Penguin Education
Penguin Education was an imprint of the British publisher Penguin Books, running from 1965 to 1974.
Early days
Before the imprint formally came into being, Jill Norman had been hired to do research into higher education and determine trends, so that Allen Lane could decide if this was a market he wanted to get into. She worked at the National Book League, nominally for Allen Lane's friend Jack Morpurgo, the director. Allen Lane chose to keep her year's work on the project from the members of the board until she was able to present them with her report. Penguin Education emerged from this experiment in 1965 and was initially headed by Christopher Dolley as managing director. He was succeeded in 1966 by Charles Clark, who combined the role from 1967 with running Penguin Books' hardback imprint Allen Lane the Penguin Press. The new imprint began by publishing, with Longman, the revolutionary Nuffield Foundation Science Teaching Project,[1] a driver of change in science teaching. Among the other initial projects were the five-volume series A History of Britain, the Learning Mathematics Project, and the Success with English course.
Higher Education titles
The many series subsequently produced for students in higher education covered a wide range of subject areas, and included the history of science, law and society, the Library of Technology and the Science of Behaviour. Notable and influential best-sellers for this market were Peter Worsley's Introducing Sociology, which became an Open University set book, and James Britton's Language and Learning. For students of literature there were critical anthologies on the work of major writers such as
Education specials
Meanwhile, the imprint's Penguin Education Specials were making a considerable stir. The Hornsey Affair, written by the staff and students of
The schoolbook list
In 1967 Martin Lightfoot[4] had been appointed editor of the schoolbook list. The books he commissioned reflected the contemporary move away from didactic instruction towards a shared exploration of ideas between children and teachers. He published Geoffrey Summerfield's Voices and then Junior Voices, beautifully designed poetry anthologies which drew material from a rich and original variety of sources. Making use of the new and affordable integrated litho printing technique, they combined words and images in a visually arresting style. The books were child-centred, and aimed to speak directly to pupils, without any intrusive exercises or other teacher apparatus. Their success led the way for the cutting-edge Penguin English Project, a series of anthologies for the different stages of secondary schools. Its wide range of topics included Identity, Other Worlds, Alone, Cities, and Danger. Mixing high-quality photographs, short stories, poems, play extracts, pictures, drawings, science fiction and cartoons, they providing original material for student exploration and argument.
Then came the anthology Story, three volumes of stories and pictures, and Worlds: Seven Modern Poets, comprising photographs of Charles Causley, Thom Gunn, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Norman MacCaig, Adrian Mitchell and Edwin Morgan, and their objects and environments.
Another notable success was Connexions, a series of provocative magazine-style topic books aimed at non-academic teenagers in schools and colleges of further education. Covering topics such as drugs, popular culture, football, relationships, work, food, marriage, shelter, advertising, the law, prejudice, violence and much else, they aimed to stimulate discussion by presenting opposing arguments within these topics, and to connect school education with real life. They were launched by the former Conservative education minister Edward Boyle, a key advisor to Penguin Education.
Other published series included Extensions, the Penguin Primary Project, Take Part Books, Listening and Reading, Topics in History, Human Space, and Biology Topic Books (Human Populations by David Hay in the latter series won the 1973
The division closes
In March 1974 Penguin's owners
The aftermath
Although attempts to find a buyer for the imprint failed, two publishing cooperatives set up by a few of the redundant employees – Chameleon (editorial) and Ikon (design and picture research) – found homes for certain series. The Penguin English Project dropped the Penguin label and was completed by
References
- ^ "The Nuffield Science Teaching Project | Nuffield Foundation". www.nuffieldfoundation.org. Archived from the original on 24 September 2012.
- ^ "1968: The student revolution".
- ^ McGettigan, Andrew. "Warwick University Ltd". Radical Philosophy (Jul/Aug 2014).
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 9 November 2016.
- ^ Times Educational Supplement March 1974
- ^ Times Educational Supplement 1 March 1974