o .

EXPLORATORY EXPERlENCES WITH

mums CONSERVA'noN av MEANS or

mic-mw’scmfim.

Thai: for The. WflMA
f Mm-‘GAN V 5““ COLLEGE
53526599?“ Symom. ‘Bui‘mughs'
3953 ' ‘ '

 

 

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

A Service ‘tudy for the Ibvelopnent of 3. Technique
for Teaching Conservation by Radio-Transcription

' presented by

Elizabeth Burroughs

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

ILA. degree in Education

 

Major professor

Date Kay 19) 1953

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EXPLORATORI EXPERIENCES WITH TEACHING CONSERVATION
BY MEANS OF RADIO-TRANSCRIPTION

A Thesis
Presented to
the Faculty of the School of Education
Michigan State College

In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts in Education

by
Elizabeth Symons Burroughs
June 1955

THESIS-‘5

~2"///'§5

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE PROBLEM AND DEFINITIONS OF TERMS USED . . .
The problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Statement of the problem . . . . . . . . .
Importance of the study . . . . . . . . . . .
Definitions of terms used . . . . . . . . . . .
Radio-transcription . . . . . . . . . . . .
Tape-recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Organization of the remainder of the thesis ...
II. REVIEW OF PERTINENT LITERATURE . . . . . . . . .
Literature on learning through audio (-visual)
materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Literature on recordings, including catalogs
and lists of types of recordings . . . . . .
III. LACK OF RECORDINGS FOR TEACHING CONSERVATION .
Lack of recordings specifically for teaching
conservation, accompanied by suggested
recordings in related fields . . . . . . .
Kind of teaching aid desired by conservation
educators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
IV. ASPECTS OF MATERIAL DEVELOPED TO FULFIL DESIRES
OF CONSERVATIONISTS . . . . . . . . . . . . .
v. RESULTS OF TRYING MATERIAL ON TEACHERS . . . . .
VI. RESULTS OF TRYING MATERIAL ON PUPILS . . . . . .
VII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . .

a.
'14

{2-} i3?)

PAGE

-q on cn sh e. F1 +4 ta id

10

10

ll

12
16
25
29

111

CHAPTER PAGE
B IBLIO GRAPm O O O C O O C O O O O O O O O O O O O 51
APPENDIX A "THE ICE WITCH“ . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

B ”THE FOURTH MAGICIAN“

C “THE STORY OF TIMOTHY SLAPTAIL'

D COPY OF QUESTIONNAIRE

E TRANSCRIPT OF TREBILCOCK'S REPORT OF
SCHOOLCHILDREN'S REMARKS CONCERNING
SERIES OF TRANSCRIPTIONS

LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE PAGE
1. Distribution of Opinion Concerning Grade at Which
to Begin Use of Material and Grade at Which to

End Use, Showing Overlap . . . . . . . . . . . 20

CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM AND DEFINITIONS OF TERMS USED

Conservation education is a relatively new member of
the curriculum family. It is far too new, considering the
old and desperate problems on which research-men in this
field are working, and the help they must have both from
business, intellectual, and governmental leaders in the
country, and from the citizens whose mandates may give
to--or withhold from--them the support necessary to their

efforts.
I. THE PROBLEM

Statement 23.222 problem. One problem in conserva-
tion education is to reach young peeple before they develop
many prejudices and predispositions and teach them the
implications of 'conservation,‘ its inter-relatedness to
many areas of living more familiar to them, by some means
appealing enough to both pupils and teachers so that the
teaching of conservation may be included in today's full
curriculums with very little displacement.

"\

Importance g; the study. Conservation is at least

on a par with public health (as a random example of a

comparable applied science) in its importance to living,1

 

lwm. Vogt, Road 29 Survival (New York: William

but the immediacy of conservaticn's appeal is so much less
that the support it must have to serve our people has been
niggardly by comparison. Conservation has acquired status
as a result of man's shortsightedness and ignorance. The
devastating effects of not understanding lcertain relation-
ships--of man with his environment-~that have powerfully
shaped many of the dilemmas and quandaries in which we find
ourselves today“2 can be gauged when one considers Biblical
descriptions of lands which now support only handsful of
people, lands which, less than a thousand years ago, abounded
in milk and honey, and whose cedars were famous. I'Fifty
years ago Americans Spoke of our country as a land blessed
with inexhaustible resources, which seemed so abundant that
they would never run out.'5 Yet this country, to choose one
recent and well-publicized illustration, received a lesson
on the tragic effects of thoughtless land-use in the Dust
Bowl. Sharp as that lesson was and recent as it was,
already men are moving to repeat the mistakes which gave

rise to it, and this in spite of the money and effort still

 

1(continued) Sloane Associates, Inc., 1948) . 48.
“Through medical care and improved sanitation they Edoctors)
are responsible for more millions living more years in
increasing misery.“

21bid., Bernard M. Baruch in Introduction p. ix.

30. E. Ross, What is Ha enin 33 our National
Resources? (Ann Arbor, MIEh gan: aper for Dr. Stanley
Cain‘s course, Conservation Trends, University of Michigan,
195:5) p. 1. "——

 

3
being ekpended, by us as a nation, to repair the damage done
in that part of the country.

‘ In a democracy, however, what men are allowed to do
depends on the permission of the many. in uninformed many
may, and does, permit the thoughtless or selfish few to so
exploit and maltreat certain of our natural resources that
we may spend years on reclamation proJects on the land, and
may never hope to reclaim the values of irreplaceable
resources. That an uninformed electorate can let go by
default its means of survival, the carrying capacity of its
land, is a source of constant foreboding and strain to men
who have the country's well-being at heart, even the well-
being of many countries since all are so interdependent.
Such men feel that Conservation, or such a bureau as the
Hoover Commission's suggested Department of Natural Resources,
should have as much if not more support than is given as a
matter of course to many departments because their needs are
immediate and obvious. Conservationists realize they must
somehow help young peeple to understand in some degree the
functioning of nature and prepare them to adequately support
the work of men who are searching for further knowledge of
ways of balancing man's interests with nature's necessities.
By the time men are involved in earning their livings, by
the time their patterns of recreation are set, it is very
late; adults are less rewarding as subjects for conserva-

tion education than the youth of the nation.

4

Therefore men in the Michigan Department of Conserva-
tion's Division of Education have come to feel that school-
children provide the most hopeful field for their long-term
efforts. In listening to discussions for means for imple-
menting such efforts, the idea for this technique for
teaching conservation was born. It was suggested that a
radio-transcribed series of children's stories, not men-
tioning conservation as such but with applications of it to
be made from the plots of the stories would be a means by
which teachers could integrate conservation into their sche-
dules, however full their curriculums might be. Such radio-
transcriptions could be given to teachers at the Higgins
Lake Conservation Training School, where the Division of
Education holds conservation institutes and conferences.
These teachers are ones already awake to the importance of
introducing children to conservation and are studying to
round out their own understanding of it, and could be
eXpected to be willing to consider the programs as against
the materials already available. Thus the programs were
undertaken, some manuscripts of which are appended to this

study.
II. DEFINITIONS OF TERMS USED

Radio-transcription. For the purposes of this study,
a radio-transcription may be said to be like a phonograph

record, with these differences: it can carry fifteen minutes

5
of program on one side, is usually sixteen inches in diameter,
and rotates thirty-three and a third times per minute instead
of seventy-eight, as does the phonograph record. The trans-
cription has much less surface noise and so reproduces more
accurately a program as it originally sounded. I'Pressings"

or “cuttings“ can be made from this master-disc or matrix.4

Tap -recording. A tape-recording is a program

 

recorded on magnetic sound recording tape, usually a radio-
program.5 The program may be recorded at seven and a half
inches per second on the tape, to give a quarter-hour program
on six hundred feet of tape, or it may be recorded at three
and three-quarter inches per second, to put a half-hour of
program on the six hundred feet.6 Tapes can be “erased“ and
used again. A tape-recording of a radio-transcription can

be made very easily.
III. ORGANIZATION OF THE REMAINDER OF THE THESIS

The following pages are concerned with:

1. A review of the literature.

 

glAlice Wood Manchester and Hazel L. Gibbony, 'Record-
ings and Their Place in the Social Studies,I Eighteenth
Yearbook for the National Council 23 Social Studies, wm. H.
HartIey, Ed: Ifidio-Visual Materials and Methods In the Social
Studies, Ch. XXI (Washington, D.C.: National Education
Association, 1947) p. 187.

5Richard C. Brower, "Tape Recording for Teaching,“
(Reprint from Educational Screen, February, 1950) p. l.

 

5351s Recordings for Classroom Use, a catalog. (Ann
Arbor, Mien gan:Audio-VisuaI'Education Center, University of
Michigan, November, 1952) p. l.

 

2. The lack of desirable recorded programs,
expressed in discussions among conservation educators, and
details of what they would like.

3. Aspects of the recordings produced from
original manuscripts which seemed to supply the special wants
of such educators.

4. The results of a questionnaire administered
to teachers of various subjects, at various grade-levels, who
audited samples of the recordings, together with suggestions
for their use outside the classroom.

5. Findings on the acceptability of the series of
programs, as used in a classroom situation in the sixth grade

of the Everett School, Lansing, Michigan.

CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

There has been a good deal of material written con-
cerning the vitalizing and enriching of various subjects of
study made possible by audio-visual aids. In great part what
is said concerning audio-visual material is true of aids
solely for the ear, and thus many articles and books dealing
with the audio-visual field apply also to the more limited
area. Occasionally such writings bring out clearly the
greater importance to expressing ideas of audio aids rather
than aide solely visual, comforting if one must choose the
audio. Wendt, speaking of the relationship between words and
meanings, likens a video program to '. . . a silent motion
picture without any titles,“ pointing out that 'if the film
had any complexity of plot, it would be extremely hard to
follow."7 It is the complexity of conservation that led
primarily to the choice of the audio medium.

Wendt's exposition of the way a child's background
of experience grows, thereby adding meaning to words, brings
out clearly that living media, such as theatre, radio and TV,
and movies are the next-best thing to personal experience for
implementing words. He lists five advantages of the use of

audio-visual materials in the develOpment of meaning.

