National Defense Education Act; NET Station Presentations

National Education Television presents the NET Report on the National Defense Education Act with the Notre-Damerican Educator and News Analyst, Dr. E. W. Z. Barth. A basic part of education, I suppose, is the job of telling the younger generation what it is we think we know, although too often we may not know as much as we think we do. Sometimes this is opinion, sometimes it's demonstrated fact, sometimes of course it's a skill. The teachers, the man or woman we choose to transmit this information, to get the idea across. And often over the years, I've wished this teacher and administrator, as if countless others, of course, that we might do it more interestingly, more universally, that we might stimulate others

to probe beyond the frontiers of present knowledge. For a good many thousands of years, the teacher could do this only orally. The development of an alphabet and writing was a considerable improvement, but the efficient handling of knowledge awaited Gutenberg's development of movable type. I suppose you could say this invention truly made widespread public education possible. Basically, we still rely on the book to store information and to pass it on to our young people. But in our times, a very dramatic new methods of storing information and transmitting it have been developed. Brief among these are documentary film and educational television, and appearing on the horizon, the promise of the teaching machine, our self-study machine. These are new tools for the teacher, in addition to his voice and his books, and I suppose, his blackboard. How can teachers best use film and television?

What is the job these communications facilities do best? How effective is a teaching machine? Well, in 1958, when the Bill for the National Defense Education Act was under consideration, a bill to provide federal funds for local use to equalize and improve educational opportunity in the United States, Congress specified that the communications media as teaching tools be examined vigorously and critically, and they labeled this specification Title 7. They said, in effect, here are some funds for some hard-boiled research. During the next four years, let's find out if we're making the most of these media. Doosam really systematic studies, experiment, see what films and television can contribute to the solution of our problems of teacher shortages, exploding student enrollments, mushrooming funds of knowledge that must be imparted. Well, it's been about two and a half years since that directive.

NET report felt it was time to take a first-hand look at this educational research. Only a few of the projects have been completed. It's much too early to make final judgments. But it is important, we think, to see what it has been possible to try with these funds. Six months ago, NET started work on this report. At that time, there were over 80 research projects underway. Today, there are almost 100. They're located in every state in the union. They deal with an enormous variety of practical and theoretical problems in American education. But there is a plan and a meaning and a pattern to this work. What we want to know is this. Can film, or television, or new theories of communication such as the teaching machine help the teacher do a better job faster? Can they help the gifted student, the mathematics teacher, in the junior high school, the student preparing to be a teacher in the teachers' college?

Well, to get the answer, we've called on the affiliated stations of NET, the videotape network of more than 50 non-commercial educational stations in the United States. Here is the first one. From NET affiliate, WILL, the University of Illinois at Champaille, a new method of scientific inquiry. Question? Can a film demonstration of a scientific principle get a meaningful class discussion going? Director of the project and spokesman for it, Dr. Richard Silman. The brain of the normal child is superior in many respects to the largest electronic computer in the world. It is able to collect information and build elaborate concepts. It can use these concepts to reason, to solve problems, and to generate new ideas. When a child gets to school, if he's encouraged just to learn facts and explanations, he is not going to make full use of his powerful and wonderful mental apparatus. His thinking

skills will not be getting the practice and experience they need. As a result, he may be handicapped in his ability to learn from experience, to explore and discover, and to find understanding through his own searching. We're trying to ensure the development of thinking abilities by giving children more of a chance to put them to work. The technique we use is called inquiry training. We give children instruction and practice in searching for new understandings in science. The children are shown special films of science demonstrations. These are designed to puzzle them and make them want to discover why things happen the way they did. The investigating is done by the children themselves. They ask questions that gather data and propose experiments and test hypotheses. In other words, questions that get at the facts. The teacher answers these questions, but he does not suggest any explanations or interpretations.

The children have to do that for themselves. How well could you explain this demonstration? Well, first of all, was that a liquid colored water? No, the questioning begins. Notice that Mr. Irving does not direct or guide the line of inquiry. His role is to provide the information that is asked for and to help the children improve their inquiry skills. Whatever they learn about science is the direct result of their own questioning and reasoning. Was it any form of water? No, Jerry. This is a matter of the heat of this liquid. Yes, Marilyn.

Could you use color water and press again? No, not in this particular experiment. Would the same thing have happened if the glass bubbles on the end weren't there? No, correct. Was it air-tight so no air could get into the tube? Yes, good question. Paul. Was the heat of a hand around the bubble? Did that cause the air to heat up and push the liquid? Cause the air to expand. This had something to do with it. I can give you a partial guess, okay? We don't expect the children to obtain complete understanding with each film. A lot depends on their age and intelligence and the concepts they already have.

