U.S. TELEVISION “SCHOOL”

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27859, 6 January 1956, Page 2

U.S. TELEVISION “SCHOOL”

American Woman’s Programme

INTEREST IN FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

Supervisor of children’s programmes for the National Broadcasting Company in America, Dr. Frances Horwich learned recently that her "Ding Dong” School had the highest percentage of homes tuned in among the day-time television programme. To her large audience she is "Miss Frances.”

When the children meet her in person they often ask in all seriousness: "Miss Frances, how did you get out of the TV set?”

Much information for the sessions comes to her by mail. She receives hundreds of letters a day. With such a responsive audience, she has to watch her step. Once she casually remarked that all fire engines were red, and, she recalled, almost “the whole town of Hartford was on my neck.” At Hartford, in Connecticut, fire engines are white, she was told. She apologetically reported this to her audience, and received another flood of letters telling her not to be silly—everyone knew that all fire engines were red.

Dr. Horwich hoped to improve relations between parents and children, but sometimes she found herself the unintentional cause of family friction, writes Rod Nordell in the “Christian Science Monitor.” For example, he says, she treid to be helpful by suggestion to children that it was good to keep a pair of slippers together when placing them by the bed. A distraught mother wrote to say that for years she had been trying to teach her son to keep his slippers in the closet and now he wanted to leave them by the bed. Another boy refused his father's gift of a bell from Capri, and insisted that it be sent to "Ding Dong” for everyone to enjoy. She encourages parent and children to find information together, and to have fun with each other. Feeling that many children “have much too much” these days, she attempts to restore a sense of value by helping them to get full use out of things, to improvise, to use a paper bag, for example, if they do not own drawing paper.

As a former classroom teacher, and teacher of teachers, she says that ‘‘Ding Dong School” is based more on how children learn than on the particular techniques of television. She feels that television will become increasingly valuable as a supplement to formal education.

Millicent Taylor, education editor of the “Christian Science Monitor." says that Dr. Horwich has a wonderful way of making very simple ideas intenselv interesting. Her new Ding Dong School Book called "Miss Frances’ Story Book of Manners” is a delightful collection of extremely simple but absorbing little stories, each one depicting a child doing the courteous or generous or thoughtful thing. There are no “prigs” in the book. The children are natural and attractive. They learn, right in the stories, along with the child to whom the story is read, says Miss Taylor.