 

17Paul Wendt, “Social Learning Through Audio-Visual
Materials,I Eighteenth Yearbook for the National Council 2;
Social Studies, Ch. I, p. 5.

 

8
“1. They contribute to the develOpment of breadth of
meaning.
2. They contribute to the deveIOpment of depth of
meaning.
3. They provide emotional content to meaning.
4. They are inherently interesting.
5. They cause greater retention of learning."8
As noted before, this is true, too, of the solely audio aids.
Manchester and Gibbony have dealt extremely well with
the field of radio and phonograph recordings and their place
in the social studies. Tape-recording at the time of their
writing had not become as widely known nor as available for
use as it now is, but what they have to say covers this field
as well. They note that 'too often courses in history and
civics and geography have been taught without imagination or
relation to life, and as a consequence the content of these
courses has been quickly forgotten."9 They develop the
position that while recordings are designed to aid, not
become a crutch to teachers, recorded programs may be of
great service in illustrating commonly taught subject matter.
''They may be used to portray the establishment of social
institutions and the growth of democratic principles, or to

present the lives of some of the famous personalities

 

BIbide, ppe 5-6-

9Manchester and Gibbony, gp. cit., p. 186.

9
involved in these events. When history is artistically and
effectively dramatized, students gain a realization of the
full significance of social problems and of the courage and
character of those persons who have sought to solve them."10
Methods of use are suggested, as well as factors to consider
in adding to the effectiveness of their use. These factors
support, particularly in two important reapects, the sugges-
tions for the utilization of tape-recordings made by Leestma
and Lemler.ll These respects concern 1.) preparing the
pupils for the listening experience, both psychologically
and intellectually, i.e., pupils should be helped to listen
for some special ideas or aspects of the program, and 2.)
follow-up activities stimulated by the program.

The Manchester-Gibbony article then gives a splendid
list of selected recordings of value to study of various
subjects, and the sources from which they are available.
Another excellent list of such recordings has been compiled
by the Michigan State College Audio-Visual Center.12 The
catalog of tape-recordings for classroon use put out by the
University of Michigan's Audio-Visual Education Center is

a useful source of this type of recording.13

 

10Ib1d., pp. 187-88.

llRobert Leestma and Ford L. Lemler, “Tape Recordings
for Michigan Schools,“ Michigan Education Journal, XXX (Feb-
ruary, 1956), p. 344.

1‘BSource List of Recorders, Playbacks, Records and
Transcriprons (East—Eansing, Michigan: MichIgan Stafe
‘College Audio-Visual Center, 1955)

15Tape Recordings for Classroom Use, 92. cit.

 

CHAPTER III
LACK OF RECORDINGS FOR TEACHING CONSERVATION

At present, insofar as this investigator has been
able to discover, no programs of the kind appended are avail-
able for teaching conservation. There are dramatized stories
which would implement teaching conservation, in that they
present figures or situations in related fields. For
instance, in Michigan the resources of the Upper Peninsula
are basic material for several programs of the kind pre-
sented; dramatizations made by the University of Michigan
Broadcasting Service (WUOM) for their 'A Name to Remember“
series would develop greater interest in how these resources
have been made available to man. The study of history, land-
use, geology, conservation, botany, etc. and the develOpment
of desirable character-traits would all be supported by such
recordings as 'Etienne Brule,ll 'Nicolet," and I'Douglas Hough-
ton“ and others in this series. The American Library Associa-
tion's £2l£.22£2 Records on Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill might
well add interest to a course in conservation. A resourceful
teacher gggld make use of phonograph records of American
bird-songs and frog-calls, but these would better serve
courses in natural science. There are Gloria Chandler's
dramatizations of books, the content of which, with some
effort might possibly be related to conservation. One can
add to this kind of a list, of recordings in support of

conservation education, at some length.

11
It will be noted, however, that none of these programs
were originated specifically for the purpose of teaching con-

servation. Certain radio-programs which go out over commer-

 

cial stations are supposedly planned to teach conservation
but they are based on the most primary aSpects of the subject,
are of comic-strip quality, commercially conceived, and, so
far as has been discovered, are not available for classroom
use.

From auditing the discussions of conservation educa-
tors at the Michigan Conservation Department's Higgins Lake
Training School, it became evident that these men and women
desired a teaching-aid as new and up-to-date as possible, to
keep up with the new and up-to-date aids in other fields
competing for teacher- and student-use, an aid not too expen-
sive to develop as an experiment, to be used in as many ways
as possible (i.e. not solely in the classroom), to teach
conservation to schoolchildren at the earliest practicable
level, and tailored especially to the conservation problems

of the State of Michigan.

CHAPTER IV

ASPECTS OF MATERIAL DEVELOPED
TO FULFIL DESIRES OF CONSERVATIONISTS

Reasons £25 choice 2; EEE$2.£l2l§- In an endeavor to
meet the desires of conservation educators for a special
teaching technique, the eXperimenter chose the audio field as
represented by radio-transcriptions. As mentioned before,
the complex relationships of conservation require words
before images, for clarification and explanation. (See page
7.) An audio-visual technique would have been more desirable,
but the matter of expense entered here; it is much more
costly, in money as well as man-hours, and much more compli-
cated, to produce a sound film, or even a silent film with
captions, than it is to produce a radio show of this kind.
Radio-transcriptions lend themselves to reproduction as tape-
recordings, a new and coming educational aid, the machine
for playing which can be used in a number of ways and is
relatively inexpensive for schools to acquire. Many Michigan
schools are already either building their own permanent tape-
libraries or are making use of that advantage of tape, the
erasibility of one program so as to replace it with another.
Radio-transcriptions are also practicable for uses outside

the classroom.

Reasons for choice of content and manner of present -

tion. Having settled the mechanical means of presentation,

13

the content of the programs was considered. Purely factual
material is better presented in book form. The “documen-
tary' dramatization is a form more readily comprehended by
adults. A dramatized story seemed to be the answer: about
one or more children, since children prefer problems on
their own level, with a reasonably simple plot, the conflict
of which would in some measure deveIOp from the conflict of
man with nature, and from a conflict that can occur under
Michigan conditions. Conservation per 52 would not be men-
tioned but would be left to the teacher to develop as a
concept, an attitude of mind, a way of life, not as a word
to denote a subject in the curriculum.

The creation of a dramatic story, however modest, is
no small matter. One which has a preconceived educational
purpose is especially prone to lack of impact. The essen-
tial element of any dramatic situation is conflict. A
quotation from Heffner, Seldon, and Sellman helps to imple-
ment this statement:

”It must be recognized that not every conflict is
dramatic. The conflict of two scholarly physicists over
the nature of electrons may be entirely devoid of
drama. The following story may serve to illustrate
the requisites of dramatic conflict and further clarify
the nature of dramatic story. You and.a man whom you
know casually are walking down the street when you see
a small crowd of Spectators. You wonder what they are
so excitedly watching. As you approach, you see that
they are watching a dog-fight between a great Dane and
a large collie. You probably wonder why someone does
not break up the fight. Then you and your acquaintance
go about your business. New change the relationships

involved and see what happens. You and a man with
whom you have had disagreements and difficulties are

14
walking down the street and perceive the crowd men—
tioned above. You both push into the crowd and
discover the dog-fight. Suddenly you recognize the
great Dane as your dog. You love him as a member of
your family. He is the dog that you raised from a
pup and he has protected and stood loyally by you in
every situation. On the other hand, the collie belongs
to the man you were walking with. He, too, loves his
dog. It pulled him out of the lake last summer just
before he went dowp for the third time. Now, whose
dog-fight is it?"1

In the appended manuscripts it will be seen that,
while the essential conflict was generally between man and
nature, some information was given about nature, but espe-
cially, telling information about the 'man', so as to arouse
emotion, in the way illustrated by the above quotation. In
this connection, Manchester and Gibbony made a point, appli-
cable to conservation, while discussing historical dramati-
zations. They said:

I'Often the illusion of reality created by these
recordings is sufficiently strong to induce in stu-
dents the feeling that they are personally acquainted
with famous historical personalities and that they
have really been present during momentous events of
the past.“ 5
In like manner, the appended programs were designed
to induce in students not only a sense of having been present
during a character's difficulties, but also to induce some
identification of himself with the affected character. In

this way a student would acquire Wendt's “depth of meaning,"

 

14Hubert C. Heffner, Samuel Seldon, and Hunton D. Sel-
man, Modern Theatre Practice, (New York: Appleton-Century-
Crofts, Inc., I936) pp. 15-36.

15Manchester and Gibbony, 92. cit., p. 188.

l 5
"breadth of meaning,I and ”emotional content of meaning”6

for such words as land-use, game management, glacier,

 

research, honesty: democratic £21.2£.ll£2: etc. etc.
Vicarious experience has helped supply what the student has
lacked in actual experience for giving reality to meanings
of words. The radio-transcriptions of the dramatic stories
were--keeping to Wendt's five points--inherently interesting,
and they may be expected to accomplish the fifth of the

points: to cause greater retention of learning.

Reason £03 choice g_f_ £133 Egg-m 19191. The
experimenter aimed at producing programs for sixth graders,
the sixth grade seeming to be the level at which “nature
study“ might well cease to be an end, and become the means

for understanding some of nature's relationships with man.

 

16Wendt, 22. cit., p. 5.

CHAPTER V
RESULTS OF TRYING MATERIAL ON TEACHERS

A series of conservation education radio-transcrip-
tions were produced, in accordance with desires expressed by
conservationists, cn'a very limited budget. Thereafter it
was desirable to obtain the opinions of numbers of teachers
concerning their usefulness. The teachers would preferably
be ones who had some conservation background, and were already
integrating the teaching of the subject into their work.

A questionnaire appeared to be the most feasible way
to acquire opinions, but it was necessary to have had the
questionnees be at least somewhat acquainted with the record-
ings. To accomplish this it was possible to persuade the
program chairman of a group of teachers, meeting for two
days in February, 1953, at the Higgins Lake Training School,
to put two of the fifteen-minute transcriptions on their pro-
gram, and to follow this by taking the questionnaire.

