RADIO FOR SCHOOLS

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 26, 13 January 1928, Page 15

RADIO FOR SCHOOLS

SYSTEM IN CALIFORNIA. The radio programme of experimentation has been carried on in the Oakland (California) public schools during the past three years, the department being the first in the United States to use it. It began under the guidance of Dr. Virgil Dickson, with Henrietta Johnson largely responsible for the general management, At first, there were two programmes weekly, but as Miss Johusou’s time was linuted it became necessary to reduce the number of Iicssons to one every two weeks, Miss Johnson is the assistant director of the Oakland Public Schools Bureau of Curriculum Development Research and Guidance Department. In a lette1 to KGO thanking the General Electric station for its co-operation in the experimentation she said, in part: INSTRUCTION IS PRACTICAL, "The experiment has been most worth while and it has been definitely proven that radio instruction 1s practical and a much desired programme fer any school system. We trust that further experimentation may be carried on at a later date."’ A series of thirteen health lessons was given over KGO during the fall and spring term of 1926 and 1927 by Elizabeth P. Whitinarsh, assistant director of health education. Six of the Oakland schools, one Berkeley school and one Petaluma school participated in this experiment. ‘The lessons were twetitv minutes in length. Miss Whitmarsh says :- | RADIO STIMULATES INTEREST. ‘The results would have been greater had more scliools participated in the experiment. In my particular field of instruction this experiment has convinced me that radio does much in stimulating an interest in health habits and arouses an interest in a subject which, having no special time allotment, is often neglected in the programme.

"T think it not too ambitious to predict that in the near future instruction by radio will be a standardised department of instruction, guided by a full time director." Edgar Ii. Muller, chairman of the radio committee, enumerates the values of radio instruction as follows :- 1-Necessity for thorough preparation on the part of the teacher. 2-Conservation of time. Lessons must begin on time and’end on time. 3-Requires concentration om part of pupils. They cannot ask questions, cannot lag, must keep on ihe alert. 4-Because of the above, it tends to sn? of the necessary factors in life.’"’