NAEB Newsletter (Dec 1957)

be among its features in coming months? There should be at least 2,000 members. We’re not up to that yet, but let’s try. It’s your NAEB. This brings me to another development. Many serious concerns about what we are doing, and should be doing, were expressed in the NAEB Board meet¬ ings. How to become more responsive to the needs of community TV stations, for example, was one question. With so many demands for service, far beyond the staff’s ability to meet, what long-range changes are necessary in the organization? These and many other things are on the agenda for a special meeting of Board members, officers and sever¬ al committee chairmen. This meeting will undoubt¬ edly be in session when you receive this. We are, to be frank about it, engaging in frank self-appraisal. We need to remain dynamic. We need to meet the demands made on us by changing times. Such is the situation as we approach the new year. I think this is encouraging. And remember, as I’ve said many times, we can use every good idea any one of you has to contribute — however blunt — however much you have hesitated to mention it be¬ fore. So, if you have ideas on how to make the NAEB better, stronger and more useful, not only to you but to the nation generally, please send them along. Now, I come to something fairly controversial. It has been suggested that your President and I, in our columns, devote less time to our travels. I wish to remain responsive to this suggestion and remain responsive also to even more people who say they think I should “share ideas” picked up on such travels. Therefore, I shall restrict myself to saying that after the Convention while at the Conference of the National Commission for UNESCO at San Francisco; and while at the annual Convention of the Adult Education Assn, combined with the meeting of the National Assn, of Public School Adult Educators (to which I spoke) in San Diego, I picked up several ideas that I give you as thought starters: "It's disciplined ferment that gives life to grape juice." One speaker was referred to as "a meritorious hell-raiser." Mrs. Roosevelt was quoted as saying educators must "comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." What is our role in the face of growing public affairs apathy? How can we meet the fears and reservations of our boards and yet assume that re¬ sponsibility which sometimes gets us into controversy? (I was recently moved to write Jack Gould of the New York Times to applaud his column on educational TV's responsibility to face up to this need). "Conflict is the stuff of progress. It causes problem solving. We need to train people how to meet, handle and capitalize on controversy within democratic frame- . works." "We must use (and help shape) our cultural system, not merely "adjust" to it." "More education is needed even by the factory worker — He has to be highly adjustable, learning new skills to meet rapid changes in machines, technological developments and residence." "Mass media are causing people to dress alike, have homes alike, talk alike, and think alike." How do we help counteract the stereotypes in people's heads? The individual is called on to make decisions about hundreds of things he doesn't even understand" — What is our re¬ sponsibility to help explain, simplify and clarify the issues on which responsible citizens must have informed attitudes and take action? If they don't take such action, we may lose our liberties to "those who know about" such things. Several speakers (rion-NAEB, non broadcasters) severely took to task many of our great educational institutions for their neglect of the mass media. Are we, professionally, qualified and ready for the demands being made on us, and about to be made — in responsible, educational fashion? A mobile society may mean an unstable society." In view of the well-known growing mobility of our population, how can we help? Can we provide in the mass media roots and se¬ curity which individuals used to find in the community? How can we help reduce the wear and tear that people undergo as they move from place to piace (and children move from school to school) ? "Thanks to our insistence, as a people, on new and bigger cars, etc., America, in our lifetime, has become a "have-not" nation in many resources at an alarming rate: in iron, copper, water, etc. What can we do, and what must we do, regardless of pressures, in such a critical area? "We have become a "power-happy" people." We are waste¬ ful of power: in electricity, automobiles, etc. Educator's re¬ sponsibilities in this regard are obvious. "We should be less smug about our system, and stop imposing it on others. When we were a young nation we were as sensi¬ tive (about French, British or other attempts to interfere, or pressure us out of a position of "neutrality") as India and many other new, still forming nations are today." The lessons of history are soon forgotten, or too often never learned. How do we balance this need with the demand for increased train¬ ing in science? "We need to reestablish respect for the individual with rare¬ fied knowledge." Our scientists (and other intellectuals) are too flippantly designated as eggheads, communist tools, or given other false labels. A San Francisco newspaper of only 10 years ago was quoted regarding some "crazy scientist and philosopher who dreamed of sending satellites around the world. Yet it was our colleges and universities which gave students the concept of the "egghead." What it created, it now deplores.. A new attitude is indicated, to which the mass media can contribute. "Man is a creator as well as a creature." Let us dare, as edu¬ cators, to believe that we can be masters of the human and cultural process, not its slaves. "We are inclined to think of the good (or strong) machine and the bad (or weak) I. Man created machines. We can only intimidate ourselves or each other — machines should not." "Many people need to distort complex problems into terms they can handle. They then handle only the distortion, not the situation." We have responsibilities for simplifications without distortion. Problems can be solved. Predicaments (like too large classes, too few teachers or classrooms) can only be resolved." "Schools for years have suffered from public apathy. They are now suffering from public interest." DECEMBER, 1957