School Equipment Research Articles

Wider Use of Audio-Visual Aids in Adult Education for Negroes

In the development of an effective program of adult education among Negroes the wide and effective use of audio-visual aids would constitute an exceeding advantage. These aids have been proved to establish learning more quickly, more accurately and in increased quantity. Especially is this true in working with a group which has been disadvantaged in educational opportunity and pursuit. These aids compensate for lack of ability to read and lack of varied and rich experiences. Learning is stimulated by sensory experiences which are predominantly audio-visual. The agencies which have to do the greatest jobs of education know this. The armed forces, faced with the dire necessity for rapid training, have exceeded by far any previous utilization of audio-visual aids. They claim increased speed, accuracy, and retention because of these uses. Though we may now have surpassed them, Germany and England developed use of these aids earlier than we did. Research shows that audio-visual aids stimulate learning on all levels. Sometimes as much as forty per cent increase has been shown. There is no longer the question as to the educational efficiency which can be derived from their use. Educational systems, before the war, had developed, and are continuing to develop the use of audio-visual aids in their classrooms. This development has, of course, been greatest in city school systems and in those rural areas which are progressive. Unfortunately, newer and progressive programs do not usually find early use in most Negro schools. This seems to be especially true when expenditures are involved in the introduction of the programs. And so it has been in the audio-visual program. It, too has been late in reaching Negro schools. There are very few localities in the country where, in segregated schools, there are equal or nearly equal audio-visual materials, equipment, or training on the part of teachers. This is true on all levels of instruction. Most of the formal adult education programs among Negroes spring from the activities of schools directly, if they utilize school buildings, equipment and personnel. Thus it is assumed that fundamental to the development of a basis for extension in the use of audio-visual aids in adult education, is the building of a sound program of use by the schools themselves. If we had adequate audio-visual programs with trained personnel and useful equipment in our schools it would mean that equipment and knowledge would be present for use in adult education. There is a pressing need for development of the use of audio-visual aids on the college level. Such a development on the college level would mean the training of teachers and workers who would be able to use these aids effectively. This would be a means of

Furniture and Equipment for School Buildings

TRUE (70) PUBLISHED AN ARTICLE ENTITLED Wanted: Equipment Research. The title expressed a need that has existed and does still exist. Setting up standards as proposed by Klehm (37, 38) for industrial arts, or as suggested by Morphet (50), and as is being carried out to an extent (35, 50), is but a part of the research needed. For instance, the use factor hardly has been considered. Certainly, it has not been adequately considered under controlled conditions, taking into consideration such factors as climate, humidity, amount of use, longevity, location with respect to heat and sunlight, and ease of care and repair. It should be noted that certain items which may be a specified part of a building are in a sense equipment. In this classification come light fixtures, blackboards, public address systems, radios, lockers, showers, toilets, drinking fountains, and door checks. This report does not include many of these items since they are treated elsewhere. In some instances, however, they are included in references cited. Two excellently prepared and annotated bibliographies have been prepared by Smith and Noffsinger. The first bibliography (66) dealt with college and university buildings, grounds, and equipment. The second bibliography (67) dealt with school buildings, grounds, and equipment. A bibliography on school and college buildings was presented by Leggett (41). In a careful piece of research, Morris (51) listed the various pieces of equipment needed for the auditorium, gymnasium, English, social studies, mathematics, science, domestic science, commerce, shop, language, music, arts and crafts, manual arts, health, audio-visual aids, and studentgovernment activities. Surveys of equipment were made by Larson (40) and Clarson (15). Zook (76) reported progress in the analysis and development of specifications and standards of school equipment. Working under a grant from the General Education Board and in cooperation with the National Bureau of Standards, tentative specifications have been set up for the folding chair and the removable chair desk and have been issued for study and criticism. In the same report, Zook stated that field work and tabulation of data have been completed in a study of the utilization and distribution of school sanitary facilities and noted the need for a broad research approach to the problem.

Music and Modern Youth

of the youth of this country was largely adult controlled. Boys and girls played and listened to music selected by parents and teachers. Places of public recreation were not only limited in number but youthful participation was strictly curtailed by parental authority. Times have changed. The automobile has made a marked difference by breaking up what was once a closely knit home and community life. Nowadays everybody, from grandmother to baby, gets about. Range of environment, by motorcar alone, has been immeasurably enlarged. Then came the phonograph, broadening musical experience to a hitherto unprecedented extent. However, yet more remarkable extensions of cultural and recreational surroundings have been made actual by means of the radio and the sound film, both being easy and prompt disseminators of ideas, news, music and entertainment. In addition to a well planned and regulated musical environment, the everyday lives of all are flooded with gratuitous music. Furthermore, present conditions have widened not only the scope of experience but also the freedom of boys and girls to range within it. Hence the home, the church, the school and the conservatory are no longer unrivaled influences in developing the musical taste of youth. Nevertheless, each of these agencies, along with public recreation and commercial entertainment, have profited by the phenomenal increase of musical advantages made possible by a machine age. Music education has habitually kept abreast of the times. From its earliest beginnings, the phonograph has been employed to enhance music's programs. The same may be said of piano playing devices. Good reproducing instruments and comprehensive libraries of records and rolls are considered a part of standard school equipment. Despite the growing educational service of the radio, I believe it correct to say that under present conditions the majority of music teachers find it a less flexible instrument than the phonograph. This is, of course, due to circumstances over which we have little control. However, the fact that the finer musical programs are more frequent after than during school hours has not excluded them altogether from the classroom. We find teachers throughout the country cooperating with their pupils in assembling and tabulating information about forthcoming events on the air. Students are encouraged to report upon and discuss their serious out-of-school listening in relation to what is going on in school. Likewise, resourceful instructors are discovering numerous ways of making curricular material of the sound films-these not limited to educational and socalled musical movies, but including run-of-the-mill feature pictures and shorts as well. The latter two are influential from simple force of number. Like the radio, all screen presentations lean heavily upon music