Thirty-two teachers undertook the questionnaire (one
not currently teaching). They were teachers working in
schools that were fifty-seven percent metrOpolitan, thirty-
seven percent town, and six percent rural, which seemed a
fair sampling, percentage-wise, in relation to population
concentrations. They came from seven counties. One was a
'kindergarten teacher, one, first-grade; from there they

ranged up through the grades to one veteran college professor

177
of Conservation and Agriculture. The preponderance was of
fourth to ninth grade teachers. All had unusually broad
training in the biological, physical and social sciences,
although their subject-teaching range also covered such
subjects as Commercial Education, Music, Children's Litera-
ture, Homemaking, Mathematics and English.

Such a group of teachers might be expected not only
to hold educated Opinions concerning the content of the
recordings for the purpose of teaching conservation, but
also to have ideas about their value for teaching other
matters related to the subjects more often considered part
of the regular curriculum. Each could gauge against her own
grade-material the possibility of the recordings being use-
ful to her, even though they were aimed arbitrarily at sixth-
grade use. And the group's ideas concerning the usefulness
of the recordings to teachers about to embark on conserva-
tion teaching would be based on their own experiences.

The two recordings audited were ”The Ice Witch,"
based on land-use and geology, and checked for accuracy of
fact by Maria Jane Wooten of the Michigan Geological Survey
and Paul M. Barrett of Michigan State College, and I'The
Fourth Magician,I on water-control, checked by Russell Hill
of the College.

Asked which story seemed more successful conservation-
ally and which, less, only three teachers marked '1ess', the

rest feeling that both were successful. Because of an

l8
awkward arrangement of the questionnaire, several teachers
missed the question as to whether the recordings seemed a
useful way for teachers new to the subject to begin intro-
ducing it. Seventy-one percent felt it was: eighty-six per-
cent is closer to a fair result for this, however, since it
and the next question seemed related to some teachers, and
eighty-six percent felt recordings would be more stimulating
than textbooks. Nine percent felt they would be less so;
one man suggested recordings £53 textbooks. (Many such sug-
gestions were added here and there as well as in answer to a
definite question on supplementary material.)

"Would you want a sheet of questions-and-answers to
accompany each recording?‘ brought a thirty-eight percent
affirmative. 'Or only questions for leading discussion‘t'I
brought a fifty percent affirmative. Additional material
was suggested here: strip-film, pictures, etc. Being experi-
enced conservation teachers, in general, twelve percent did

not care for either of the above, for themselves, but felt

 

the question-with—answers sheet advisable for beginning
teachers.

licked if they would like a bibliography to accompany
the programs, seventy-one percent wanted one for their own
use, forty percent wanted one for the pupils. Only one
teacher did not want one at all.

To "Does the story-aSpect seem as if it would generate

thinking (i.e. concepts of conservation) as against fact

19
collecting?" seventy-four percent answered yes, three per-
cent answered no, two teachers wrote in “Depends on teacher"
and two were doubtful.

*Three teachers missed a second side on which was the
question, 'Do you think the story-aspect would make fact-
collecting, as in nature study, geography, geology, govern-
ment, etc., more interesting and meaningful?" Nevertheless
seventy-eight percent thought it would. None thought it
would not, but six percent were doubtful,

Fifty percent preferred the programs with the balance
they have between story-and-factual-material, three percent
wished for less fact, three percent wished for more fact, for
use above the third-grade level. Six percent felt that
IwitchesII and “magicians“ were undesirable touches and six
percent wanted shorter stories altogether.

Upon consideration, the teachers thought that the two
stories they had heard would support and make more meaningful
the study of such subjects as Economics, Investment, Science
and Social Studies, Agriculture, Geology, Consumers Problems,
etc.

Forty percent of the teachers wanted such programs
aimed at younger children, thirty-one percent wanted some
for older children, six percent wanted some made for adults.

Sixty percent wished they might be made into movies,
forty percent haped rather they might be used for TV stories.

20

e
‘
0
s
e
v
5

 

FIGURE 1

DISTRIBUTION OF OPINION CONCERNING GRADE AT WHICH
TO BEGIN USE OF MATERIAL AND GRADE AT WHICH TO END USE,
SHOWING OVERLAP

Black: indicates grade at which teachers feel material
could begin to be used.

Green: indicates grade at which teachers felt material
would begin to seem “young" for pupils.

21

The conclusions drawn from the questionnaire were that
the technique was a desirable and useful one, this having
been evidenced as much by discussion following the taking of
the questionnaire as by tabulation of the findings; that it
would be assisted by question-sheets for leading discussion;
that a bibliography for teachers, and a simple one for pupils
would be of help in using the recordings. Keeping in mind
that these were experienced conservation-teachers, their
recommendation of the series to be used starting at about
fourth-grade level and tapering off at the tenth seemed a
little ill-advised for beginning teachers. Sixth-to-eleventh
or twelfth grade spread for the latter struck them as more
practicable. A graph shows that the overlap falls at the
fourth to eighth grades. In the discussion, it was urged
that in any one school only two years be permitted to use
this technique so as to preserve its freshness and impact for

pupils.

Suggestions for use outside the classroom. Other

 

findings from this questionnaire were of value to conserva-
tionists interested in ways to use the transcriptions outside
the classroom. Many teachers felt that various groups in
their communities were informed concerning, and supporters
of, conservation but with little idea of any way in which
they might make their support felt. It was suggested and

agreed upon widely that such groups singly or in cooperation,

22

would be interested in sponsoring the use of the series over

local radio-stations, publicizing the series, perhaps working

out prize-winning competitions based on letters concerning

the series.

1.

5.
6.
7.

9.
10.
11.
12.
13.

14.

15.
16.
17.

They listed such groups as:

Garden Clubs in general (12) plus those of
Battle Creek, Grosse Pointe (4), Port Huron,
Dearborn (2), Highland Park.

National Farm and Garden Club generally, plus
branches in Birmingham, Grosse Pointe (2).

Sportsman's Clubs in general (5) plus those
named: Blue Water, Calhoun County, Battle
Creek.

Schools (Calhoun County's Clear Lake School camp
and 80-acre school farm were mentioned by the
elementary-school consultant.)

Parent Teachers' Association (2).

Daughters of the American Revolution (2).

Young Men's Christian Association.

American Association of University Women.

Junior Chamber of Commerce.

Sunday Schools.

Library Organization.

Boys' Forestry Club.

Michigan Botanical Club and Southeast Michigan
Botanical Association.

Audubon Society in general (7) and Detroit
Audubon Society.

Southeastern Michigan Wildflower Association.
Detroit Biology Club (2).
Michigan United Conservation Clubs (2).

23
18. Ingham Conservation League.
19. Conservation Clubs (2).

20. Soil Conservation District (2) (U. S. Soils
Conservation Service)..

21. Farm Bureau (2).

22. 4-H.

23. Cranbrook Institute of Science.

24. Newspapers (2) ("22mg editors“).

Many teachers also listed groups interested in better
radio programming for children, who might cooperate with the
above groups for that reason. They mentioned many of the
above, adding: International Junior League Association,
Catholic League for Decency, churches, library boards.

Mr. Stanley Gain, of the conservation staff of the
University of Michigan, who also audited samples of the series,
suggested that it would be excellent material for programs at
school-camps, a special feature of school-life in Michigan and
one being taken up enthusiastically if slowly by other states.
Already the need for programs for these camps is straining
the capacity for extra service of the Conservation Depart-
ment's resource peOple, as well as those of school-personnel.
Private summer camps for children should also find these
valuable as aids in support of the usual nature-study.

Several pe0p1e suggested the recordings as valuable
for teaching hospitalized children, and it was suggested that
a distinguished conservationist, Elizabeth Cole of Monroe

24

county, teaching semi-delinquent children successfully by
approaching them almost solely through conservation would

find them of much assistance in the latter part of the year's

work.

CHAPTER VI
RESULTS OF TRYING MATERIAL ON PUPILS

Having been thus well-received by experienced conser-
vation teachers, the use of the technique in a classroom
situation was indicated. It was desirable to find out
whether such programs were acceptable to children at the
sixth-grade level, and how the programs could be used most
advantageously in schoolwork.

Permission was sought from the Director of Elementary
Instruction of the Lansing, Michigan schools, Miss Lewton, to
take the recordings into a sixthsgrade class. After examining
the material, permission was granted by the director and she
arranged with the principal of the Everett School that he
allow Mrs. Hazel Trebilcock to give the time specified to
listening to, and discussion of, the series of seven
recordings.

Miss Lewton arbitrarily set a half-hour as the amount
of time to be used for each program, with an eighth half-
hour for a final discussion of the series, and desired that
the work be concluded within four weeks. Since each story

took fifteen minutes of the half-hour, only the same amount
of time was available for discussion; it was felt that that

amount of time was all that could well be asked from a

teacher with a schedule already set and full.

26

The teacher chosen, Mrs. Trebilcock, was very generous,
however, and extremely intelligent. Completely unacquainted
with conservation, she agreed not to read up in the field but
to assist her pupils in exploration suggested by the record-
ings on an equal footing. She pointed out that, normally,
any teacher about to undertake a new teaching device, such
as recordings or magnetic-tapes, would of course audit the
material to be used before presenting it to her pupils, and
have ideas and background material in hand ahead of time.
She contributed extra time, as an English assignment, to
gathering opinions from her students, as the series drew to
a close, on their likes and dislikes, suggested improvements,
and suggested changes, in accordance with this investiga-
tor's requests. She included observations of her own gained‘
from oral discussion outside the Specified half-hour periods,
and added a few "teacher-suggestions” of her own.

A copy of Mrs. Trebilcock's findings is appended in
3252. This seemed necessary for several reasons. As will
be seen, the report is, speaking educationally, what is
loosely termed “progressive“ in approach. It was tactfully
made clear that these pupils had not been subjected to “old-
fashioned tests“ and that anything of that type would be
unacceptable in her classroom. This ruled out such a ques-
tionnaire as would have given more manageable results for

such a thesis as this. And indeed, the children's unpressured

2?
opinions, in their own words, are of distinct value to the
thinking of anyone undertaking further programs of this kind.

