Listening While I Work (25)

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 251, 14 April 1944, Page 14

Listening While I Work (25)

By

Materfamilias

[LISTENING to Correspondence School sessions, I always feel that I am eavesdropping. It is so clearly intended for correspondence school pupils and is, so I am told, eagerly awaited by children who cannot go to ordinary school and who find these brief half-hours a welcome link with other children of their age. But the midday school broadcasts do not affect me in that way. This year, the second half of Monday’s half-hour is devoted to a news talk. © This, however, is rather a misleading name, as actually the talks are usually about places that have been, are, or may be in the news. For instance, in view of the impending Second Front, there have been talks on those parts of Europe that may be in the invasion operationsFrance, the Channel Islands, Brittany, and so on. This is interestingly and carefully done. We get quite a good build up of the geographic features and usually quite a lot about the inhabitants and their history. But this is not news. It is geography and the way is still open for a news talk for youngsters. I would suggest that there might be a short news bulletin or talk which would explain clearly and simply some of the things that are going on in other countries: the Australia-New Zealand pact, the English » Education Bill, how an American President is elected, and so on. %* * * LIKE the new history serial, In the Days of the Black Prince, better than © last year’s. From the educational viewpoint it has certain special advantages. In the first place, the story is written chapter by chapter by Ann, who brings | it to an old professor of history and discusses it with him. In this way all sorts of historical details can be discussed and emphasised, and this is, educationally, the important thing. The professor explains details that come up in the course of the story: a villein’s dependence on his lord, how his freedom can: be bought, what villagers would eat and how they lived, how the town would . look-and smell. In this way attention is drawn to historical details that might otherwise be lost in interest in the plot of the story. Eg * * "VV EVE started music with Mr. Young again, and itis corker," said my Standard Four youngster one day. That is, I think, the general impression of the Thursday music class. In my schooldays we thought singing dull except that it offered unrivalled opportunities for practical joking. But Mr. Young manages to convey his enthusiasm to his young listeners. He speaks to them as though he could hear just how they are singing. The songs he chooses are not only charming to adults but popular with children too. * * * HIS and the Infants’ Session are purely and simply classes. They provide almost the only occasions when I feel tolerant towards children’s voices, over the air. I deplore the extent to which children are encouraged to perform over the air in the 4.45 p.m. Children’s Sessions. The excuse, I presume is that it is a link between the listening children and the studio. The (Continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) children like to know (the argument no doubt goes) that little Jemima and little Eric are two dear little children who have specially come to sing for them, and it is so clever of them to be able to sing so nicely over the air. In actual fact, in our home at any rate, no sooner do the little dears begin their cheerful pipings or strummings or fiddlings than I am asked to turn them off. And I am sure that my children are averageneither appreciative nor unappreciative of music. They enjoy it when it is good and at their level, but no child who has heard good music well played enjoys infant prodigies. I am altogether against the broadcasting of children’s performances. It is interesting only to friends and relatives and it gives the performers an entirely erroneous opinion of their own position. It is very bad for children to go home thinking how clever they ate to be asked to broadcast. It is very bad for young listeners: who think that this is something that they should like, and don’t, or who may want to perform themselves. Children, even more than adults, should hear only the most expert of singers and performers. Adults have developed their critical faculties sufficiently (or should have) to be able to defend themselves. Children have not. a