THE WAIPUKURAU PRESS SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1935. A NEW FIELD OF INSTRUCTION.

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXX, Issue 158, 13 July 1935, Page 4

THE WAIPUKURAU PRESS SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1935. A NEW FIELD OF INSTRUCTION.

Introducing its booklet on educational broadcasts to schools for the current six months, the New Zealand Broadcasting Board, which has the co-operation of the New Zealand Education Department through the 3YA Educational Broadcasting Committee, states, anent what constitutes a very commendable progressive innovation in the sphere of art (sculpture, architecture and painting), exploration, music, social life, literature, and science dealing with the outstanding characteristics of notable adventureis into the fields enumerated: “The time has not yet anived when radio can be used to take an integral part in the educational activities demanded by the school syllabus. In spite of the arrangement of fixed times for school broadcasts^ and the publication of ‘talks’ pamphlets such as the present, radio can still be considered only an adventitious aid to schooling. The committee, therefore, have in no way regarded it as their task to try to do the teacher’s work for him, or to try to deal with the regular school programme; any such attempts would be successful only in rare cases, and would bring ‘radio-in-schools’ into disrepute among efficient teachers. At the present time the service which radio can render is to widen the school outlook and make children think of education as something more vital than ‘subjects,’ and ‘text-books,’ and ‘class-rooms’ can be, however inspiring the teacher may try to make these things. The committee have therefore tried in their programme to make ‘vitality’ the essence of the talks. ‘Apart from the broadcasts for infants along rhythmic lines, the talks are all intended to approach different phases of human culture from the point of view which appeals to children of upper primary school age—that of personal adventure. In the study of various subjects, children must generally accept events and facts in a rather dead and academic vay facts in the establishing of which the most laborious adventures have been undertaken, events that have left behind them a trail of the very heart’s blood of living men and women. The child’s imagination is not equal to the task of reading into a dry book-entry the long, patient struggle with prejudice or poverty that has brought it to pass. This is where talks from ‘outsiders’ may be useful. The child who is listening to the radio is in a condition of mind which makes him more imaginatively free than he is apt to be when doing his regular school work, and it should be possible, if the talks are of the right kind, for the teacher to use this freer ranging of the mind as a motive power to carry the substance of the talks into various parts of the school procedure. This is Where the teacher can be of great use to the broadcast speakers. Teachers should listen in carefully with the children, and try not to criticise the talk as if it were an ordinary school lesson, but rather to think of it as a stimulus to further effort on the child’s part A successful talk should urge the child to adventure in some way or other: to learn more about a thing; to do some of the things referred to; to discuss some of the problems raised. The committee would welcome very gratefully criticisms and suggestions from teachers who listen in. In connection with some of the talks, this pamphlet gives points for discussion, or suggestions for following up the subject with further reading; the committee would like teachers to let them know if such suggestions are useful, and also how the talks have been used in other parts of school work. The art of broadcasting is in its infancy, and the contact between speaker and listener is mostly a one way affair, so that the art sadly lacks the necessary listener’s criticism to raie it to anything like a reasonable general standard. It is the business of educationists to try to make efficient this instrument of instruction which can have such extraordinary power for good, or maybe for ill.. The committee therefore ask teachers to join with them in this task, so that whatever success or failure may attend this year’s broadcast talks, they may face next year’s programme a little better equipped for their job.” In the case of IYA (Wellington) and 4YA (Dunedin) the broadcasts include Story Talks for the juniors; Poetry, the Post and Telegraph Services; Traffic Control; Music; History; Geography; and Nature Study. From IYA (Auckland) come the subjects: School Music Lessons; “Haunted Houses” (of great memories and events); Everyday Science; Poetry and Drama; The Maori Wars; Plant Food Stores; and How People Live. The subjects embraced are very comprehensively covered in the programme being submitted, and members of the Broadcasting Board, together with the Educational Advisory Committee for each centre, can be complimented on the excellent result of their collaboration.