Educational TV Parley Sees Long Road Ahead

"Television has risen out of radio's golden age of mediocrity and has failed to develop its unique potential as a means of communication," Robert Saudek '32, Producer of "Omnibus," declared this week at the Summer School Conference on Educational Television.

Saudek spoke Monday evening at the session on "The Educational Potential of Commercial Television." Tuesday's program was entitled "The Case for Special Educational Television," and Wednesday's "Formal Uses for In-School Television."

Attendance at the New Lecture Hall events was moderate Monday and tapered off considerably on the succeeding nights. There appeared to be very few Summer School students present in the audience throughout the Conference.

Agree with Saudek

Speakers at the Conference generally agreed with Saudek that television leaves much to be desired as an educational medium. Yet they emphasized that, in the words of Edward Stanley of N.B.C., "orthodox education as such is not suited for broadcast to the general American public." Instead of just presenting a daily lesson in the conventional form, "television must illustrate the lesson by adding material that is not ordinarily available in the classroom," according to Herold C. Hunt, Under Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare.

One speaker, Gilbert Seldes '14, author of "The Seven Lively Arts," emphasized the destructive potential of television, claiming that it can be an influence for conformity and stereotyped thinking. But Raymond Wittcoff, of the St. Louis Educational Television Commission, proposed that this threat could be avoided by presenting programs that bring local problems before the community's eye.

"Civilization of the Dialogue"

As examples, Wittcoff suggested that a Board of Education meeting or a political debate could be presented on television, in order "to preserve the civilization of the dialogue in this era of the digest."

Describing the educational television program in effect at Penn. State University, Leslie P. Greenhill said that college students often prefer watching a televised class to sitting in a large lecture hall. They like the small room, the improved vision, the lack of distractions, and the fact that the camera directs their attention toward the lecturer, he said.

According to Greenhill, careful tests of the achievement and attitudes of students who had watched televised classes and those who had actually attended the lectures showed no significant difference. The faculty at Penn State is still largely undecided about televised classes, he said, pointing out that it takes a teacher about twice as much time to prepare a lecture for television as to prepare a regular class.