Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

18 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE Volume XII, No. 9 Newark's Program of Audio-Visual Aids Service to Schools BY EDWARD T. SCHOFIELD Assistant Librarian, Board of Education Department of Libraries, Visual Aids, and Radio at Newark, New Jersey Foreword The history of the Newark Department of Libraries, Visual Aids, and Radio shows an interesting development in the coordination of teaching materials to the end that they better supplement each other and the curriculum. In 1929, the Board of Education Library was established to provide professional librai'y service to the Superintendent and his staff. Marguerite Kirk, head of the School and Children’s Department of the Newark Public Library, was employed as librarian, so that there would be a minimum duplication of the Newark Public Library’s excellent service to schools. The development of school libraries was also included in this new department’s functions. In 1937, upon the resignation of Arthur Balcom, assistant superintendent in charge of visual education, the Newark Board of Education Library expanded its services to include the selection, distribution, and utilization of visual aids. Recordings seemed to slip in cpiite naturally as a part of the library’s resources shortly thereafter. In 1942, the inventory of textbooks was added to the department’s activities. In preparation for the use of radio in classrooms when the Board of Education’s EM station is in operation, the department has been busily occupied trying to coordinate radio programs and recordings with the curriculum and with other teaching aids. The latest assignment for the staff is to prepare a short report on the possibilities of the use of television in the Newark schools for WAAT, the local radio station, when its television program is in operation. The Newark Department of Libraries, Visual Aids, and Radio is fortunate in having Edward T. Schofield, a former member of the department, return from Army service with enthusiasm over methods of securing better film utilization in the classroom. Mr. Schofield’s background is that of an English teacher and librarian. He taught at Pennsauken Junior High School, North Merchantville. New Jersey, for two years (1933-35) and at the Flemington. New Jersey, High School for two years (1935-37) before entering the Newark system in 1937 as a librarian at Weequahic High School. He served in the Army from October 2, 1942 to January 31, 1946. Mr. Schofield has outlined the department’s services and its resources. How widely are visual aids used in schools? What types are used? How well are they related to the curriculum of the school? Is the best aid for the purpose used? Are the teacher’s techniques in using audio-visual aids based on strong educational foundations? Are text and library books, pictures and records coordinated? These, and a host of other queries, are constantly raised by workers in school.s. I’rincipals and supei-visors concerned with raising educational standards want to know the answers to these questions. Certainly, members of boards of education, parents, and tax-payers generally would like to know how carefully funds being expended for the new tools of learning — audiovisual aids — are used. A visit to any one of the seventy schools in Newark, New Jersey, would provide concrete evidence of the value of these aids to learning and would go a long way towards answering the questions raised above. Let’s look at a typical Newark school. In the kindergarten of this school, the observer notes that the director is delighting the children by the showing of colorful pictures from a favorite story-book by use of the opaque projector. Down the hall in the third grade, where the children are studying Indian lore, the class is examining models of primitive villages, looms, arrows, and other items borrowed from the Newark Museum. In the eighth-grade classroom there has been a discussion of neighborhood relationships, and one of the older students is about to project the March of Time film, Americans All. Slides on the industries of the city are being viewed in another room. A fifthgrade teacher is enriching the student’s background on westward expansion in the United States by playing a dramatization from the Lest We Forget series of transcriptions. A filmslide projector is in use in another classroom, where the voca