Diagnostic Chart for Individual Difficulties. Fundamental Processes in Arithmetic, Teacher's Diagnosis

Guy T. Buswell and Lenore John published this chart in about 1925 through the Public School Publishing Company of Bloomington, Illinois. The entire package included directions, a pupil's work sheet, a teacher's diagnostic chart, and a pupil's work sheet diagnostic chart. This is the teacher’s diagnostic chart. It was coauthored by Lenore John (1902-1992) when she was a graduate student in education at the University of Chicago.

John was the granddaughter, daughter and niece of ministers in the United Brethren Church. Born in Pennsylvania, she moved about with her family as her father, Lewis Franklin John, took various clerical and faculty positions. One of these was at York College in York, Nebraska. Lenore John enrolled in the college and took courses in education, graduating in 1921. She taught high school mathematics in Nebraska and Wisconsin. By about 1927, she was teaching mathematics at the University of Chicago’s Laboratory School and doing graduate work in education. In 1926, she assisted Guy T. Buswell (1891-1994), another York College graduate and child of a United Brethren minister. Buswell was a faculty member in the Education Department at Chicago, They prepared a Diagnostic Chart for Fundamental Processes in Arithmetic, of which this is an example. The Buswell-John chart, as it came to be called by some, remained in use for decades. Buswell and John hoped that their chart would be used to determine the areas of arithmetic in which a student required further work. It was a'diagnosis" of problems rather than a prognosis of future achievement. In later years Buswell and John collaborted on a series of arithmetic textbooks.

John went on to completer her MA dissertation at Chicago in 1927, and remained on the staff of the Laboratory School, continuing her research in mathematics education. She would serve as vice-president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics from 1950-1952. In the 1960s, she played an active role in work of one of the “new math” programs, the School Mathematics Study Group. She received an award from the Illinois branch of the NCTM (the ICTM) as late as 1967, and died in Chicago in 1992.

This example of the test is from the personal collection of U. S. government psychologist and university teacher in education Samuel Kavruck.

For a related object, the pupil's worksheet, see 1990.0034.07

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