Educational screen & audio-visual guide (c1956-1971])

Because communications is the heart and soul of education, and because we are interested in increasing the prothictivity of education, we are concerned with the apphcation of technology to the teaching process. Now I suppose that people tire of being reminded again and again of our conflicts with Communism. I also suppose that people tire of hearing every aspect of .\merican endeavor equated with patriotism. .\nd I also suppose that the taxpayer is becoming a little weary of the cry that we must educate for survival. But I know of no wav to sugar-coat the simple truth that our conflict with Communism is far broader in scope and far more serious in nature than any social, political or economic conflict in history. The nature of this conflict imposes on the American citizen an inescapable obligation to interest himself in— and exert constructive influence on— any public enterprise or institution which relates to national survival. If that citizen is engaged in private enterprise immediately supporting national survival, then his responsibility is doubled. Such is the obligation of this group. Of course, there is no single force or profession or institution on which our fate entirely depends. But the key to our survival is surely education. The older I get the more I appreciate the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson. He understood that the success of our great experiment in self-government hinges on the general education of the citizenry. Jefferson could not have foreseen our struggle with Communism but he did understand an eternal verity: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free," he said, "it expects what never was and never will be." Jefferson listed six objectives of education that are classically timeless. The first objective of education, he said, is to give every citizen the information he needs to transact his own business; the second, to enable him to calculate for himself and to express and preserve his ideas, ccmtracts, and accounts in writing; the third, to improve, by reading, his faculties and morals; the fourth, to understand his duties to his neighbors and his country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; the fifth, to know his rights, to exercise with order and justice those (rights) he retains, to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates, and to notice their conduct with diligence, candor and judgment; and finally, to observe with intelligence all the social relations under which he shall be placed. Now let me tell you something that causes me great concern. When I Icok at an audiovisual device and undertake an evaluation of it, I try to bring into play the standards that I have been talking about. Let's sup{X)se that you and I are two school teachers being approached by an audiovisualist with a new teaching device. Let's also suppose that we are good teachers, aware of the need for more productive education in the Age of Space, adherents to the Jeffersonian principle that education is the key to survival, eager to explore any possibility of doing our jobs better. What do you suppose our reaction is going to be if that new device is compounded of 99 percent useless gadgetry and chrome? And is priced out of all reasonable relation to the job it can actually do? And is related only remotely to increasing the efficiency of education? If we are worth our professional salt as teachers we will send that audiovisualist and his chrome-plated jigsaw puzzle back to selling can openers door-to-door. There is a second problem related to this subject. It is this: Any approach to the application of commimications technology to education is unfortunate and erroneous if it aims at or accidentally results in reducing the role of the teacher. There is no substitute for the teacher. There never has been. I do not believe there ever will be. The ultimate in forceful, effective communication will always be that pushbuttonless give-and-take-between two human beings. I would define our role thus: The audiovisualist is concerned with applying communications technology to the teaching process for the purpose of improving education. For our purposes, education can be considered in two parts. One part of education involves the communication of information from a teaching source to the student. This, at least relatively, is a mechanical, training function and can be made more efficient by technology. But this part of education must always be subservient to the second part of education, which is the assimilation and use of knowledge by the student, under day-to-day, first-hand guidance by the teacher. As long as we understand this limitation and as long as we help free the teacher from the more mechanical chores of his job, we can be assured of his faith in what we are trying to do. I am no party to any scheme that will take the teacher out of teaching. It is probably morally wrong; it is probably a misguided, illogical notion; and it is certainly an unpopular one. If you entertain hope of mechanizing education, I would suggest that you take these three things into account. And I modestly suggest that I have had more experience than most pernle in training tremendous numbers of men to function under conditions of extreme stress. While I have never ignored the indisputable value of conditioned response to violence, I have never once forgotten that the most important part of a man's education for combat survival is more related to his heart than to his hands. That is where the teacher comes in, and I consider it essential to the maintenance of good relations with that teacher that we let him know it once in a while. H, .AVING earned the confidence of the teacher, we can then proceed with him to a solution of what I choose to call the functional problems of the audiovisual field. In this area we are concerned that the audiovisual tool be utilized to its absolute maximum. Not long ago I looked over an industrial training program that purported to teach with modern audiovisual techniques. There was no question about the substance of the course. The facts that were to be communicated— taught— were solid and logical and perfectly acceptable, generated by top-flight management consultants. The audiovisual devices to be used were of top quality, efficient in every respect. But in the course of evaluating this program it occurred to me that here was a classic example of how audiovisuals should not be used. The pedagogy of the program was as stale as yesterday's news. The audiovisual aspect of the program was not integrated into (Continued on Page 349) Educational Screen and Audiovisual Guide — July, 1961 333