Broadcasting and Citizenship

AT the North of England Education Conference on January 6 the Central Council for School Broadcasting and the Central Committee for Group Listening were represented by their secretary, Mr. A. C. Cameron, who discussed the principles on which these two bodies are at present shaping their policies and raised a number of questions as to the moulding and educating influences of broadcasting on the citizen of to-morrow and to-day. As regards school broadcasting, for the reception of which, by the way, in England and Wales some 7,000 schools are equipped, he emphasized its importance as fostering the interest of the child in life outside the school and the interest of the parent in the school. As evidence of the growing interest of parents he mentioned that a school broadcast recently brought him three hundred letters from parents who had listened to it. To promote group listening and discussion seven area councils representative of voluntary bodies, local authorities and the universities have been constituted. Many listening and discussion groups have been formed by such bodies as women’s institutes, townswomen’s Guilds and public libraries, and many are recognized by local education authorities as eligible for grants for “further education”. Another speaker at the Conference, a member of the executive of the National Union of Teachers, argued that wireless receiving sets ought to be regarded as essential pieces of equipment for schools and for bodies such as juvenile organization committees and community centres which undertake to promote group listening as a means of adolescent and adult education. It seems open to question whether grants should be made for encouraging such listening and discussion groups without some sort of guarantee that they are conducted by competent leaders. With proper guidance (for which attendance at university extension tutorial classes would provide an excellent training) such groups could be developed into a powerful agency for education for citizenship.

The School and the Family-Welfare Agency

Family influence and training are fundamental to the child's adjustment in school; maladjustment is transferred from the home to the school easily and naturally. The child promptly reflects difficulties of his home situation in his school attitudes and work, and teachers have learned to recognize manifestations of maladjustment in children. The difficulties manifested in school may be roughly classified under the headings: (i) truancy and tardiness, (2) cutting recitation periods, (3) failure in scholastic attainment, and (4) behavior problems. To meet these problems, the school has set up its own machinery, but teachers and administrators are ever mindful of the child as a product of the home and place a large share of the responsibility for his adjustment on his parents. Reports on the child's progress and attitudes are forwarded by the school to the home at regular intervals. The teacher notifies the parent by note or telephone when a child is out of step with the group. If the irregularity is of more than minor proportions, the parent is requested to come to the school office for conference, or the school may go to the home in the person of the attendance officer or the visiting teacher. Whatever the method of contact, the school recognizes, and to a certain extent has always recognized, the home as the strongest factor in the problem of the child's adjustment in the school. Certainly, the victim of a maladjusted home cannot reasonably be expected to make adjustment readily in school. The rapid increase in the number of maladjusted homes during the period of the economic depression has brought about a steady increase in the number of maladjusted children in the schools. An abnormal strain is thus placed on the school's equipment for the treatment of these problems-and at a time, unfortunately, when the school is in its weakest position to meet the strain. The same factors in the economic order which have caused the herding of families into

Needed Research in the Field of School Buildings and Equipment

Needed Research in the Field of School Buildings and Equipment

FIRST AID EQUIPMENT IN SCHOOL

FIRST AID EQUIPMENT IN SCHOOL

Chapter X: Needed Research in the Field of School Buildings and Equipment

Chapter X: Needed Research in the Field of School Buildings and Equipment

Modern Business Equipment in Schools

Modern Business Equipment in Schools

FIRST AID EQUIPMENT FOR SCHOOLS

FIRST AID EQUIPMENT FOR SCHOOLS

Commercial Equipment in Large Ohio High Schools

Commercial Equipment in Large Ohio High Schools

School Equipment Literature

School Equipment Literature

School Equipment Literature

School Equipment Literature

School Equipment Literature

School Equipment Literature

School Equipment Literature

School Equipment Literature

School Equipment Literature

School Equipment Literature

University and Educational Intelligence

BIRMINGHAM.—Leave of absence has been granted to Profs. Brash (Dean of the Faculty of Medicine), Haswell Wilson, and Daly, to visit the United States as guests of the Rockefeller Foundation to inspect the buildings and equipment of medical schools in that country in view of the building and development of the new medical school of the University of Birmingham.

The new books on our shelf

The new books on our shelf

Radio and Electric Power Supply Equipment for Schools

Radio and Electric Power Supply Equipment for Schools

Nursery School Equipment

Nursery School Equipment