The important thing to us is that they learn how to inquire productively. In fact, the skills of inquiry may be so basic to all intellectual activities that their development may be just as important as learning to read. In Illinois, children are being taught to inquire. Productively as Dr. Sukman put it and film is used to help them. In Texas, young adults are being taught to observe productively. Any medical student will tell you that the study of medicine is pretty much of a grind up to the moment of bedside visits then he takes fire or at least he should. Vailer University College of Medicine recognized this and speculated about what would happen if they brought students and patients together by means of closed-circuit television early in their training. Title VII funds were made available to explore the idea. Now from the NET Houston affiliate, KUHT, Dr. H.E. Hoff, chairman of the Department of Physiology. Human physiology, particularly as it relates to disease, is best taught in the last two years of medical school when the student visits the bedside with his instructor.

At this time medicine comes alive for him. In many medical schools during the first two years of the course, the student rarely has the opportunity to see and learn this aspect of human physiology. We felt that even during his first year, the student has enough fundamental knowledge of physiology to be able to understand the alterations in function characteristic of some disease states. In order to bring the bedside to the student in his first year, we have developed a system which presents a broad spectrum of information to the student at his own laboratory station. Through the use of television and two-way audio communication, the student can see patient and instructor and talk to both. Any physiological measurements which are being made on the patient are also instantly available through a data broadcast system.

To record these data, the student merely plugs in his three-channel instrument called a physiograph into the parking line outlets which are located at his station. Thus, all 80 students at their laboratory stations receive the events as they are presented at the bedside. Through the use of Title VII funds, we were able to create a system which links the student stations in physiology with a diagnostic laboratory, the Center for Vital Studies, located in the Texas Institute for Research and Rehabilitation, one-half mile away. Perhaps you would like to visit this laboratory to see how these facilities permit us to present some of the features of human physiology to our medical students. I'm speaking to you from the Center for Vital Studies in the Texas Institute for Rehabilitation and Research, where we're making physiologic measures on the patients here with me.

This patient six months ago sustained a neck injury in an automobile accident, and in addition to his other disabilities, he is unable to maintain his blood pressure in the upright position. You and I automatically increase our heart rate and alter our cardiovascular system to maintain blood pressure in any position. If this patient is brought to the upright position, his blood pressure falls, his pulse increases, he becomes lightheaded and feels faint. At present, we are recording indirect blood pressure, the electrocardiogram, and the amount of blood in the finger of the patient. The transducers on the patient detect these physiologic events, and forward them to the amplifier, to the oscilloscope monitor, and from here, the signal is led over to the recording pens where a permanent record is obtained. The signals are also simultaneously sent by cable to you at your laboratory stations. From the three channel record, we see that with the subject in the horizontal position, the blood pressure measured in the standard manner by the Karat-Koff method, is 110 over 68 millimeters of mercury.

The electrocardiogram reveals a heart rate of 71 beats per minute, and the volume pulse of the finger is essentially normal. If the table on which the subject is lying is tilted to 30 degrees from the horizontal. The record shows that the blood pressure falls to 70 over 50, the heart rate raises to 80 beats per minute, and the amount of blood in the finger pulse is reduced. At your stations, your record shows these events as we have recorded them here. You can also see that unless the patient is provided with supportive devices, he may never be able to tolerate the upright position. Are there any questions? Dr. Jackson, what supportive devices can be used for this purpose? A variety of devices are employed, simple binding of the lower extremities and abdomen often permits the patient to sit up for sufficient periods of time for useful function, this aids in the maintenance of blood pressure. We are at present investigating the use of partial pressure suits, such as those used for the air force. Are there further questions?

If not, we will conclude the demonstration and return you to Dr. Hough at the Medical College, where he will continue the discussion with you. Thank you, Dr. Jackson. After a year of experience with these facilities, we are able to report that the use of television, the two-way audio communication and the physiological data broadcast system, have made it possible to bring a broad spectrum of relatively inaccessible human physiology to our students in their first year of memory. To the student, broadcast demonstration, such as these, not only bring new material, but preview future experience, and serve to identify him more firmly with the practice of medicine. Films and television let themselves particularly to scientific training, but before we explore their use in other areas, I think we should certainly acknowledge the presence of an even newer device that's causing a real furor in academic circles. It's self-instruction with the aid of program texts and simple teaching machines. The whole idea stems from laboratory experiments and behavior that have progressed from pigeons to animals to people to demonstrate that almost any subject can be broken down into simple enough steps to permit a student to acquire comprehension of the subject with no outside aid, whatever.

