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

NAEB The Role of the NAEB yitCAVtl y)^. J/S^U^^i^ AT mid-century, America finds itself strangely uneasy. What is our reputation abroad? How strong is our leadership? Have we lost Asia? Have we lost world respect? Are we too materialistic? How can our educational system best l)e assisted by us and our tools to meet the pressures and criticisms precipitated on it (but not caused) by Sputnik? A few years ago, these would have seemed like strange questions for an association of educational "station operators" to be talking about. For we would have been expected to be praising or exercising our gadgets: microphones, cameras, films, trick shots, echo chambers, etc. 1 think we can refer to 1957-58 as the year the NAEB most definitely began to give the most evidence to date of having "foimd itself" . . . when it began to exhibit the type of broad understanding, educational orientation, leadership, and confidence in its own resources that mean that it's now "glowing up." For many years we had felt vaguely aware of the need for better training and higher standards for the people in charge of planning and producing the intellectual and cultural radio and TV fare on which Americans live, thrive or grow; or vegetate and wither. In 1949, with the first .\llerton Seminar, we held our first "soul-searching" sessions. Since then we have held some 2-f national seminars and Executive Director workshops, which have been attended by some 700 members of the staffs of educational stations. These people have been brought together in close association with over 100 consultants of the level of Harold Lasswell, Robert Redfield, Edgar Dale and Allen Nevins, representing the best minds, in many problem areas, in our nation. For the NAEB has always felt that incest must be avoided at all costs: we must constantly expose ourselves to the best minds and the most basic social, educational, economic and moral problems of the U. S. In how we handle those problems we shall demonstrate whether or not we have achieved intellectual and professional maturity, or whether we represent an essential service or not. In the programs provided by N,\EB member stations, both in radio and television, that maturity is being demonstrated more and more. We are proud not only of le[}ersonian Heritage, Ways of Mankind, People Under Cornmunism and our various earlier prestige series. We are equally proud of Tlie Dead Sea Scrolls, The Creative Mind, Pacific Portraits, and other series produced by our regular members. It would have been ridicidous to expect member stations to be able to turn out such uniformly high quality |)rograms a few years ago. Thanks to our program grants-in-aid (now handled jointly with the Educational Tele vision and Radio (.>enter), stanuaius have risen -and what seemed unrealizable goals a few years ago are now commonplace standards. A tradition of quality and integrity has sprouted in what yesterday was desert. In addition to the program grants-in-aid, which have assisted some 40 member institutions (often indirectly) in improving staff and production facilities, grants-in-aid have also been given to help member institutions to set up and conduct workshops and seminars on their ouni; for teachers, administrators, producers, writers, managers and those teachers who use the programs. This year 12 such workshop grants-in-aid were given. This supplemented the seven program grants-in-aid given, the three research grants-in-aid given for new types of original research, and the seven national seminars, workshops and meetings we have ourselves conducted since December of 1957 in research, instructional techniques and utilization, station management, teacher-training, engineering and recording, children's programming, and cooperation with other national organizations. The N,\EB's own intensive workshops, seminars and conferences (excluding Conventions a n d Regional Meetings) were attended by 203 different individuals involved in educational uses of TV and radio; 19 more were recipients of N.\EB Scholarships, and some ,*?00 more studied at workshops, seminars and summer sessions supported in part by the N.AEB Workshop Grants-in.\id mentioned above. In other words, many of the N.\EB's major efforts are now devoted to training: to the develoj)nient of higher and higher standards, capabilities and education tor those who are responsible for the operation of educational TV and radio facilities. In this respect we are all "teachers" or part of a teaching function going on under the banner of an educational auspice, which we represent. And, to quote Frank G. Jennings in Saturday RrviexLK "Teaching is a dangerous ]M-olcssion. It deals with our children, the most ])iecious of our natural resoiiixes. It refines them into brave and wonderful adults or it grossly degrades them into dull, over-aged adolescents. Its results mold and determine the shape of our nation and the character ol our people." Perhaps, liy dint of the effort to raise the standards of all educa 618 EdScreen & AV Guide — December, 1958