society undertook the funding and creation of the CD itself, after a collaborative effort with our partners to identify the materials to be included. The navigation and compatibility of the CD is as basic, yet friendly, as we could make it, so that both Windows and Mac-using schools could use the same CD.

Two groups of information are included on the disk. The first, in electronic format (Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format), mirrored the materials provided as hardcopy to those teachers who were lucky enough to be present at the original Educators' Conference. Materials feature such leading educators as Julie Czernada and James Van Pelt, and diverse subjects include (just to pick a few) fairy tales, speculative poetry, H. G. Wells, and Teaching Science Fact with Science Fiction. Oh, yes, a fellow named Heinlein, of whom you may have heard, has his own section in this first grouping as well.

The second grouping, labeled "CD Extras," features even more material relevant to teachers who want to use Heinlein's works. Included in the "CD Extras" sections are two excellent lesson plans from Robert James, Ph.D.—one on Have Spacesuit—Will Travel and another for Tunnel In The Sky. It also includes a presentation on Have Spacesuit—Will Travel by The Heinlein Society's president, David Silver, focusing on broadening educators' thinking on what this book is really teaching our children. Finally, a Language Arts and Science Arts program based around Have Spacesuit-Will Travel that www.spaceweek.org prepared for World Space Week. Finally, drum roll please …

With the permission and cooperation of the Heinlein Prize Trust, there are three in copyright Heinlein short stories for young readers on the CD. The CD includes the complete text of each, and it licenses teachers and librarians to reproduce a copy for each student assigned them as class reading. Of course we all love the "official Heinlein juveniles" (i.e., those Heinlein novels published by Scribner's between 1947 and 1958), but what many people do not realize is that Robert wrote many really fine shorter-than-novel-length pieces aimed at young readers that do not get nearly the attention they deserve. Here is a wonderful opportunity to get a new generation hooked on Heinlein by one of his shorter works and then use that to move them into the novel length works. On the CD, we have the complete text to "A Tenderfoot in Space," "The Black Pits of Luna," and "The Menace from Earth."

Overall, the Heinlein Society Educators' CD is the best resource that exists today for teachers interested in teaching Heinlein or science fiction in general in their classrooms, thus opening up school libraries as well to those books.

So if you are a teacher or librarian, please contact the Secretary of the Heinlein Society and request one of these marvelous CDs. If you are not a teacher or librarian? If you were just "a friend of Robert's" who would like today's kids to have the same opportunity that you did to find and fall in love with Robert Heinlein's works? The most effective way you can do that is to support this Society's ongoing efforts to support teachers by making a generous contribution to our Education programs.

The Heinlein Society Educational Outreach

Robert Heinlein belongs in our schools!

Join our Education Committee

The goals of the Education committee include:

a. Develop, promote, and distribute guides for teaching older children and teens to read and appreciate Heinlein's fiction, especially the so-called Juveniles, Future History stories, and similar age-related materials. (These guides should be developed first for English-speaking countries; foreign language guides should be developed as Society members in non-English-speaking countries become available and willing to write them.)

b. Develop, promote, and conduct teacher-training seminars and workshops to ensure the most effective use of the teaching guides.

c. Establish and promote other initiatives that encourage learning and achievement in Heinlein's critical curriculum for success: mathematics, history, and languages; initiatives may include awards, medals, diplomas, certificates, scholarships, and other forms of recognition, and may include both teachers and learners.

d. Seek constructive partnerships with other organizations to achieve the goals of the Education Section.

e. Establish, develop, promote, and provide other resources for supporting the goals of the Education Section, including World Wide Web links and electronic archives of teaching and learning materials.

WE WANT YOU

If the Society's educational goals excite you (and we hope they do) and you would like to get involved, here's what you can do.

Give us money. If you can afford it, make charitable donations directly to the Society and earmark it for educational use.

Launch an education project. If you can do it with your own resources, so much the better. If you can't, send us a proposal. If we like your idea, we'll try to find a way to help get it going—either with other people helping or with money to defray costs.

Mighty oaks from little acorns grow. We need acorns to plant (projects) and people to water them (money).

Robert Heinlein belongs in our schools!     Join our Education Committee

Thank you,
The Education Committee

©2001-2007 The Heinlein Society
PO Box 1254
Venice, California 90294-1254