These methods, too, are being critically examined with Title VII grants. Psychologists and educators at the American Institute for Research and Cooperation with the NET Affiliate WQED in Pittsburgh are combining their talents to prepare program texts and science that can be tested in classrooms to find out just how well such self-instruction materials work. Now at NET Affiliate WQED, Pittsburgh, Dr. David Claus of the American Institute of Research. This is how the first experiment was designed in each of the 15 high schools.

One physics class participated in the experiment. The students in all these 15 classes received instruction from their teachers by the usual methods of lectures and classroom recitation. The students had been given a well-illustrated high school textbook in physics, in many cases there were two textbooks, and the students did their customary laboratory work. In addition, all students received instruction from a televised series, presented by Professor Harvey White, which was viewed on WQED every day in the classroom. Some of the students were provided with portions of our specially prepared physics materials. At the completion of each unit of the course, all students were tested. Those students who had the supplemental auto-instructional materials did substantially better on these tests than did the remaining students. These results are especially encouraging since the students' use of these special materials was not mandatory.

Before we go further, I think it's only fair that you be exposed to a sample of the self-instruction material that's being tested. Even if you can quote the general rule for the attraction and repulsion of objects, I believe you'll still find this sample interesting. If not, here's a chance to see if self-instruction is practical for you. I'm told that salesmen are already demonstrating self-instruction materials on how to do almost anything, so you might do well to give them a try now before the salesman gets a foot in your door. Here's a part of the physics text, prepared at the American Institute of Research. We start off with these words. A very important discovery in physics was the mutual attraction of objects due to static electricity. If we rub a hard rubber comb with a wool cloth and hold it over bits of tissue paper, the comb will attract the paper. This attraction illustrates what kind of electricity, static, of course.

Now that it parties, you've probably seen some on rub balloons against a wool rug, to make the balloons stick to the wall or the ceiling. This is another example of what? Right? Static electricity. We're getting on. I'm sure that you can now label the kind of electricity that results in some objects attracting each other. So we have a hard rubber comb rubbed against wool will attract bits of tissue paper. Let's proceed. Still another example of static electricity. You can be seen when a piece of amber that's been rubbed with silk will do what to small objects. Very good. A tract is correct. So now we have it firmly fixed in our minds. The static electricity has the property of attracting certain objects. Let's go on. The static electricity can also cause objects to repel each other. When a comb rubbed through fur is brought near another comb rubbed through fur, the combs will not attract each other but will do what to each other?

Repel, of course. Knowing that two rubbed combs will repel each other. You would predict that two amber rods after they've been rubbed would also do what to each other? Again, static electricity's ability to repel is stressed. And after a couple of dozen more frames you would undoubtedly find yourself writing an important rule of physics for attraction and repulsion. Like charges repel and unlike charges attract. It was with such materials that Dr. Claus conducted his tests in some of the Pittsburgh schools. Let's return now to hear about his second study. In the second study, all students were provided with the specially prepared program materials. But these students did not watch TV and only some of the students received their normal classroom lectures and recitation. Here, we found that both groups received practically identical scores on the achievement tests given.

There was no evidence to suggest that a human teacher would provide instruction at least with respect to subjects such as physics that could not be provided by program materials alone. In other words, from these two studies, we are able to conclude that when used as a supplement to an otherwise full program of instruction, program materials do add significantly to student achievement. And furthermore, the evidence suggests that these materials may be relied upon to provide instruction in physics at least, independent of classroom lectures and recitation. Let me emphasize that the sample of program text materials you saw dealing with the law of physics is only one of many. Self-instruction research is not being confined to this area, of course. Programs are being developed to undertake the teaching of mathematics and art appreciation as well as science. As to the final effectiveness of programmed texts, Dr. Claus has this to say.

Our experience with the use of program materials in the classroom has provided us with concrete evidence as to their potentialities. We must be cautious, however, and temper our enthusiasm for the technique until it has been more thoroughly tested and understood. And we must be careful in our development and use of program materials so as not only to capitalize on our knowledge of human learning and education, but on our knowledge of the science of behavior as well. A very refreshing aspect to me at least of any of these visits to educators around the country was the insistence that we can never afford to believe that we found the ultimate way to teach. The language laboratory is a recent innovation in our schools and its effectiveness in the hands of a well-trained instructor is undisputed. But at the University of Washington, Victor E. Hanselli has been teaching modern languages with the aid of a language lab.