The conclusion of greatest importance drawn from Mrs.
Trebilcock's observations through oral discussion was based
on, 'Most of the pupils would recommend them for other sixth
grades.'17 (The pupils were greatly pleased to feel, as Mrs.
Trebilcock had carefully explained to them, that they were
“helping“ this eXperimenter and the cause of both conserva-
tion and education by giving their true Opinions, regardless
of politeness or kindness.) It would seem from this that
the technique is definitely acceptable to children. Other
observations concern ways in which the value of the series
can be enhanced. The children felt the recordS’would be
more welcome once a fortnight, or even once a month, could
be made more interesting by the use of an occasional film
(which Mrs. Trebilcock did on her own initiative), and they
felt, themselves, that they would like a little more prepara-
tion for the listening experience. Mrs. Trebilcock sug-
gested, again, that programs twice a week were too frequent
and that a little more motivation before each record was
desirable. She recommended that the pupils be prepared to
pick out one or two key thoughts from each story. And she
felt that, having audited the programs ahead, a teacher
would be well-advised to explain the vocabulary a little

 

l'FSee Appendix E, page 5. this thesis.

28

more than was done (the experimenter wrote one or two words,
only, on the board before each recording was played, to be

considered afterwards). Mrs. Trebilcock's final summation

is quoted here:

“All in all, I think this has been most interes-
ting and profitable for all of us. I know that the
youngsters have gained a great deal in their more
intimate knowledge of Michigan, their home state. I
also think it was valuable for them to realize that
helping others (this experimenter is meant, probably)
very often benefits ghem, and that there are many ways
of helping others."1 ‘

 

18Ibid., p. 5.

CHAPTER VII
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

In summarizing this study, it may be said that the
need by conservation educators for a new, interesting, com-
petitive, relatively inexpensive technique for use in
teaching conservation to children both in and out of the
classroom has been met by a series of radio-transcriptions
of dramatic stories, produced from manuscripts of the kind
appended. These recordings were aimed at children of sixth-
grade level, and were originated for the specific purpose
of teaching conservation in connection with conservation
problems obtaining in the State of Michigan, in accord with
the findings of educational and dramatic authorities whose
Opinions seemed germane to working out such dramatizations.

Samplings of the recordings were then presented at
the Higgins Lake Training School, at Roscommon, Michigan,
to a selected group of Michigan teachers, whose Opinions
concerning the utilization of this technique might be
expected to be valuable to this purpose. The series of
programs was used in a classroom situation in the sixth
grade of the Everett School of Lansing, Michigan, taught by
Mrs. Hazel Trebilcock, in order to see whether it would be
acceptable to children.

The conclusions are that this technique meets the

needs expressed, can be improved by the addition of such

SO
aids as a bibliography for teachers, and a simple one for
children, can be implemented by occasional movies and other
visual aids, and is best used not oftener than fortnightly,

preferably monthly.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barnouw, Erik, Handbook of Radio Writing. Boston: Little,
Brown & Company, I937. 536 pp.

Brower, Richard 0., "Tape Recording for Teaching," Educa-
tional Screen, February, 1950.

Hayakawa, S. I., Lan e lg Action. New York: Harcourt,
Brace & Company, I541. 335 pp.

Heffner, Hubert C., Saumel Seldon, and Hunton D. Selman,
Modern Theatre Practice. New York: Appleton-Century-
Croffs, Inc., 1916. CHapters III, V, VI. pp. 30-87,
118-26, 128-90.

Helfert, Byron A., ”Some Uses of the Magnetic Tape Recorder.“
Unpublished source list, mimeographed for Fourth Annual
Spring Meeting of the Wisconsin Department of Audio-
Visual Instruction. Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Leestma, Robert, and Ford L. Lemler, I'Tape Recordings for
Michigan Schools ' Michi an Education Journal, XXX
(February, 1955): szsrzzg" ""“‘

Manchester, Alice Wood, and Hazel L. Gibbony, "Recordings
and their Place in the Social Studies,“ ‘Ei hteenth
Yearbook for the National Council of SociaI StudIes.
WIIIIam HT'Haftley, editor, KudIO-VIsuEI MaterIEIs gag
Methods in the Social Studies. TwaEhington, D.C.:
NatIonaI—Education AssocIaron, 1947. pp. 186-96.

 

 

Ross, C. E.,'What Is Happening to our Natural Resources?"
Unpublished paper read before a meeting of Dr. Stanley
Cain's course, Conservation Trends, University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. April, 1953. 3 pp.

Source List of Recorders, Playbacks, Records and Transcrip-
tions. Ufipfiblished source list Michigan Sfate College
IudIo-Visual Center, East Lansing, Michigan. 1953. 5 pp.

 

 

Tape Recordings for Classroom Use, a catalog. University of

Michigan AudIo-VIsuEI Educafion Center, Ann Arbor,
Michigan. November, 1952. 53 pp.

 

Thorndike, E. L., and Irving Lorge, The Teacher's Word Book
of 30,000 Words. New York: Teacher'sfiCOIlege, Columbia
‘Ufiivereity. *1952. (revised Edition.) 274 pp.

 

Vogt, William, Road 33 Survival. New York: William Sloane
Associates Inc., 1838. 335 pp.

32

Wendt, Paul, “Social Learning Through Audio-Visual Materials,“
Eighteenth Yearbook for the National Council of Social
thdies. WiIlIam HI—HErfIEy, editor, Audio-VIEuaI
Materials and Methods 32 the Social Studies. Washington,
D. C.: NationaI'Education Association, 1827. pp. 1-9.

 

Wilson, Howard E., “DevelOpment of International Attitudes
and Understandings in the Secondary School, “Historical
Outlook, XX (February, 1929), Boston: Harvard UniverSIty

Graduafe School of Education. pp. 71-75.

Wylie, Max, Radio and Television Writing. New York: Rinehart,
1950. 835 pp.

APPENDIX A
THE ICE WITCH

ANNOUNCER: Most stories about witches begin 'Once upon a
time,' and you know it all happened long ago and far
away. But this story of Carl and Vaclav (Voss-lahv)
happened last month, and could happen now, and next
month.. and the next... and the next. Unless you
discover the way that this witch worked.... and then
her spell is broken.

Well... here are Carl and Vaclav after school....

MUSIC: ”Dance of the Reed Flutes" briefly, up and out...

CARL: (Fresh, but not tough) Hi Vaclav: Whaddya know for
sure?

VACLAV: (soberly) Gee, Carl... I feel like in church. My
father's coming home!

CARL: Your father: But isn't he... I thought... my mother
told me....

VACLAV: Yah, yah, I know. But he's all right now. He's
well. He's gonna be home in about a month.

CARL: (awkwardly) That's swell, huh? He's really gonna
be all right then?

VACLAV: Didn't I just say? And you know what... we're
going to buy a farm and live in the country: As soon as
Pop's home from the hospital, we can really make plans.

CARL: You'll be going away... aw, that's not so good.- For

2
me, I mean. But a farm... oh boy: My grandfather has
a farm; I spend my summers there.

VACLAV: Gosh yes... I forgot you kinda want to be a farmer.
You used to tell me what it was like on the farm last
year and the summer before... remember?

CARL: (curiously) Is your father buying the farm? In a
hospital an' all, how could he look it over?

VACLAV: That's just it... he doesn't know! It's going to
be a surprise for him. Mom and me, we've saved enough
to buy this place up in Northland county... we got a
map from an agent up there, and a picture, and there's
a little house on the place, not very fancy... more like
a shack but then, gee, we haven't got lots of money to
Spend, and anyway, it'll be a place of our 233!

CARL: (slowly) Northland county... that's what you said?

VACLAV: Sure... kind of a pretty name, huh? Northland...
that's where gg'll live... (proudly, rather dreamily)

CARL: Hey look, Vaclav, has your mom actually bought this
place?

VACLAV: Not yet, but we have the money...

CARL: Well listen. Uh.. well, is there an awful hurry about
it? I kind of remember... I mean, I think....

VACLAV: What's the matter with you?

CARL: Nothing, exactly. Only Northland county.... it seems
to me my grandfather used to tell me about that part of

the country... he grows some trees up there. It... it

isn't very good land for farms, if it's the place he
used to talk about...

VACLAV: (scoffing) Northland county? (upset) You oughta
see the pictures: Gee whiz, it's beautiful: You make
me tired... haven't even seen the pictures and you go
picking on it:

CARL: No, honest Vaclav, I'm not picking. But land is funny
stuff. Didn't you ever hear about when the ice was here?
Millions of years ago?

VACLAV: “I23: What's ice got to do with it?

CARL: Well... look, I don't tell it very good. But my
grandfather, the one that's got the farm y'know... he's
visiting us right now. And he knows all about the ice;
he had a terrible time when he was a boy on their farm
up in... I Ehggg he said Northland... so when he grew
up, he studied up about the things the ice did to the
land.

VACLAV: Looky, you're nuts: Ice doesn't "do" anything to
land. You sound like it was spooked by the ice.

CARL: (doggedly) Well, it was, sort of...

VACLAV: (rudely) Ahhhhh...

CARL: (getting mad) Now listen, chum: Your pOp's been
away in the Army and then in the hospital all this time,
an' we been pals all this time... I know how hard you
and your mom have worked to get that money... I wouldn't

kid you.

VACLAV: (backing down) ...Ye-ah, I know...

CARL: You listen to me,now. Land A: tricky. Grandpa used
to pretend to tell us fairy—stories when we were kids,
but they really happened, and what the Ice Witch did to
land in this country, she really did ...or anyway, 32:
really did! Whyn't you come over after supper tonight
and talk to Grandpa? You go buying a bum farm with all
that money you saved, and you'll be good and sick!

VACLAV: (slowly) I think it'd just about kill Mom.

CARL: (anxiously) YOu really haven't bought anything yet?

VACLAV: No, but gee, we've seen the pictures and....

FADE OUT '

MUSIC: Up and out

CARL: Hi Grandpa! Whaddya know for sure?

