NAEB Newsletter (Dec 1957)

"Seminars (like those for executives and industry) are needed for professors — for exchanging experiences in teaching — and stimulation by outside specialists." "Too much of adult education has been an extension of a system devised for and. centered on youth: 'The best years of our lives. 1 We need to begin to emphasize 'the best is yet to come'." "Our educational system has come from a pre-metropolitan era. We have not yet found the educational structure to fit the new pattern of our new metropolitanism and urbanization." "We create self-expression in our elementary schools and stamp it out in our secondary schools, colleges and universities." Thanks to new machines, new types of research are possible. "We can compute things we couldn't have attempted to survey before." "We shouldn't be attempting merely to 'catch up' with Russia, educationally, diplomatically and militarily. "Few educators see a need to participate in decision-making at top policy levels." To what extent can we arouse our own colleagues to such participation? And finally, from Wanda Mitchell at the NAEB Convention: "You can't hold back the sunrise. You can only say: 'I don't wint to get up'." Not all these quotes are exact. They are based on notes. Some combine thoughts from several people. To many I’ve added a little in “application.” To the many fine speakers from whose distilled wisdom this is taken, our thanks. I know some will say: What’s that got to do with the NAEB, or broadcasting? A lot, I think. But I’ll be glad to have your reaction. Meanwhile, may I, too, wish you a rewarding, restful and happy holiday season? PARENTS BLAMED FOR NEW CHILD DISEASE Associate Professor Edward Stasheff at the 28th an¬ nual Parent Education Conference at the University of Michigan warned his audience to watch for a new disease in their children—“rigor kinescopis.” “If your kids get it, you have only yourselves to blame,” he said. He described the symptoms of the disease as a glazed lqok in the eye, accompanied by an ache-all- over feeling, drowsiness and extreme wear on the TV-room furniture. The cure, said Stasheff, lies not so much in an outright prohibition of TV viewing by children, but in improved programming to meet their needs, and greater selectivity in the viewing habits of their parents. “Television has, on the whole, avoided the pro¬ gramming excesses of radio in the 30s and 40s,” he commented. “Children’s TV programs have, in the main, not been harmful. At worst, they have been time-wasters and habit formers. But they have not always made a positive contribution to the child’s growth. “On the other hand, programs designed primarily for adults have indicated some negative effects on children who were not supposed to be watching them in the opinion of broadcasters. Except in isolated cases, however, the emphasis on crime, on bawdy excitement, on sensation and tension have not been proved to be harmful.” Noting the prevalence of “rigor kinescopis” among adults, Stasheff said a recent report showed nearly 85 million Americans watch TV daily, spending an average of better than 18^ hours weekly at this pastime. FCC ACTION In a petition to the FCC, the Western Television Co. asked that a proceeding, which resulted in an exam¬ iner recommending a grant for the operation of a non-commercial station on channel 5 at Lubbock, Tex., by Texas Technological College, be reopened for further hearing, with Western participating as a competing applicant for the channel. Western claims that the proposed non-commercial operation on that channel by Texas Tech involves an effort to suppress competition in the area. The examiner in September proposed the grant to Tech, but the FCC announced later it would take no further action until it examined Tech’s financial plans. The Commission said it was particularly in¬ terested in getting more information on an announced proposal by Lubbock stations KCBD-TV and KDUB- TV to donate $30,000 each toward construction and operation of Tech’s proposed educational station. This proposal was termed by attorneys for Western as “an unusual financing plan.” Western is owned by David P. Pinston and Leroy Elmore, who operate Lubbock radio station KDAV. ^ WTVS, Detroit’s non-commercial educational TV station, has been granted its license by the FCC, Franklin G. Bouwsma, newly appointed executive secretary of the Detroit Educational Television Foundation, has announced. In making the announcement Bouwsma com¬ mented on the station’s growth in its two years of op¬ eration. During the first week of broadcasting in Oc¬ tober, 1955, WTVS carried five hours of programs; today it is broadcasting more than 60 hours of pro¬ grams each week. WTVS is the fourth UHF educational station in the United States to be granted its license. ^ The FCC has authorized the regents of the Uni- 4 NEWSLETTER