He's been teaching it for five years. He wasn't convinced, however, that it was the best that could be done. Audiovisual materials, films, color slides, recordings he felt could enhance the study of a language. Using slides and films created by Professor George Borglum at Wayne State University, also under a Title VII grant, Professor Hanselli put his theory to the test. Speaking from any T. affiliate KCTS in Seattle, Professor Hanselli has this to say. Our research has revealed that students taught with the audiovisual method as compared with what we call the conversational method are much better motivated. They get to like French better and they are more apt to go on to do more advanced work. The audiovisual approach seems to bring them closer to this fascinating foreign culture in its visual dimension and it creates more interest on their part.

Perhaps you would like to see a few examples. We have checked this out carefully with approximately 300 students enrolled in 10 classes of beginning French. The proficiency of the students was tested for the four language skills, comprehension, speech, reading and writing. The results for comprehension they were on a par with the other students.

In speech, the audiovisual students excel. In reading and writing, their scores were not as high as the scores of the other students. However, further research indicates that the shortcomings we have uncovered can easily be eliminated by a set of materials based on the same audiovisual method. I think one of the things making education so exciting today is the conviction that we can find new and improved methods of learning. For a long time universities have been exchanging professors with considerable profit. Now with Title 7 funds, another facet of this idea is about to be explored. Can the educational resources of a group of colleges and universities be shared by means of a television network connecting them? This provocative idea is being undertaken at Austin, Texas.

I've asked Robert F. Shenkin, Director of Radio and Television at the University of Texas, to tell you about it. Here in five towns of central Texas are located 11 colleges and universities. We represent a broad range of educational philosophies of denominational ties. At Austin, the state university, an interracial college, a Catholic university. At Georgetown, a Methodist university. At San Marcos, a state college. At Seguine, a Lutheran college. In San Antonio, a city junior college, and four church-related colleges and universities. We want to work together to improve the quality of our teaching, to an ever-increasing quantity of students, to share our outstanding teachers with each other. But how? We know the teaching by television works on the college level. It works when a student takes a course by closed-circuit television on the campus where he is registered.

It works when a student takes a course by open television broadcast from the institution with which he is registered. It would work as well when the instructor is on one campus, and the student is registered for the course on another. What administrative problems will it raise? What faculty problems? What will student acceptance be? We needed an inter-college network to learn the answers to these questions. It's raised another question. Would the FCC permit the use of microwave for this purpose? On September 29, 1960, the Federal Communications Commission answered this question by making provision for inter-city educational television systems. We believe as a direct result of the applications growing out of our experimental project. Now, with a supplemental assistance of Title VII funds for the funds already provided by the colleges themselves, the University of Texas is building the microwave network system. It will be in full operation in September of 1961,

sharing the educational resources of all the colleges and universities in the central Texas area. Close-circuit television among colleges and universities excites the imagination of course. It's something new and dramatic. Within schools, closed-circuit television is not so new, but many of its applications are equally dramatic. At the University High School in Minneapolis, Hunter College in New York, in the San Jose State College in California, NET found exciting applications of television in pre-service teacher training. Through our affiliate KTCA in St. Paul, Dr. Robert J. Keller from the University of Minnesota tells this story. As our schools grow in size and number, the demands for new teachers also increase. Colleges and universities become hard-pressed to supply more and better prepared teachers. Yet time for professional courses is short. If these teachers are also to be well prepared in subject fields and in general education,

then, too, we must help our prospective teachers shift from the role of college student to that of teacher. One commonly used method for doing this is to have prospective teachers watch experienced teachers work with their classes. At the University of Minnesota, we have been experimenting with use of the television camera as the classroom observer. What the camera sees can be carried by cable to many television sets where the demonstration can be observed by many classes of prospective teachers. Let me show you what I mean. Here we are sitting in the back of a classroom watching a supervising teacher much as he would be observed by a prospective student teacher. We are seeing what the typical untrained observer sees. Although this observer may perhaps be better able to observe personal relationships between teacher and pupil, you can see that some of the things noted are important and others trivial. This is the traditional way we have introduced prospective teachers into the business of teaching.

