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

"What is television teaching today? For the most part it is limited to the talking that a teachei does when she is addressing her entire class." reading of books. It is the only medium we have which enables us to be spectators of events as they are happening. And these are only a few of its more obvious imique advantages. I am not urging that television be used for enrichment purposes only. I don't know just what that expression means and no one has been able to give me a clear definition of it. I do want to urge that we figure out far better than we have in just what ways television can be best used in the teaching of boys and girls and that we then use it for all it is worth in those ways. I doubt that we will get the most out of television unless we are prepared to organize teams for the development of teaching programs for school television. They would not be unlike the teams I have mentioned in connection with textbooks, but, in addition to teachers and subject matter specialists, they would include imaginative and creative technical experts who know how to get the most out of the medium. These people would have to ask the usual questions What are we trying to teach, to whom. why, and how shall we teach it? They would then undertake to produce television programs only for those parts of the total teaching job which could be entrusted to television better than to any other teaching medium. They would, in other words, use television as an important element in a systems approach to the teaching of the subject. Like textbook or programmed material, television sequences would be tried out, edited, revised, tried out again, and revised again before they were finally released for use vidth a mass audience. This means that a great many of our school television programs would be produced on film. They would then be available for use both on TV and on film projectors. This brings up another question worth pondering. Have we become so excited about television that we have written off the motion picture teaching film and the film projector? Or has some of the glamor of T\' rubbed off on teaching films and given them a new lease of life? The movie film can do everything that television can do as far as what you see on the screen is concerned, except to show you events as they are happening. We used to say that teaching films were not more widely used because teachers couldn't get the films they wanted when they wanted them. I am sure that this was tnie at least in part. But it was also true that we never figured out just what role teaching films could most effectively play in a system of teach ing media. As a result, the films the teacher could gel when she didn't want them never quite fitted the teaching situation. They were injected into her teach ing program without much reference to immediatt learning needs or to other materials of instruction. A film projector in the classroom provides a fai more flexible instrument for showing film program; than the television receiver. A television program ha< to "come on" at a set hour on a particular day and all classes must see it at that time whether they are ready to see it or not. The number of classes that can see a film is limited only by the number of projectors and prints available. Each class can see the film when they are ready to see it. It can be shown and reshown. Il can be viewed by small groups. It can be stopped al any point. None of this can be done easily by television if it can be done at all. I know that television is a more economical way to show films, but I am assuming that we can well afford the cost of film prints in oui present affluent society and that the quality of education we are offering our school children comes ahead of considerations of economy. Although the educational potential of the screen has not yet been fully realized, the nature of the medium is such that one would hardly expect it to contribute directly to the attainment of any of three major objectives of education. It does not of itself afford experience in independent learning; it is not a medium we would choose for the development of reading skills; and it offers little opportimity for learning by discovery, insight, and intuition. Yet there is probably no other medium which could be used to better effect in support of situations and materials that do directly contribute to the realization of all these basic aims. And now I make a final point: We must realize that all materials of instruction have one common limitation. They cannot treat Johnnv Jones and Susie Smith as individuals. They cannot get acfjuainted with Johnny and Susie as human beings, listen to their problems, watch their reactions, enjoy with them their discoveries and successes. Only another human being can do that, and in the classroom that human being is the teacher. Materials of instruction can go far toward making the work of the teacher more effective. They can give her the opportunity to assume the most challenging and exciting role of all — that of knowing, guiding, encouraging, and inspiring individual boys and girls. For this reason, if we want the best in American education we must recognize the indispensability of the good classroom teacher. 714 Educational Screen and Audiovisual Guide — December, 1962