GRANDPA: I know for sure it has been a nice day, but now it
is going to be a sharp night. Frost tonight!

CARL: Grandpa, this is Vaclav Vytlacil (Vit-lah-cheel) ..the
kid I told you about, remember? who's going to buy a
farm.

GRANDPA: (old-fashionedly) You are welcome here, Vaclav.
SO! A farm, eh? That is good. YOu like the land?

CARL: Look Grandpa, Mom let me light a little fire in the

stove...

GRANDPA: You think I don't know? .. I can feel it from here...

CARL: And here's your chair (sound of chair shoved) by it...
I told Vaclav maybe you'd tell us about the Ice Witch,

or anyway what the ice did to the farm you lived on
when you were a boy....

GRANDPA: (creaking down into chair with an 'oof') Vaclav is
the guest. It is his choice. You love the land, my son?

VACLAV: (shyly) Yes, sir.

GRANDPA: Me, I do, too. Good land is like a loving wife;
you work for her, she works for you. Together you make
something that was not, before, in a world in need of
new things.

CARL: Yeah, but Grandpa, tell Vaclav about the Witch; he
didn't believe me about the ice.

GRANDPA: You boys are too big for witches now. Besides,
witches are pretending, and this is real. As wonderful
and as strange (beginning the tale-teller's tone, from
which he drops, as in ”you know what is a glacier,” in
the next line. Watch out for places in which he breaks
into blank verse...) as a witch was that great glacier...
you know what is a glacier, my son?

VACLAV: Like an ice-berg, isn't it?

GRANDPA: (agreeing) Only more so. It is as if last spring
it never got warm enough to thaw the ice on Toboggan Hill
at Ottawas Park. (Tone) Not all summer. This winter
there is more snow, much more snow than you have ever
seen. By next spring the ice has stretched out to fill
up all the flat of the Park. Year by year it is colder,

the ice never melts, but grows out longer in front, until

6
it covers the city, it becomes a mountain, moving for-
ward that way, in front, shoving things in front of it...

VACLAV: (all goose-flesh at this) Yes, but that couldn't
happen...?

GRANDPA: (abruptly realistic) Yes, but it did happen.

VACLAV: (completely under his spell) Here?

GRANDPA: It didn't come down quite this far, except in
places... like fingers (dropping out of character again).
This was millions of years ago, you understand.

VACLAV: I guess I heard about it, sort of...

GRANDPA: Yes, Well ... (taking up thread) after more hun-
dreds and hundreds of years, the glaciers retreated...
the world began to get warmer around here again. The
'fingers' melted back. And as they melted, they left
a lot of stuff, the way we find old mittens, pencils,
and other things when the snow melts. But it was as if
they had pushed the tape off the buildings of the city
and shoved them 'way down to the next town and left
them there. Only, of course, there were no cities then

.. what the glaciers shoved was granite rocks and lava
and stones and pebbles and that sort of thing.

VACLAV: (fascinated) What happened then?

GRANDPA: The Ice Witch had retreated you see. So then
Mother Nature stepped in, like a gppg witch, and slowly,
slowly changed the rocks to earth. Some of the earth

was rock that, crumbling, makes good earth... that will

feed plants and make then grow up strong. But some
earth, and sometimes earth right £353 to the good kind,
is made up of rocks shoved by the glacier-finger, and it
is land that will not grow crOps. A man can work and
sweat and break his heart, and it will not grow crOps.
He can strain, and his horses can pull, and his sons

can work beside him, and it will not grow crOps. The
Ice Witch left it sterile... she put a curse on it, she
laid her finger there...

VACLAV: (just breathing) Gee...

GRANDPA: But Mother Nature, like in the fairy-story, though
she couldn't quite remove the curse of the Ice Witch,
took some of the edge off that curse. Even on land that
will not grow farm craps, Mother Nature has a crOp that
will grow!

VACLAV: What?

CARL: (triumphantly) I know... trees!

GRANDPA: Yes, trees.

VACLAV: (bewildered) But... trees aren't a crap!

CARL: Oh yes they are. Wait'll we harvest mine, eh Grandpa?

GRANDPA: That is true... trees are a crop. They take more
time, is all. Mother Nature could not completely reverse
the evil witch's curse, and so you do not harvest a crap
from that land.3pgp'£p;;. It takes years. But then
there is a crOp. Then, each year, if a man planted

well, and planned well, and guarded against the Red

Witch ...fire, of course ...and studied trees ...then
there is a crOp ..of trees. You understand?

VACLAV: Yes ..well, what good is that? .It takes too long...
GRANDPA: A man has all his life. Our crop of trees .. Carl
said just now when we harvest those, Carl goes to

college on that crOp of trees. We will harvest care-
fully, so many and the right ones, each year, and 925;
will learn, before he begins to work and sweat and break
his heart, how it is with the land.

VACLAV: Yeah, but that's no good to us. We got to have a
farm that makes a crOp every year. And my father must
not sweat and strain very much just yet.

GRANDPA: Ah yes... your farm. I was forgetting that. Let
me tell you a farm joke we had when I was a boy. We
had a farm, my family, that the Ice Witch had touched.
Qppg, it would grow a crOp. ‘ngpp, it would grow...
some things. Soon it would grow nothing at all. We
would plant acres and then harvest one basketful, or
two. There were many families of us up there, trying
to live off the Ice Witch's lands. So we would joke
and say, 'Father.. or Uncle Kurt.. or whoever, ate five
55333 of corn for supper!“

VACLAV: (puzzled) Acres? ...he ate five acres?

CARL: The ground was so poor it took five acres to raise
enough corn on the cob for one man's supper.

VACLAV: But that's terrible! That's not... not a jok !

GRANDPA: (somberly) No, that is not a joke. But that is
very nearly what we did (note blank verse continuously
now). We nearly ate the earth before we moved. It
broke my father's heart. He loved the land. He worked
and saved and looked about him always.. always listening
for a farm for him; for land which he could buy with
what he'd saved. And then one day came men ...men with
fine words and men with pictured land. It looked so
good. You know what those men did?

CARL: I know, and they were skunks!

GRANDPA: They'd bought great tracts of land, land that the
Ice Witch cursed, land that would not grow crOps, and
then they lied. They lied with pictures. They shipped
great shocks of corn, by flat-car, up into the north,
and set the corn-shocks out upon the land, and then made
pictures to make poor men think the corn had grown where
then they said it grew.

VACLAV: You can't do that! Why, men can't act that way....

GRANDPA: And yet men did. There are old papers here in
Michigan that show those pictures to this very day.
(Bitterly) And from those men my father bought his
farm.

VACLAV: (almost in tears) Ahhhh...

GRANDPA: And I ate turnip-greens and fodder-corn. We worked,
not just my family and me, but all of us who bought that

witch's land... we worked and sweated and... (softly on

10
a sigh) it wore us out. We could not live. Or only
some could live. They live there still...

VACLAV: Who? Why, how could anyone...?

GRANDPA: I told you. Sometimes next to the poor earth
would be a little rich... land left between the fingers
of the witch. Sometimes a farm, set just across the
road from some dead farm will grow the crOps you sow.

A few, a very few, still farm up there.

VACLAV: (recovering somewhat) Gee whiz! It does kind of
give you the creeps, doesn't it?

CARL: See... I told you.

VACLAV: (suddenly remembering) Aw, but suppose :2 get a
bum piece of land for our farm! (alarm rising) -Grandpa,

me 'n Mom are going to buy a farm, we're going to sur-

prise my father... he's well now, he was hurt on VJ-day...

and we're going to surprise him with a little farm.
How do you pgll what kind of land....?

CARL: Grandpa, you said once. ‘flpppg Egg Egg; £329 2; 12255?

GRANDPA: Northland county, Carl. YOu remember, surely....

VACLAV: (On a cry, despairingly) Northland county... oooh,
Northland county! '

CARL: You see!

VACLAV: I gotta get out of here. Look, Carl.. Grandpa.. I
gotta go home and tell my mother quick. If she was to
buy that farm... if she was to buy it and it was that
kind of place, well, honest, I don't know what we'd do!

ll

GRANDPA: See here, lad. Land is of many kinds. And good
for different things. Perhaps it is not wise to surprise
your father too much. Maybe he doesn't even want a
farm? DO you know?

VACLAV: Mom knows.... I haven't seen him to talk to, since
he went into the Army. But he wants a farm all right.
He thinks, a chicken farm, I guess. He 'n Mom have
talked it over lots, when she'd visit him in the hos-
pital.

GRANDPA: Hemmm—hmm... yes, well.... chicken-farming....

VACLAV: (hopefully) Chickens aren't exactly like raising
crops... do you think maybe land up there'd be all right
for chickens?

GRANDPA: Vaclav, I tell you.... I have a kind Of an idea.

I raise a few crops, you know...

VACLAV: Yeah, Carl told me about staying summers on the
farm...

GRANDPA: Well, I own various pieces of land... even Carl
doesn't know them all. I raise some chickens on a
little place over in the Thumb district. The people
working for me there now.. I don't like them. It seems
to me your mother and I should have a talk. Your papa
too. He could try awhile, on my farm.. then if he
wanted to buy

VACLAV: (hardly daring to believe..) Yes? ...Only (honestly)

we haven't got much money....

12

GRANDPA: A soldier of this war.... he's paid me already a

CARL:

lot of anything he owes me. But we ought to discuss....
(suddenly, breaking in) Grandpa! Y'know.. you said
once my trees, the ones to pay for my schooling, were

up in Northland county.. didn't you?

GRANDPA: Yes.

CARL:

It seems kind of strange to me... that you'd go back
there. I should think you'd hate it all so... the
place, and the men who sold your father the farm ..all
that wasted time and work, that you wouldn't ever want

to see it again.

GRANDPA: Yes, you'd think so, wouldn't you? But you know,

Carl, men who really love the land know this: it's not
the land's fault, but that men won't lppgp. It's not
the land's fault, too, that men are bad. I suffered
from those men, but 23 did too.. the land. But then

I studied... and I've worked, and land since then has
paid me back, and even more besides. Should not some-
one pay back that land as well? It suffered, too. It
isn't really Egg, that land. It's good for what it's
good for... raising trees. Shall I, to whom Life's now
been generous, not be generous to that poor land? And
by those trees I make another man, who's Eiéé with land.