We are seeking to find more efficient ways of doing this. For example, here is an entire class of prospective teachers observing a teaching demonstration. Another group is watching this demonstration on television sets in another room. Still, another group will see this demonstration less than on Kinescope film later. The use of Kinescope films that can be reused as often as desired seems to be one of the effective techniques we have been seeking. When the television camera is manned by an experienced teacher, he can pick out those things most likely to be useful to the prospective teacher. The camera man picks up the teacher providing specific help to a student who did not fully understand the directions for an assignment. The TV camera can be focused on a teacher using a visual aid to give a concrete example and answer to a student's question. Here we see the teacher suggesting other sources to the bright student who wants further information. Or, the camera man can catch the teacher helping reluctant students enter a discussion.

As you can see, we are very concerned about checking the usefulness of television in teacher education. In the years ahead, the demand for new teachers and the upgrading of old ones will increase beyond the limits of our present facilities. New methods of education must be found, but using these methods without checking their usefulness is poor practice. The grant which we are receiving under Title VII of the National Defense Education Act helps us to do this kind of checking. We are producing a variety of Kinescope films in most high school subjects and are evaluating the usefulness of direct classroom observation, closed circuit television and Kinescope films with both prospective and experienced teachers. It's a natural step from pre-service training of teachers to in-service training, although the process of course has quite a different character. American schools have always prided themselves on the attention they have given to upgrading teachers and providing in-service training programs to bring teaching techniques up to date. Title VII has provided funds for testing the use of films in this very important area.

One such project to teach new concepts in mathematics instruction is underway at the University of Illinois, so back to the NET affiliate station WILL for Dr. Max Bieberman. The school mathematics program appropriate for the second half of the 20th century requires more than new textbook materials. Teachers are confronted with a problem they have never faced before. For the first time, simple but profound and very subtle mathematical concepts must be taught to large numbers of very young students. Such learning cannot be attained by following recipes they have today. If junior high school boys and girls develop power to use penetrating mathematical ideas, they must acquire the ideas through nonverbal awareness. Much as the concepts and generalizations must have dawned upon the mathematicians who first discovered them. In short, children must have the exciting experience of rediscovering some of the mathematics they must learn.

In the UICSM project we have written instructional materials to promote this kind of learning, but most teachers at first reading are not ready to capitalize upon materials. For example, exploration exercises can be mistaken for optional drill, and the class moves on without awareness of something prerequisite to the next lesson. Learning to teach so that nonverbal awareness is developed, and learning to recognize the moment a student acquires it, these are problems new to most teachers. To become sensitive to evidence of such learning, teachers need to see it happen again and again. They need to feel the spirit and atmosphere in classrooms where such learning prevails. The NETRC Mathematics Study has produced a series of films designed to fulfill this need. You are about to see a brief sequence from a film entitled Principles and Discovery and Algebraic Manipulation. These seventh grade students are learning to transform complicated algebraic expressions into simple looking equivalent ones.

Another one. A name was 3B plus 9A plus 7D. For someone who wants to hear what he thinks is the simplest equivalent expression of that. 17A plus 10B. I'm not sure if this is true, but could you have 27A B? How about that? It's just a guess. Let's say you're working on your homework now and you want to show I put 27A B or not. How can we set a decision?

How can we set a mission like this? You can figure it out by using principles. You can figure it out by using principles. You can see whether you could say proof that this expression is equivalent to this. If you did, you know this is all right, but that still wouldn't tell you that this is not all right. You might work all day in trying to get this, but it's still not even going to get it. You want to find common examples for ways of making. What do you do? Substitute 1 for A. Substitute 1 for A. And 2 for B. And 2 for B. I suppose the response of bright young minds has always been the greatest reward of teachers, and I doubt very much if there's a rural school teacher anywhere who's not been grieved to say really talented youngsters lost to education. Simply because she herself could take them now further, and there was no other source of instruction available to carry on from where she had been forced to leave them.

Could television instruction fill that gap? Well, last year the State of Maine was awarded a modest Title VII grant to see what television could do for talented children in remote areas where the highest seat of learning is often a two-room schoolhouse. Each school morning, two courses for gifted children in grades 10, 11, and 12 are televised. What is entitled Concepts in Mathematics? And it's designed to encourage independent study and research in advanced mathematics. Mrs. Rollins is the teacher, and you'll hear from her later. The other course is called Science for the Space Age. It includes important topics from chemistry, physics, biology, and astronomy. Four subjects that the two-room school could hardly accommodate.

