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Current Affairs.

11.

The balanced presentation of important news of the day, with enough background for it to be understood, is an almost impossible task for most teachers, who have not the necessary material available, nor the time to study it.

Broadcasting has for many years handled this subject successfully in the U.K. and elsewhere.

History.

12. The History text book and reader are forced so to squeeze the life of the past between their covers that there is sometimes little life left. Broad- casting can bring into the History lesson dramatic reconstructions of important events of the past, inmensely stimulating the children's historical imagination and so helping them to put the affairs of today in perspective.

13. Broadcasting can also present the great personalities of the past of all races so that children can benefit from the "constant vision of greatness".

14. There are also aspects of history which are not included in school text books, and in which teachers have little background, but which should gradually be brought into school syllabuses. For example, in vernaculer schools the history of China contains little social and economic history. Broadcasting can help to infiltrate into the schools new material as research reveals it, and also a new approach to history.

Geography.

15. The most obvious classroom aids to the teaching of Geography are photographs, films and film strips. One might expect that broadcasting had a relatively small contribution to make since it is not "visual", but good broad- casting is usually exceedingly visual. If a broadcast is not bringing a vivid and interesting picture before the mind's eye of the listener almost the whole time, it is a very poor broadcast.

16. Broadcasting excels on the human side of geography.

It can convey what it feels like to cross a desert, for example, far better than a common-place film, although not nearly as well as a film produced with uncommon artistry (and expense).

17. The Travel Talks broadcast by the B.B.C. are the most widely used of all broadcasts to schools in the U.K. A good Travel Talk telling the story of an interesting or even exciting experience, and which at the same time illustrates significant geographical facts is not an easy broadcast to produce, but is a first class contribution to the teaching of elementary geography. No teacher can illustrate all his geography teaching from his own experience, but broadcasts can help him to illustrate it by the experience of others.

Science.

18.

The fundamental teaching of science is largely a matter for the laboratory, but broadcasting can make at least two useful contributions.

19. It can present in dramatic or semi-dramatic form, how great discoveries and inventions have been made, showing particularly how scientists approach their problems the way they gather their facts, measure, make hypotheses and con- struct crucial experiments.

20.

Where the teaching of science is weak for one reason or another, broadcasting can very much strengthen it, particularly by stimulating the power of observation, and by relating the text book and the laboratory work to the world outside.

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