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Listening While I Work (2)

By

Matertamilias

UNDAY morning is not a particularly good listening time, and it was more by chance than by design that I tuned in to 2ZB and found myself listening to Your Children. As _ subheading, I would suggest "Propaganda for Parents." I have not heard many of this series, which has now been running for a few weeks, but I have found those that I have heard interesting, I would recommend them especially to those parents whose attitude is "What was good enough for me is good enough for my children." Educationists’ ideas are moving faster than parents’ ideas, and the teacher who tries new methods is faced on the one hand by the child who only understands the old, and on the other by the parent who thinks craftwork, self-government, . self-expression, and a strap that is mildewed from disuse a symbol of weakness in the school. However, the question is not whether the parent is right or the teacher: it is that little Tom, Dick and Mary have to adjust themselves to two different sets of ideas. Your Children is an attempt to convert parents to new thinking on éducation. The session I listened to dealt with self-government in schools, and apart from being a little rosy, it was well done. Drametised incidents were taken from the minutes book of a selfgoverning schoo! in New Zealand, As propaganda I should say it was conmore effective than a straight talk. But I should have liked more life

and humour and less of the rose-coloured spectacles. * * * IN Monday I listened to another of the talks in the educational session Into the Unknown. The stories of the great explorers are among the best tales that the world has produced. "Is it really true?" children ask when they first hear about Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus or. Captain Cook. These are not stories that’ need embellishing, and if I were a teacher, I should be annoyed that the radio should be allowed to steal my thunder without making a really good thunderclap. Radio in_ school should give the children something that they cannot get in a normal class. A series of this sort could cover new material not easy ‘for the average teacher to find, or should be better produced than anything can be in an ordinary school. To reach children, these talks need to be better read and more skilfully produced. As they now come over, the scripts are obviously read. Teachers would stand a better chance of keeping the attention of their classes by doing the reading themselves. Having noticed how gladly children listen to even improbable and long-winded tales over the air when the yarn is well told, I feel it would not need more

than a little additional care in presentation to make this series of true adventure stories something to which the children would really look forward. By Ba % WAS not feeling very optimistic as I turned the knob after an evening of dull listening to hear Yarns for Yanks from 2ZB. Almost all the radio yarns that I have heard recently have been mock thrillers improbable to the point of fatuity. To my surprise, I was treated to a Damon Runyon yarn, told in the best "Bowery," and so well told that the story mattered more than the speaker, I shall listen again for Yarns. for Yanks. Bo ba bs N China’s National Day there was a re-broadcast of last year’s special China Day programme, some playlets written and prepared in America for a National Broadcast appeal for aid to China. Two of the plays were written by Pearl Buck, and all were acted by wellknown screen and radio stars. I was glad to hear them again, but I found myself wondering why, last year, I had been impressed by them, Rightly or wrongly I came to the conclusion that we have had too much sob appeal. The technique is too much the same. We have had it in This Is War; we have had it to a less extent in many of the

American War Department programmes, It was the theme in one of the plays: "IT cannot die for I am China-the woman whom the Japanese cannot shoot." We have had it again, both over the air and on the pictures, in "Lidice," and now we are getting it again in the new series, Free World Theatre, The emotional appeal is dangerous to overdo. You can work it once or twice, but it becomes painful, and even ludicrous, if it is overdone, Unless I am much mistaken, the facts will give us plenty to get emotional over in the near future without any appeals to phoney sentiment.

This article text was automatically generated and may include errors. View the full page to see article in its original form.I whakaputaina aunoatia ēnei kuputuhi tuhinga, e kitea ai pea ētahi hapa i roto. Tirohia te whārangi katoa kia kitea te āhuatanga taketake o te tuhinga.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19431022.2.21

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 226, 22 October 1943, Page 11

Word count
Tapeke kupu
786

Listening While I Work (2) New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 226, 22 October 1943, Page 11

Listening While I Work (2) New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 226, 22 October 1943, Page 11

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