LISTENING WITH THE CHILDREN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 216, 13 August 1943, Page 12

LISTENING WITH THE CHILDREN

Is Our Radio Doing Its Job?Asks "Materfamilias"’ in this article for "The Listener" it should be so? Or should children he encouraged to listen only when there is something that they ought to hear? And if we believe that children should use their radio with discrimination, as they should learn to read with discrimination, how is this to be achieved? * % , * HAVE spent a good deal of time lately listening to all the things that come over the air for children, and I am seriously worried. The programmes which are most obviously directed to children are the educational sessions from all National stations on Mondays, (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) Tuesdays, Wednesdays. and Thursdays. These are a conscious attempt to put radio at the service of education, and the value of these broadcasts depends on the extent to which the schools take advantage of radio. They are school broadcasts to which a whole class or a number of classes may listen, and in which they may sometimes take part, and they have been going as a national scheme for a year or more. I cannot pretend to have made sufficiently exhaustive survey for a final judgment, but I feel entitled to ask certain questions. What exactly do these broadcasts aim at? Do they supply a stimulus to the classroom that would not otherwise be there? Are they equally effective in all types of schools? Radio used to be a novelty. Children listened to it eagerly because listening was a treat. To-day this is no longer the case. On the other hand the absence of the personal stimulus provided by the teacher’s presence imposes a severe strain on broadcasting as an educational method. I have asked numerous teachers, and also many parents, what our programmes for children are like, and how teachers and_ school classes respond to them, and I am not sure that the claims we make for these sessions can be justified. * * * SUSPECT that the usefulness of ‘most school broadcasts depends only in part upon the excellence of the broadcaster. An isolated talk to a classroom, even if it is very good, may not get the interest of children already jaded after half-a-day’s school. In many schools, too, the loud-speakers are old and the voice from the microphone becomes blurred. It takes a big effort in such cases to pay attention. Besides, in addition, half-a-dozen bored children may spoil the lesson for the others, One teacher told me frankly that his pupils were mot in the habit of listening. They thought it a bit of a joke. They were children from poor homes living in an overcrowded district and concentration was. beyond them. I gathered, too, that radio means more to country schools than to those in the cities. The reason may be that the town teacher, like the town pupil, has enough stimulus from living in the bigger world of the town not to clutch at such ‘straws of help as radio provides; but I am not sure about that. In any case, both in town and in country

there are teachers who consider broadcasts in schools a waste of time. There is a syllabus, they argue, and the children will never got through it if they waste time listening to historical serials and chatty talks on travel. In such classrooms radio will be a waste of time. " & % * HERE remain the childre nthemselves. I asked several of them whether they liked the radio half hour. "Oh, yes. We like the singing classes," said one group of girls. "We don’t," said the boys. "Singing’s sissy." "Well, what do you like?" "We like serials, but we don’t get them at school. The serial about Rafe isn’t bad, and theré was a good one last year about visiting England in the time of. Queen Victoria." "T like the talks about measurement. They are full of things that we would not hear about in an ordinary class. It makes our arithmetic more interesting." "Yes, we like the news talks, ... We would like more stories... ." And so on. % * * T is not my purpose to compare the NBS with its limited resources. with the BBC. We do not know what the children in England think of school broadcasts nor how many of them listen. What Tom Harrison tells us is the reaction of adults. It may be the case here too that many parents find the children’s sessions satisfying. I suspect that it is the case with school broadcasts. The Correspondence School radio hour on Tuesday mornings, for example, probably interests a very large number of the parents who listen to it in order to help their children to get the most out of it. The gap between parents and children may, in fact, be narrower than we think it is. Most children who are out of the primer stage like listening to programmes that are for adults. And nearly all programmes that are intended specifically for children are either a trifle condescending or over sweet in tone. Many of the serials, of course, don’t condescend. Quite the contrary. But many of them are also cheap, false, melodramatic and foolish. On the other hand, many of the Children’s Hour.sessions are the last thing in nonsense and mawkish sentimentality; and too often when they rise above those things it is to encourage exhibitionism and unwholesome precgcity.