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

AUDIO by Max U. Bildersee The following address was prepared for delivery by Dr. Ima Pelican and was offered at the annual joirit winter meeting of the Southern Antarctica Psychological and Audiovisual Associations July, 1962. Educators are facing a grave crisis. The ultra-specialization of individuals forced upon us by intensive training to serve in a single given area— to the exclusion of other areas; and the practice of non-intertalent-communication will shortly lead to a disastrous compartmentalization of services. There can be but one cure . . . interdisciphne understanding based upon mutual respect. The curriculum expert cannot claim to know all instructional materials, nor can he be expected to jjerform effectively in the broad range this suggests. Similarly, the methodologist cannot be expected to know all materials and the psychology of learning. This can be extrapolated to boring lengths. It is important to recognize that our respective groups— the audioviscal experts and the school psychologistsare guilty or innocent as are our colleagues. That is— we may be guilty of fostering the high specialization which leads to overcompartmentalization, and we may be innocent of the needs and interests of other educators seeking to serve the child to our best abilities— to his best advantage. And as we stress our innocence so we deprive the child of our best efforts because we tend to see our specialties in exaggerated focus of importance forgetting that the ultimate goal of education is service to both child and community'. Consulting psychologists, viewing this development with considerable alarm, have given it a name— they call this an edifice complex. The Edifice Complex — By Definition This grave educational ailment draws its name from the symptoms of the disease as expressed in dictionaries. An edifice is a stronghold, a building, a structure of imposing grandeur. It is a large and massive building and can well be associated with allegedly impregnable medieval castles and palaces. An edifice is to be admired and respected. It is to be enjoyed for its size and beauty. It is a man-made creation of imposing strength and dimension. We, as educators, tend to build an edifice of specialty, making entrance difficult and through the dual paths involving adoption of professional mumbo-jumbo and continued intellectual inbreeding or talking to ourselves give limited special information an aura of brightness wholK' out-ofkeeping with fact. And the word complex is used in the psychological sense. Thus it refers to a complicated system of desires and memories. Frequently it infers repression and may therefore mean an unconscious system which in disguised form exerts a dominating influence. Obviously this is serious. But the edifice complex goes beyond this, and also embodies the meaning of fear. The fear may be based in unreasoning sensitivity and therefore be exaggerated and uncontrolled fear with regard to some subject or situation. This two-bladed sword can only cut the holder! The Edifice Complex — Symptoms It should be noted that in clinical examination we have observed that both forms of edifice complex are frequently found in one individual. But it is encouraging to note that success in treatment of one form predisposes the patient to rapid recovery from the second form. The clinicians note, however, that this particular intellectual ailment spreads rapidly to infect a whole faculty and indeed a whole community unlr.'s it is checked by alert administrators. When the edifice complex is caused by desires, particularly those of acclaim, which go unrequited the patient exhibits tendencies to demand undue attention and to look down upon the constructive efforts of others and belittle them. In advanced stages the edifice complex based on this expression of personal need resembles the creation and building of an area control fence in the field of specialization. Thus the curriculum specialist suffering from this form of illness not onlv fails to recognize and accept the potential contributions of others to the field of curricuKim study and creation, but uses the title of specialist to stop any and all otlier colleagues from participating in this phase of educational development. The edifice complex is readily recognized and defined in such specialists as audiovisual consultants, librarians, guidance counselors, school psychologists and others whose areas are either relatively new in education, or easily isolated from the normal flow of pedagogical correspondence and study. These individuals sometimes develop unseen but nevertheless real walls around their domains and areas of service. This may involve the selection and supervision of physical properties, the selection and ordering of particular instructional materials such as films, filmstrips, recordings and the preparation of materials involving bulletin boards, overhead projectors and the other machines of today's instructional program. Demand insularity— create your own edifice in these many and varied service areas and you may indeed create, as many of our confreres have, a superjunkyard over which you rule without question— and without challenge! Permit me, for the convenience of a label, to call this form of edifice complex the "you can't play with my toys" type. The second type, involving excessive and unwarranted fear for status loss, can be equally simply labeled. Let's call it, for the sake of convenience and description tlie "I'm afraid of my shadow" type. Regrettably, this is somewhat more difficult to describe, but is easily recognized. The sufferer from this insists on small baubles of recognition. It may be the simple "Sir" from students to pompous insistence on perfection in title recognition. This individual runs forward backwards, constantly watching behind him to be sure that no one discovers his inadequacies. This can take form of demand that all staff members write for publication under two names— theirs and his. This can take the form of severe jealousy evidenced in many ways we all recognize and which hardly warrant mention here. Obviously both forms of edifice complex can be complimentary to each other, and occur simultaneously in one individual. The Edifice Complex Treatment The individual suffering from this ailment hardly ever recognizes his own difficulties until such time that professional assistance is required to 446 Educational Screen and Audiovisual Guide — ^August, 1962