We need such men... we need more every day....

MUSIC: “America the Beautiful“ up softly at "It's good for

what, etc." and up strongly at end of speech...

APPENDIX B
THE FOURTH MAGICIAN

ANNOUNCER: Magic is of many kinds, and Often mysterious.

The magician who works alone appears to do wonderful
tricks, but they are not really remarkable. The magi-
cian with several assistants, however, accomplishes
marvels, either of good or evil.... as in today's story
of ...The Fourth Magician.

Fade out and in on...

SOUND: Girl sobbing. Door slaps open and closes.

AMY: Can I get a drink of water out here... oh there. Thanks.

SOUND: Wet drinking noises.

AMY: Say does your PTA have many parties like this?

ANNA: One or two a year anyway....

AMY: With spell-downs for grown-ups 'n everything?

ANNA: Sometimes. (proudly) My mother's the PTA president
...the first woman-president Consolidated School's ever
had!

AMY: That's funny ...not that your mother's president; that's
swell ... I meant it's funny you haven't had lady-presi-
dents before. Where I come from, all the PTA presidents
have been ladies.

ANNA: (surprised) No men presidents?

AMY: Nope. Hardly any men come to our PTA meetings. Does

your father come?

ANNA: I haven't got a father; he's dead. I don't even
remember him.

AMY: That's tough. My cousins ...the people I came with
..haven't a father in their family either, but their
grandfather stays with them a lot, and he's a pretty
good father. But it's not the same. Is that why ...I
saw you'd been ...uh ..crying..?

ANNA: No (gulp) it isn't that. It's only, (wailing) we've
got to move away and I don't want to go. None of us do.

AMY: How many of you are there?

ANNA: Seven, counting Mother; I'm the youngest. We have a
farm west of town. And you can see how many friends we
have for Mother to be elected president of PTA and not
even being from town...

AMY: Why do you move away then?

ANNA: It seems like maybe our well's getting dryer, and all
the water on the place raises Cain in the spring and
then dries dead-up by mid-July. The boys are plumb
discouraged. YOu can't make a living on a farm without
water.

AMY: (slowly) Um-hm.... the Fourth Magician!

ANNA: What'd you say?

AMY: What Grandpa Bauer said. "We all live by grace of the
four magicians." Water's the fourth magician.

ANNA: (interested) What are the others?

AMY: Sun, air and earth. Grandpa says all four of them have

to do their magic together or nothing works. If one
won't help ... or if man interferes too selfishly ...
the other three, wonderful as they are, can't do any-
thing by themselves.

ANNA: (thinking) It is sort of like that, isn't it? Sun..
air... earth.. and water. So water's the fourth magi-
cian, huh? (bitterly) Well, he's gone away and left
us, all right:

AMY: You Just said he raised Gain in the spring.

ANNA: Oh.. that. That's not so bad. It's when things go
dry that we have a tough time. (Begins to sob again)

AMY: (sharply) But that's why you have trouble:

ANNA: What's why?

AMY: Because the water all runs away so fast so soon.
Grandpa says you have to make the Fourth Magician walk,
not run.

ANNA: (puzzled) Walk...?

AMY: If you can make water "walk, not run," why then you...
you get some use out of it before it's gone. Say...
(embarrassed) excuse me. But you.. you..

ANNA: What's the matter?

AMY: Well, you're all over tears, and people will be coming
out here in the hall in a minute...

ANNA: (sniffling) I know... oh where can I go till it's
time to go home! (sobs)

AMY: Here, take my handkerchief ...give a good blow.

SOUND: Anna sniffs and blows, hard.

AMY: Now you've got to stop crying. Look, I'll go tell my
cousin we're going home and to tell your mother ...what's
your name?

ANNA: Anna Weston.

AMY: I'm Amy Blake. Cousin Mart can tell your mother where
you've gone ...it's Just the next block ...and then you
can wash your face and get fixed up. I'll be right back..
(calling over shoulder) Just wait a minute...

FADE OUT AND IN to

SOUND: Water into basin.

AMY: There! 'Stick your whole face in if you want.

SOUND: Splashing and half-hysterical giggling.

AMY: When you're through let's go down and talk to Grandpa
Bauer. He's made popcorn, by the smell. Smell?

SOUND: two sniffing.

ANNA: (half laughing, half crying still) I've cried so hard,
I guess I can't snsll anything.

AMY: Say, Anna...?

ANNA: What?

AMY: What's going to happen to your farm, and your house?

ANNA: Ruben and John (they're the oldest boys) are going on
living there for awhile. Ruben's got a girl in town and
‘ggglt leave. The rest of us are going to my Aunt's, in
Redford. on ..I wish _I_ could stay, too!

AMY: Don't you start crying again!

ANNA: I guess I'm all cried out for today...

AMY: Well, looky... about the four magicians; Grandpa Bauer
was telling us how men can study to help them. ‘93 they
can pay no attention, and offend them. And then it's
like the wicked fairy in ”The Sleeping Princess'I ...they
cast a spell that lasts a hundred years. Only they can
do worse!

ANNA: Worse?

AMY: Sure.... they can make a curse last a thousand years.
Maybe forever!

ANNA: (pleasantly horrified) Like how?

AMY: Like the Sahara desert.

ANNA: I've read about it; no water at all.

AMY: If the Fourth Magician got mad enough, the whole United
States could be a desert!

ANNA: Oh it could not! How?

AMY: It could too. Look, I'll show you something. I'll
put one drop of water up here on the corner of the
bathroom mirror ...see?

ANNA: (giggling) It Just runs right down, quick!

AMY: But if I put some of ...where is it?

SOUND: Medicine cabinet door Opens, clink of bottles

ANNA: Gee ...that's somebody's toothpaste!

AMY: (laughing) I'll make a worm out of it on the mirror,
zigzag from the tOp corner down to the other corner.

ANNA: (ecandalized) That's awful...

ANY

ANNA:

AMY

AMY

ANNA:

AMY

Yes, but now look. I put a drop of water up here
again ...and what happens?
The water runs sort of roller-coaster down the tooth-

paste ...hah! .it

It never got to the bottom at all ..
sort of got used up.

That's what I was telling you.

You better wipe that off ...here's some paper...

Thanks.

What d'you mean, that's what you were telling me?

Make water walk, not run.

Like with the toothpaste!

Sure. You can do that with land, too.... by making
the sides of hills bumpy ...I forget what they call it...
so that water ...melting snow or rain goes over the
ground slowly and sinks in, instead of running down fast
and flowing away in a brook. You got hills on your
farm?

Only little-bitty ones ...not real hills.
Just the same... Looky, c'mon downstairs (you look all

right now) and talk to Grandpa. He'll tell you...

ANNA: (gulping) What good'll that do ...323?
FADE OUT AND IN to

SOUND: Knocking on door.

AMY: Grandpa?

GRANDPA: Amy? Come in...

SOUND: Door opens as voice continues.

GRANDPA: ... and have some p0pcorn. And your
friend also.

AMY: This is Anna Weston ...this is Grandpa Bauer, Anna.

ANNA: How do you do, Mr. Bauer.

GRANDPA: I do well, thank you. I do better when I am Grandpa
Bauer, young Anna. To everybody, I am Grandpa. To you
also?

ANNA: I can't remember any of my grandparents...

GRANDPA: Then that makes it good for me. I am your new

grandpa, hein? POpcorn?

ANNA: Thank you very much.

GRANDPA: Now Anna, I am an old man, not too wise, not too
foolish. Being wise I see you have a trouble. Being
foolish, I think maybe I can help. Sometimes I listen,
only. Sometimes I think of answers. Sometimes there is
a thing that we can do. -

ANNA: (wailing again) Oh....ngbody can help me now!

GRANDPA: Zut! That is what the young are always saying. But
let me tell you something. Somebody is better than
nobody, I promise you. And two are better than one.
With good in their hearts, two are very strong.

AMY: Stronger than a magician, Grandpa? Anna says the
Fourth Magician has put a curse on their farm.

GRANDPA: Now that is bad. Water, hm? Water is strange and
wicked and wonderful, all together. What has it done
then?

8

ANNA: It's making us move ...we can't make a living on our
farm. The creeks run like crazy in the spring and by
mid-summer, half our crops die of drought. The big
boys say they 123:3 move, but the rest of us have got
to go ...before the money's all gone, Mom says.

GRANDPA: Those big boys, I like the sound of them. You
too, young Anna. Tell me this, where is this farm?
West of town, surely?

ANNA: How did you know?

GRANDPA: It's hilly there, a little. And water runs down-
hill. Unless you catch it by the tail.

ANNA: Amy said you know ways to make it "walk, not run?"

GRANDPA: Yes. Well, see how I hold my hand, the fingers
down ...if I had plowed my furrows, straight downhill,
with ridges like my fingers ...in the spring the melting
snow would run then, straight downhill. I would have
out four pathways for the snow, myself, to lg} the water
run away.

ANNA: Yes..?

GRANDPA: But now suppose I hold my hand around the bowl...
the little p0pcorn bowl turned upside down. With water
starting here up at the top, it trickles plop! over my
tap finger. It runs, both ways, along my next finger
before it overflows onto the third. And so on, down.

I have plowed £2232 the curve that is the hill. I

have made furrows that will slow things down.

ANNA: I see what you mean.

AMY: What's the word for that, Grandpa ...I couldn't remember.

GRANDPA: Some call it contour-plowing. Then ...look here.
Suppose I've plowed those furrows round the hill and
then I skip a bit, and plow some more. Where I have
skipped, I plant it all to grass. And there the water
really has to walk, to get through all that grass. Then
furrows, then more grass, and so down hill.

ANNA: (slowly) I don't think Ruben ever heard anything like
that. What else?

