Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

FEBRUARY, 1946 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE 53 early days in Chicago back in 1925. These experiences qualified him for admission recently to H. V. Kaltenborn’s TwentyYear Club of Pioneers in Radio Broadcasting. An enthusiast about the possibilities of FM for radio education, McCarty is currently work ing to accelerate Wisconsin’s plans for a network of stateowned-and-operated FM stations to provide educational publicservice programs, day and night, for the entire state. According to a recent announcement, Wisconsin was the first state in the nation to appropriate funds with which to embark upon a comprehensive state FM educational network plan. The State Radio Council has funds for construction of the first two units in the proposed system. Applications have been filed, and it’s expected that FM operations will begin during the summer of 1946. Newark's Educational Radio Station The Newark Board of Education will go on the air with its own radio station in the not too distant future — possibly by September, 1946. The entrance of radio into the classroom will broaden classroom experience by introducing a new medium of education as a supplement to the printed word, the teacher’s guidance, and the many visual aids available in the school system. Miss Marguerite Kirk, director of school libraries and visual aids, who has been designated by Schools Superintendent Herron to supervise the radio project, is enthusiastic about the advent of school radio. Action of the Federal Communications Commission in granting the Newark board a license for an FM non-commercial radio station, she points out, makes the local school system the first educational institution in New Jersey to acquire such a license and places Newark among the pioneering cities in school radio. Miss Kirk says: “Not only does radio in the classroom bring children a rich listening experience and help develop discrimination and tech From the Newark Evening News niques in listening; it also gives them creative experience. Participation in radio programs develops in young people poise, voice control, and clear and quick thinking.’’ The broadcasting station will be at Central High School, with a second studio in the Board of Education building in Green street. Although final determination of the station’s operating policy is in the board’s hands. Miss Kirk has studied the subject sufficiently to have definite ideas on how she thinks the Newark program might work. Two modes of operation are in vogue in other school radio systems, Miss Kirk says. One involves use of radio as a direct teaching medium — broadcasting “model lessons” conducted by a “master teacher.” The other method, toward which Miss Kirk leans, views the radio as a supplementary tool similar to films and books, designed to enrich studies and stimulate pupils rather than replace any part of the regular classroom work. Miss Kirk observes : “Radio is an informal medium of education, and its greatest value is to interest and stimulate. If we make it just another part of the formal classroom work, we will have lost an opportunity.” Superintendent of Schools John S. Herron foresees a combination of the two methods into three types of program — those intended primarily for classroom reception, those primarily for home reception and those of value to both school and community. These would include programs by school bands and choral groups, talks and directives for students and faculty, model lessons, exhibition of speech work, debates and forums, interpretation of teaching aims and methods, talks by school officials on such topics as the budget and building program, and broadcasts aimed at character building and community good will. Dr. Herron believes the school station should not restrict itself to pedagogical subjects, but should broadcast every type of program which can be interpreted as educational, cultural, or concerned with community betterment. It should, he thinks,