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

editorial The Dismaying Lag Paul C. Reed A principal speaker at the National Audiovisual Convention ir Chicago made a ]Joint that soinid motion jjiclme projectors hadn'l changed much in the past many years. He said you could compare projectors with vacuum cleaners to see what he meant. Current projectors are practically the same as the first ones; but look at ilu change in vacuum cleaners over the same twenty-five years! Now we're not denying that sound projectors could be improved and that they could be made simpler to thread and operate. ]iui we think there's another point, and a far more important one, ic be made. We maintain that the audiovisual industry continuoiisl) demonstrates its readiness, ingenuity, and skill lor blending elec tronics and gears and ideas into ama/ing autliovisual tools. Hut the inventors and designers and manufacturers of these technologi cal tools for learning are so far out in front of educators' readiness to use them that the situation is appalling. It's more than just a trite expression that it takes education fift^ years to accept a new idea. It's been a fact. It's more than fifty yean now since motion pictures became a reality; and it's more thar fifty years since pioneering educators saw the vision and the promise of motion pictures for communicating information and ideas. Ol course motion pictures are used in schools today. But to whai extent? How many teachers are using one ten minute motion picture once a week? Once a month? Or even once a year? No matter wliai the answers are, this use is far too little compared to the teaching potential of the medium. You know this. You understand the powei of pictures for learning. The same can be said for other audiovisual tools. Take records and recording for another instance. Here, too, it's not the lack ol the right equipment. It's the lack of readiness on the part of edu cators to make use of materials and methods that are available. Language laboratory methods for learning a foreign language art not new. The recording of foreign words and sentences on discs is as old as the recording industry itself. We've had the machines and we've had the records. These have been continually improved We've had good magnetic recording ecjuipment now for almost fifteen years. Yet even today, and even with the stimulus of the National Defense Education Act, it is still a rare high school thai has incorporated the use of records and recording into accepted basic methods for language instruction. If you respond to this criticism of American education, don't tell us it's lack of money that holds education back from using new^er and better tools for communicating ideas. There's money enough in this country to buy anything the people want. Look at the statistics for tobacco or beer or tv or any luxury you can name foi proof of this fact. Another speaker at the National Audiovisual meeting made the point better and maybe gave us a clue for action. Here's the wa) he said it: "In a free society a free penfile does whatever it feels ii urgent and needed, whatever it is enthusiastic about doing. No oni is ever enthusiastic about anything until he understands it." Now, then. Here is a task and a challenge for everyone witf' understanding of the power of audiovisual tools for communication We must redouble our efforts to overcome the dismaying lag in our use of the electronic communications tools we have. We must renew our efforts to convince the people of this free society thai they and their children can learn more anil better through the useof these tools. We must make the free jieople of this free society enthusiastic about using audiovisual methods in their schools First, however, we must make sure that education's decision maker; — the school board members and the superintendents — are enthu siastic about them too. 466 EdScreen & AV Guide — September, 1955