See and hear : the journal on audio-visual learning (1945)

The Elementary School Learning Environment: more. In stinuilaiing imercsi in the .Soiuhwcst Indians, lor example, the teacher may bring the metate and mano. the rug loom o£ the Navajo, or the musical instruments into the environment. .Such realia not only slinuilates curiosit\ Ijiu leads children to vvant to comnuinicate \\ith others and share their ideas con- cerning the grinding o£ the corn, the processes of prinn'ti\e vveaving, or the music which accompanied the rain dance or other ceremonials. The teacher of older children who can bring into the classroom environment a simple public address system, appropriate materials for constructing a broad- casting station, pictures of famous radio stations, and the like, is providing the stimulation necessary for children to purpose to build their own radio station, to broadcast programs, and to find out the scientific principles underlying sound communication. The modern teacher asks himself. What can 1 bring into the environment to stimulate curiosity? ^\'hat objects can be pro\ ided about which children will wish to share their ideas? What materials will stiiiudate the children to n)ani|jidate and lonstnut? What ma- terials and experiences will lead them to wish to engage in dramatic pla\? How can the environment be made to stimulate creative esthetic expression in painting, in words, in music, in working with clay? In finding the answer to his questions, the teacher seeks the right objects or pictures or stereoscopic cards related to the center of interest. Paper and pencils, a chart and a book or two are not enough. The great task ol the teacher is the selection and organization of materials which will lead to purposeful activity on the jjart of the child. Only as the child reacts, performs, practices, and executes, w-ill he learn. He learns onh in terms of his own activity. The materials the teacher seeks for use in the ele- mentary school are those the child can handle himself. This precludes the use of heavy or awkward material: it precludes the use of the excessiveh- delicate or fragile. Materials must be durable, easily stored or filed. The maieiial must for the most part be of such a nature that the child can manipulate it. The motion picture projector and film, useful as these instruments are in extending vicarious experience, have the serious dis- advantage of leaj'ing the young child a passive observer rather than an active participant in the experience, unless the lea(h(-r makes every effort through discussion or other follow-up activities to include the diild as a particijxinl in that -valuable experience. For the elementar\ school child the most desiralile materials are those through which he acc]uires genuine firsthand experience. A v isit to a house under construc- tion, to a dairy farm, to the harbor, are illustrations of luili/ation of community resources to build accurate impressions. Keeping pets at school to observe their beha\ ior; planting and caring for a garden; engaging in actual industrial arts processes like making butter, molding and firing a clay bowl, weaving a textile; carry- ing on experiments such as seed germination, evapo- ration of water, and the effect of different diets on animals, are all illustrations of dii^ect experiences which are of supreme importance iir the learning of voung children. Obviously, all experience cannot be direct experi- ence. The teacher must introduce materials wJiich the child is able to interpret in the light of previous direct experience. In this area of materials to provide indirect experience, great progress is beiyig made but wholly unexplored frontiers still exist for the teacher, the curriculum maker, the technician in sensory aids to learning. In this category are books, pictures, maps, charts, stereoscopic cards, slides, films, dioramas, phono- graph records, transcriptions, aiid many other materials. Finally, there is almost as long a list of materials through which the child may complete his experiences by means of outward expressions of his impressions. This list includes paper, paint, chalk, clay, wood, cloth, tools, musical instruments, to mention only a few of a rapidly expanding list of materials. Providing education for all the children of all the people is an expensive undertaking. Zealots for the ilemocratic wax of life consider it monev exceedingly well spent. The scIkjoI administrator harassed b\ mounting costs and rapidly depreciating buying power of the dollar seeks in bewilderment for Inidgetarv items on which to economize. Too frecjuenth the sensoiv aids to learning, the material of instruction, the in- dispensable tools of teaching, fall under the axe. At the same time the school administeator is attempting to increase the salaries of his teaching staff in order to attract competent personnel to the pi^ofession, he is rendering their efforts ineffective b) detrying them the |)iopir materials of instruction. Penny wise? • SEE AND HEAR