Now from the NET Affiliate Station WGBH in Boston, Dr. Joseph Devitt, State Director of Secondary Education, who is responsible for planning and administering the program that is now at midpoint. Our Title VII research project is designed to measure not only the effectiveness of television as a medium for providing a genuine intellectual challenge to academically talented children, but also to learn how much personal assistance these boys and girls need in addition to the televised program. To help provide answers to these problems, students participating in the experiment are divided into four groups. One group has the televised instruction plus the resources of their own school. The second has the services of visiting teachers. The third group has no visits, but attends monthly seminars, while the fourth group has all of these services. We are convinced by the data already available that these bright boys and girls enjoy the intellectual stimulation of exploring important topics in greater depth than is possible in the courses taught in their own schools.

We are convinced after more than a year's observation that the attitude of the pupils reflects almost exactly the attitude of their teacher. If a teacher belittles the value of the courses, the pupils are likely to be indifferent. If he tells them to save their problems until an assistant teacher comes to the school, they usually do so. If, on the other hand, the teacher encourages students to do the work assigned, the response is invariably excellent. If the teacher encourages the students to work out their own problems, the students usually can do so. We have had instances when students said that they did not need supplementary teaching, and their test scores bore them out. The answers to all our questions are there. If we want to hunt for them, it might be easier to ask a teacher, but it's a challenge to our ability to find them for ourselves. Now, I think you might be interested in what Mrs. Rollins has to say about teaching mathematics on television.

When I was first considering teaching on television, I was quite surprised to find that I was not afraid of the actual teaching at all. Oh, I knew I would miss the stimulation of those eager faces in the classroom, but by the same token, I would miss those irrelevant questions, which spoil one's train of thought. And then, since the show would be live, the silly mistakes that I'm prone to make in arithmetic would be on the board for everybody to see, and the thought of teaching at television camera. Well, having taught on television now for almost three months, I find that I do not miss the class half so much as I had thought. I've made the silly mistakes in arithmetic, but I have an eraser, and an alert assistant in the studio who's watching for them. I find that I can even forget the camera is there, yet when I want to talk to my class, I look in its direction, and in a way that I kind of explain the camera becomes that class. I'm working harder than I ever worked in my life, but I'm enjoying every minute of it.

The principles of 67 main schools have elected to participate in the program, and I would like you to meet one of them, Charles L. Cosgrove, Jr. from Unity Freedom High School. It was with the utmost enthusiasm that I enrolled our school in this experiment for gifted students in rural areas. If it is true that known knowledge and facts are increasing at the rate of 100% every 15 years, our only approach in keeping our high school curricular up-to-date is in the implementation of all known tools and techniques for learning, one of which is educational television. Let us proceed into the future using it wisely and without fear. I do not foresee it replacing the high school teacher entirely, but I do foresee it helping the teacher to a far superior job. Of the 100 research projects under investigation with Title VII funds, NET has taken you by film and videotape recording to visit eight. You've added glimpse of two new programs and teacher training, one at Minnesota, one at Illinois.

Exploration in medical education in Texas, research in scientific inquiry at Illinois, experiment in language teaching at Seattle, Washington, and adventure in advanced education for gifted children in remote areas in Maine. You've seen the development of self-instruction materials in Pittsburgh. You've heard the plans for sharing talent among 11 Texas colleges and universities. Yet all this amounts to only a cross-section of research in progress under Title VII, research utilizing educational facilities and brains in every state in the union. Research setting out to determine what films and television and self-instruction can contribute to the solution of our educational problems. Are they helping to solve the problems of teacher shortages? Can they help counteract the problems that will come with exploding student enrollments? Will they be useful in keeping pace with a fund of facts and knowledge that is being multiplied so rapidly?

This is the challenge of our decade. Not can we stay even, not can we stay abreast the stream, but can we move ahead? Can we continue our economic, social, and scientific growth at the accelerating rate we need to achieve full equality of opportunity for each of our citizens? This, after all, is our nation's hope. The Defense Education Act is one phase of this effort. Here, Congress has gone to the growing root of our national existence, our youth. Research to achieve better training and better learning is the critical element in preparing them to assume responsibility for our continued progress. This NET report, created through the facilities of national educational television and its 50 affiliated stations, has been your opportunity for a first-hand appraisal of this vital program. This has been an NET report on the National Defense Education Act, Title VII, research and dissemination of information on new educational media.

Your host has been Dr. EWZ Barth, noted American educator and news analyst. This is National Educational Television. And it's important, in that sense, that the political life should have its roots in the same place of cultural life. You have been eavesdropping on ideas.

The ideas of American playwright Elmer Rice and University of Michigan Associate Professor of English, Marvin Felheim, as they discussed the place of the playwright. Accent is recorded in the University of Michigan Television Studios in Ann Arbor. This is University of Michigan Television.