Summary
These lessons use the beautiful research by Professor Sue Walker on the wonderful work of Otto and Marie Neurath, two design visionaries. Marie Neurath came up with the acronym Isotype (International System of Typographic Picture Education) to refer to the pictographic language they were developing that would educate children through visual icons and visible chains of reasoning. We've included links in the further reading and media sections, to not only to Marie and Otto's work but also worksheets and resources created by Professor Sue Walker with children and their parents/carers.
The University of Reading Department of Typography and Communication Design, as well as Special Collections based at the Museum of English Rural Life, hold original books by Marie and Otto Neurath.
This resource was produced as part of a collaboration between education practitioners, the University of Reading and anti-racism practitioners.
How to use the lesson plan
These lesson plans are a scheme of work lasting six lessons .
Key topics to be covered and knowledge achieved by the end of the session are outlined in each plan.
Supplementary resources have been provided which may be used in class to better situate the content with students
The ‘Further Reading’ section provides references to academic research from Professor Sue Walker, at the University of Reading. You can use this to develop your own knowledge and your teaching materials.
A typeface developed by Professor Sue Walker for schools can also be found in the ‘Teacher Resources’ webpage. It's free to download.
Evaluation
For teachers
We are keen to evaluate and monitor the effectiveness of these resources as they are used by teachers in schools. You can scan the QR code on the final page of this resource which will take you to a short post-survey. We encourage you to be as open and honest as possible as this will enable us to better develop the materials. All data will be anonymised prior to analysis.
If you do not feel comfortable answering the survey, or prefer to give feedback in a different way, please contact Stephanie Mitchell (s.mitchell@reading.ac.uk)