GRANDPA: Ah, there are men who know lots of such tricks.
They watch and plan and study how things go. Men can
‘hglp Nature, not Just take from her.....(dreamily)

Those big spring floods in rivers everywhere ...if men

went up the rivers to the streams, and then went up the
streams to all the brooks, and 'way back up the brooks

to where they start, and all along the way they slowed

things down (intoning) under the ground the reservoirs

would fill, water would feed the crops, brooks would go
slow...

AMY: (breaking in) You can put stOps in brooks, too ...to
make them walk...

GRANDPA: (a bit testily) Yes, those are check-dams, Amy;
remember it. (turning to Anna) You work with Nature,
Anna. And in time, when more men understand how things

work best ...we will not have such floods. But (sighing)

10

it goes very slow.

ANNA: (”eyes shining“) But it can be done?

GRANDPA: Indeed, it can be done. I promise you. Only
...today I have felt very old.

ANNA: But Ruben's young, and John is young, Grandpa.

GRANDPA: Ah yes ...those two. Anna, I think we go and talk
to them. I tell you this, for hope. The men who have
learned earth and water magic, they have names. They
are Soil Conservation District men. There is a County
Agent hereabouts. The very government of the United
States has men to help ...bureaus ...societies ...com-
missions ..many, many... to help.

AMY: And Anna, they'll even make a map of your farm and
show Ruben where to plow and where to have woods grow
...because some bit of land won't grow crops, you
know... and where to put check-dams in the brooks!

ANNA: They will! Oh Grandpa, maybe ...maybe I can stay!

GRANDPA: Or if you cannot stay, maybe you can come back?

ANNA:I YES ...YES. I'd go now if I knew I could come back.
That'd be all right. Of course ...it will take time.

GRANDPA: 'Of course it will take time.' But cling to this,
my child. It can be done.

AMY: There! Like you said...

GRANDPA: “There?"
AMY: "One is better than nobody. And two are better than

one." For working out troubles, and problems, and

11
things.

GRANDPA: (chuckling a little) Yes... and more people are
better than two....if we are to slow down all those
rivers and streams and brooks, no?

ANNA: My goodness, we'd need the whole United States for
that, wouldn't we.

AMY: (slowly) Yes. We would. But why don't we do it?

It could be done. Grandpa says so...

GRANDPA: Ach, if it were only I! To make big floods
little... little! To keep all that so-valuable tep-
soil on the farms, and not floating away into the
brooks, choking up those streams, to keep rivers clean
for fishing, for swimming... for fun. But especially
to make it so that peeple can stay in their homes...
those floods, those floods. If‘l could say it, and
have it be so! How beautiful. But, no, my dear...
everybody has to say it. It would make life better
for us all... but everybody has to say “Let us do it.“
This is how it is in the United States, you know....

FINIS

APPENDIX c
THE STORY OF TIMOTHY 'SLAPTAIL

ANNOUNCER: Grown-ups are always saying things such as “Know
the truth and the truth shall make you free," which is
as may be. The point is that truth can be unwelcome,
and besides is very hard to come by... even small pieces
of it. As Angus discovers in today's “Story of Timothy
Slaptail'.... '

FADE IN to

SOUND: cat mewing

ANGUS: Nice Timmie... good cat! Bring it here.

SOUND: mew again

ANGUS: Oh... All right! 'Qgglt bring it here. Gee, Tim...
it's a deermouse!

SOUND: purrrr...

ANGUS: Well, you're a good cat anyway, only I like deermice...

MOTHER: (off-mike, calling) .Angus, what're you saying?
(on-mike) Were you talking to me?

ANGUS: Look Mom! ...the gray kitten's brought another mouse.
I was Just telling him he's good!

MOTHER: (absently) But I wish he wouldn't always put his
mice by the door.

ANGUS: Shucks, he comes to be praised, don't you, Timmie?
Listen to him!

SOUND: Purrrrr

MOTHER: H'm... sounds like a tea-kettle. 'You call him
Timmie?

ANGUS: Yessir-boy! Timothy Tittlemouse Slaptail... he
slaps his tail back and forth like crazy if he gets
caught indoors and is watching a bird through the
window.

MOTHER: I remember; that's right, he does. (turn calling..)
Hi, dear!

SOUND: car stopping, off-mike

FATHER: Hellooooo!

MOTHER: (still calling) Did you stOp at the box for the
mail?..(lower to Angus) Angus, take Timmie's mouse and
bury it, there's a good boy... Bruce, you 333 get the
mail?

ANGUS: C'mon, Timmie...

SOUND: Steps..

FATHER: Yes, I got the mail. Martha....

MOTHER: What... why, what's the matter?

FATHER: Martha... I... I've got some bad news.

MOTHER: (slowly) Bad.. news? (stronger) All right, what
is it?

FATHER: It's ....Angus.

MOTHER: Angus! (low) Angus. ...What's he done?

FATHER: He hasn't dggg anything..

MOTHER: Oh Bruce, you take so long... quick! What is it?

FATHER: That chest x-ray at school... he's got to go to

bed.. for awhile.

MOTHER: .5ESEE7 Why he's... he's... he Just coughs a little.

FATHER: Iknow.

MOTHER: His cheeks are so rosy... he's the picture of

health.

FATHER: (helplessly) I know....

MOTHER: Bruce! I... you... you mean it.(begins weeping)

FATHER: My dear, don't. He'll be back in a minute... you'll
frighten him.

MOTHER: (woefully) Oh Bruce..! You said 'for awhile.‘ How
long? How long is "a while?”

FATHER: Not too long. Dr. Mills said.. maybe six months...

MOTHER: (bitterly) Six months... maybe. For a boy who
loves the outdoors! Was Dr. Mills sure?

FATHER: Martha, our Job is to help time pass... to help him
to be cheerful and patient about it... take it easy.
1.. I bought a calendar....

MOTHER: (amazed) A calendar!.

FATHER: To sort of encourage him... and us... 'tear off a
page each day.... time passing, sort of. You know....

MOTHER: Give it to me.

SOUND: tearing of wrapping papers.

MOTHER: A calendar, h'm? Well... we can pull off January...
and February...

SOUND: Fistfuls of pages being ripped away.

MOTHER: ...and March. They've already gone... and here we

are in April...

SOUND: pages tearing slowly.. single page or two...

MOTHER: ...at April 7th...

FATHER: There's my girl. We'd better get Angus.. he's got
to... to start.

MOTHER: Yes... you have to start.. in order to finish.
(calls..) Angus! An..gus! (going off-mike) Come here
a minute.

FATHER: (to self) "How long is'a while?'“ Not Just six
months... but I couldn't tell her... I can't tell them
yet...

FADE OUT

SOUND: Thumping of pillow

MOTHER: I know it's hot, dear... a lemonade, maybe?

ANGUS: No thanks. Mother, what do they d2 at a Duck-and-
Deer Club meeting in the summertime? They can't hunt!

MOTHER: (wearily) Honey, I don't know.’ Dad'll tell you
when he gets back. I think that's the car now.

ANGUS: Huh! Tim's the real hunter in this family. Only he
doesn't kill his birds... Just brings them to us.

SOUND: off-mike doorslam.

MOTHER: Here's Daddy... Bruce, Angus is dying to know what
hunters talk about at summer meetings.

SOUND: Steps approaching

FATHER: Hi, pal! I see Timmie got a shrew today... left it

on the steps as usual.

ANGUS: He's funny that way... he won't bring shrews in.
Say, Dad. ,EEI do you hunters meet in the summertime...
you don't hunt then?

FATHER: Oh we have lots of things to discuss.

MOTHER: I'll finish doing the supper dishes....

ANGUS: Things like what, Dad?

FATHER: (amused) Oh... things like predators, today.

'You know what predators are?

ANGUS: Sure.. a fox is.. and a.. a weasel, and a mink.
Skunks, maybe?

FATHER: Yes, but why?

ANGUS: Well, they... uh... they eat other smaller animals...?

FATHER: And that's bad for us farmers... our chickens and
the game-birds and so on...

ANGUS: Your club is mad at 'pre-dators,' hun?

FATHER: Yep.. 'coons, weasels, foxes, crows, dogs, cats...
all of 'em. Only ggmgbody or other had a good word to
say for each one of the villains.

ANGUS: 2235? Dogs are good... the idea!

FATHER: One man even pointed out that crows eat dead things
that'd be mighty unpleasant, left around... he's right,
too! (chuckling) Only nobody had a kind word to say
for cats.

ANGUS: (not amused) For cats? (indignant) They kill
mice! What's the matter with cats?

FATHER: But they kill other things, too... especially when

they're not house-cats.

ANGUS: Not very many 'other things' I bet. Who says they
do?

FATHER: Come to think about it... "They say so.“

ANGUS: You know what you always say... "They say" is
Nobody. .322 says?

FATHER: Well, everybody there thought so. But I wonder if
there are any figures on it? Maybe I could find some
statistics..

ANGUS: Timmie isn't like that, even if he is a barn-cat.
He brings everything he catches up to the house...

Mom pats him and makes over him every time, so he'll
go on doing it. Because I'm so interested.

FATHER: Yes, we all encourage him. I imagine he brings in
every single thing he catches... except the shrews that
he leaves on the steps...

ANGUS: I'm keeping a list of what he's caught.. Just for
fun. Wanta see?

FATHER: Why, yes.. I would. (chuckles) We might give the
Deer~and~Duck boys something to think about...

ANGUS: Here I wrote “Timothy Tittlemouse Slaptail, Mighty
Hunter“ up there to make him feel important. He thinks
he's a very smart cat.

FATHER: Angus, you might add these up... h'm.. one mouse,
sparrow, mouse...mouse...mouse...robin..oh—oh!

ANGUS: (doubtfully) We could leave that out.. (small

voice) maybe?

FATHER: (sternly) Angus!

.ANGUS: Well, it's only 233. And he doesn't hurt birds...
being caught frightens them but mostly they can fly off
right away.... (trails out)

FATHER: Angus, if this turns out to be any kind of an idea,
we've got to have the truth, all of it.. or it's no
good. You £23 that, don't you?

ANGUS: (unwillingly) 'Sort of...

FATHER: We couldn't “leave out“ anything, or we'd be making
an gg-truth.. you see that?

ANGUS: Aw.. Well, yes.

