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

spindle. The class laughed at the dilemma of the spindle holder and discussed the need for hand protection. Also, the need for two people— one to turn the spindle and one to pushwas pointed out. The students were next shown hardwood sockets found in various parts of the world— sockets to be held in the hand and to be held in the mouth as well, eliminating the need for two people. They followed closely the thread of progress through the Bow Drill of Boy Scout fame to the little pump drill with a true fly wheel used by pre-Columbian Americans and still preferred today by many of the silversmiths of the Zuni pueblo. After inspecting and using the various types of hand drills and ratchet braces in use today, the class observed a demonstration showing the ease, speed and accuracy with which holes could be made with the drill press using electric power. After the demonstration, the group moved quickly into a consideration of the social implications of the change. Again the tape recorder was used and the following comments are taken from the discussion which ensued at this point. "Suppose we were using this primitive kind of drill and the little socket split apart. You could quickly make another. You fully understand what you have, and you can replace the piece that is missing. So, if you are a driller of holes in a primitive society you have a complete and direct kind of understanding and control of your job. But if you are a driller of holes in a machine society this isn't always the case. When your machine breaks down you signal the foreman and a maintenance man takes over. "But how did children learn to do their job in the primitive society? "Well a boy had a little drill and he went to work with it. But in our society when you are six and seven you can't start doing what your father does. "We've been talking about understanding technology, and here is something else ... the question of satisfaction. Is there an equal amount of satisfaction in being a driller of holes in a modem community as there is in a primitive community? "It's hard to say because no man in the primitive society was a driller of holes exclusively. He was also a hunter and a farmer, if his people had advanced that far — and a house builder and a potter and a stone worker. Any individual in this society could do individually almost everything that his society collectively could do. We investigate the effect of technoloev on man's ways of working together In the nearby tile factory where they went on a field trip, the students saw an industry which was undergoing a 320 change from the hand operations, which were still necessary for certain phases of the work, to the automatic, assembly line, machine operations so basic to our technology today. They were shown a particular type of tile which still has to be made by hand because it involves a process for which no machine has been developed. The students also became aware of and concerned with the effect on workers of repeating the same small segment of the total operation over and over. They considered the necessity of largescale operation in the face of technological change and the difficulties of operating a small enterprise under these circumstances. So, more trains are needed. You've got to have coal miners to run a bakery because you can't run a train without the help of coal miners . . . and you've got to have geologists to run a coal mine or how else would you find the coal?" The class eventually developed the idea that the bakery they had seen is dependent upon our total society, and that failure of any of the contributing parts would mean a breakdown in the baking industry. We consider the role of the school The following class discussions were devoted to a more direct consideration of the role of the school and its cur "Our purpose ... to show how inslructional materials may be used with future teachers to help them realize the why and how of teaching the Social Studies ..." In planning the trip to a bakery which followed, the students were faced with another characteristic of our modern industrial age. Whereas in the primitive community— as shown in the film they had seen— working hours and sleeping hours were the same for all, our students made the discovery that while they slept, the bakery workers were toiling to prepare freshly baked bread for the following day's consumption. In order to see the beginning stages of the nightly baking operation, it was necessary to ffo late in the afternoon to the bakery. Here the students were shown all the steps that are involved in large-scale production of bakery goods. While the students paid some attention to the workers, it was interesting to see that in this situation there was more notice taken of the machines. During the evaluation period, the day following the trip, the group discussed another phase of the baking industry which they had noted. Whereas our nomads of the jungle found all the raw materials for th'^ir food right in their immediate environment, the class decided that nowadays it takes the assistance of remote communities to serve the immediate community. The following is an excerpt from the tape recording. "You have to have sugar— and so you have shipping involved. You have to have ships to run this bakery— it's a funny thing hut you do. Your wheat comes down by Southern Pacific— you've got to have trains to run this bakery. Then you have to have trucks-not only the trucks the bakery has to have itself, but lots of other trucks. Most of the equipment was made back in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Look at the shipping problem of getting it out here. riculum in the face of these changes. The thinking of contemporary philosophers and educational theorists was sampled relative to these problems. The students listened to a transcription of a speech on general education and freedom given at the college early in 1953 by Mortimer .\dler. The speech dealt with the content of education for "free" (or ruling) men in history and the necessity for all men today to have this type of education. The group thought that a feeling of success and of individual worth was most essential in gaining the objectives that Mr. .Adier outlined and that there were elements in our technology which failed to foster-if they did not actually discourage— such feelings. Through a second consideration of man's basic needs, the group decided that communication and transportation posed greater problems and concerned the average man more today than did food, clothing, and shelter. This led to a more detailed consideration of the problems of communication, and such books as Lancelot Hogben's from Cave Palming to Comic Strip became useful. .\s the discussions drew to a conclusion, the group imaginatively considered possible directions which our technology and our resultant social adjustments might make in the future. Such views as Aldous Huxley's in Brave Neiv Wmld and George Orwell's in In 10S4 were considered in the light of education's success or failure to accept and handle the challenge given it. This discussion served to give a feeling of urgency and concern that a failure to take such flights of fancy would have omitted. (Continued on page }22) Educational Screen