FATHER: The whole idea of keeping figures on anything, of
getting statistics, of doing research... is to get the
29912! true picture, so as to decide whether it's good,
or bad. So as to guess whether what you're doing helps,
or hinders...

ANGUS: But I bet... I 233 Timmie helps more, killing mice
and stuff, than he hurts, even if he killed the birds
he catches. I s'pose most cats do kill their birds...

FATHER: Yes, I expect so. But this list of Tim's game-
catching shows lots more mice than birds... only these
figures are for such a short time.

ANGUS: We ought to keep it for a month?

FATHER: More than that.

ANGUS: Really? Dad... you.... you think....?

FATHER: What?
ANGUS: Well... that this could maybe be kind of important for
cats?

FATHER: Angus, it could be important. Answer me this... are

 

men more important than cats?

ANGUS: I suppose so.

FATHER: You see what I mean. The important thing is to find
out the truth. 22 cats interfere seriously not only
with man's recreation... his hunting of game-birds, for
instance... but with insect-eating birds that assist
man to live... to eat.

ANGUS: But killing mice “assists men to eat."

FATHER: That's true, too. (chuckling) Angus, I'm afraid
you won't be a good research-man; they ought never to
start out in fgzgg of one idea more than another. They
only search for truth.

ANGUS: (stoutly) I'm in favor of cats.

FATHER: I'm in favor of what's true. And generally it
helps more in the long run. Only it's hard to find out
...it's always hard to get at...

SOUND: Door Opens.

MOTHER: Bed-time, gentlemen! Angus, tear Off the calendar
and let's get to sleep.

ANGUS: (slightly ashamed voice) I... can't.

MOTHER: (briskly) Why not? Where is it? ...I'll do it.

ANGUS: I... well, I tore off three days.§§2§§: the other day.

MOTHER: (laughing) Oh. So now you have to wait, h'n?

ANGUS: (slowly) Dad...?

FATHER: Yes, son?

ANGUS: That... tearing off three days all at once ..is like
you said about making an un-truth, isn't it?

FATHER: And so?

ANGUS: Like you said. It doesn't help, does it?

FATHER: No, I expect it doesn't. The days haven't gone any
faster, have they?

ANGUS: NO. Would it pay back if I saved up three or four
days now, before I pulled 'em off?

FATHER: What do you think?

ANGUS: I guess... I think... it'd be sort of silly. That
wouldn't be true either, would it?

MOTHER: Boys, you have to stop talking. The truth is, this
day is 2133... come on, now.... settle down... lights
out etc.etc...

FADE

SOUND: Pages torn off, faster and faster

FATHER: What're you up to, Angus?

ANGUS: Hi, Dad! Isn't this swell?

FATHER: Being out here on the porch, you mean? Fine and
dandy!

ANGUS: The doctor says it's okay if I'm quiet and the
weather stays warm.

FATHER: It's certainly grand for late September. But what

10
were you doing? Your calendar...

ANGUS: (cheerfully) Ah, I'd forgotten all about it. So I
was Just catching up. What've you got there?

SOUND: Pieces of wood being set down, then couple hammerings
as talk goes.

FATHER: (nails in mouth) Well... it's going to be cold
soon. And I thought Timmie had better be able to get
into the house by himself. We don't want to miss any
Of his... victims. You've kept such careful count.

ANGUS: But what're you going to do?

FATHER: Make a little swing-door in the big storm-door to
the kitchen-porch. So Tim can walk right in and lay
out his catch, the way he has all summer.

ANGUS: 'Cut a hole in that good door!

FATHER: Just a little square at the bottom. Then I'll
attach this that I'm making with hinges that swing both
ways; he can get in or out...

ANGUS: Hey!

FATHER: (startled) What?

ANGUS: There he comes now. Oh look, Dad! 'Tail straight
up... he's acting like he'd caught a.. a lion!

FATHER: Oh bro-ther!

ANGUS: What?

FATHER: He Egg caught a lion... for him.

ANGUS: What is it? That big?

FATHER: I think it's a rat. Come Timmie... here, puss.

ll

ANGUS: A rat? Good for him...

FATHER: They're pretty fierce, y' know... fighters! And a
rat on the List is very good business. Rats are des-
tructive and filthy and one of man's most wasteful
enemies.

ANGUS: Oh Tim! Good cat!

FATHER: Yessir, Timmie old man, you've won a fur medal today
...you're a grown-up ...you can vote ...'cream in your
coffee from now on...

ANGUS: (giggling) Ooooh Dad....

FADE

SOUND: steps

MOTHER: Here's a New Year's calendar Angus... it doesn't go
by days, only months, but would it do?

ANGUS: Just a minute... I'm adding up Tim's list... and two,
makes seven...

MOTHER: All right...

ANGUS: There! Now... oh, a calendar. Never mind. It's not
important. Mother, guess what?

MOTHER: What?

ANGUS: For this eight months Tim's caught 70? mice, 3 rats,
a young rabbit, 7 shrews, 25 English sparrows, a flicker,
a robin, 2 good sparrows... I'm sorry... but, Mother...
all those mice!

MOTHER: (delighted) Oh Angus!

ANGUS: Of course.. he's only one cat. But it's f80t9--°

12
they can be added to other ones. And I'll go on, all
'thig year, keeping careful count...

MOTHER: Good...

ANGUS: Timmie, some day we'll know whether cats are Just for
fun or..uh..

MOTHER: “Good citizens?"

ANGUS: Yeah.. like that. Gee, Timmie..you'll be quite an
important cat. Only then there have to be lots more
cats, Dad says... ggmgbody's got to find out what thgy
do...

MOTHER: It sounds like a long Job, doesn't it?

ANGUS: Yeah. But, like Dad said, once you get the truth,
you can go on from there. Hun, Timmie?

SOUND: purr to FADE OUT

APPENDIX D

This study, under the aegis of Gilbert Mouser of the
department of Land and Water Conservation of Michigan State
College, (and for the Master's degree in Education) hOpes
to assist conservation educators in making a decision con-
cerning an educational technique, dramatic recordings, not
used before. Opinions gathered here also may be useful to

other States.

 

 

 

Your County

Do you now teach in a metropolitan What grade
town school? or grades?
rural

If you have taught previously in another type than marked
above, say which Other grades?

What subJect or subJects do you teach?

Have you outdoor nature-study material available constantly?

at all?
not at all?
Have you had training in any biological sciences? Which?
physical '
social '

none Of above

Do you feel biological and/or physical sciences necessary to
the understanding of basic conservation concepts?

Of the recordings you have heard, note which you consider:
most successful least success.
a. for holding children's
interest
b. as material for teaching
conservation

2

most successful least success.
c. as material for observa-
tion of new aspects
of familiar things.
d. as material for teaching
more recognized subJects;
name one or two subJects.
l.
2.
S.
If the teaching of conservation were required by law (as in
Wisconsin) or you became convinced it was desirable, but had
‘32 conservation training, would these recordings seem a
useful way to begin teaching it?
More stimulating than a textbook? Or less?

Would you want a sheet of questions-and-answers to accompany
each recording? Or only questions for leading discussion?
Or does such supplementary material seem a waste Of time?

Would you like a bibliography to accompany the series, for
pupil use? your own use?

In your opinion at what grade-level could these recordings
begin to be used? When would pupils begin to find them
“young?“

DO you think less story and more fact would make a better
teaching device? (Elaborate if you like.)

Does the story-aspect seem as if it would generate thinking
(i.e. concepts of conservation) as against fact-collecting?

Do you think the story-aspect would make fact collecting (as
in nature-study, geography, geology, government, etc.) more
interesting and meaningful?

Would you pick the story you preferred and name areas (as
above) to the study of which it might lend interest and/or
support.

Would you like such recordings for younger
Older children?

Would you like to have movies Of such stories? To see them
on TV?

5

Will you name as many groups as possible in your community
which are, to the best of your knowledge, supporters of
conservation (such as hunting, fishing, sportsmen's club,
branches of Audubon Society, garden clubs, etc.).

Considering how few individuals, and groups, desiring to

forward the interests of conservation, have the prepara-

tion, opportunity or equipment to bring conservation con;
cepts to the attention Of children, would these dramati-

zations seem to you to be an “answer“ for such people?

Please name any organizations which you know are interested
in better radio-programming for children (such as P.T.A.s,
Junior League, Library boards, etc.).

Do you think any of the groups in l and 3 would be
interested, singly or in cooperation, in persuading your
local radio station to use this series as a public-
service feature?

Do you think your local library would be willing to slip
“Time and Station" bookmarks for such a radio series into
the children's books? Would your school library?

Will you note a possible advertiser who might defray the
expenses of such bookmarks by placing an advertisement
on the back of them? (Such as a local dairy, a dental
association: “See your dentist twice a year.').

COMMENTS:

If you would like a COpy Of the tabulation of the results
Of these Opinionnaires, write name and address below.

APPENDIX E

A BRIEF REPORT ON THE CONSERVATION RECORDINGS PLAYED
IN THE SIXTH GRADE ROOM AT EVERETT SCHOOL
ON SEVEN CONSECUTIVE TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS IN

Part

 

LATE FEBRUARY AND EARLY MARCH OF 1953

”Things I liked about the recordingg' (as

 

written by the pupils without putting their names on their

papers except to indicate whether they were boys or girls.)

A. Girls' Comments

1.

8.

10.

I liked “The Cherry Queen” and “Timothy Slap-
tail' because they were about animals.

I liked the way the people expressed their
thoughts.

I liked the way the sounds ran.

I liked the way it helped on nature studies.

The best record of all was "Timothy Slaptail'
because it was about animals. (2)

I liked "Queen Anne's Lace'I because it was an
interesting study about weeds.

ITimothy Slaptail,“ “The Elusive Trout,I and
“Queen Anne's Lace“ were the most interesting. (2)
“Timothy Slaptail' was the best because it was
about a house animal.

I liked "The Elusive Trout“ because it was about
fish.

I liked “Timothy Slaptail' because it was about

a cat.

11.
12.
15.
14.
15.
16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

learned that weeds could be flowers.

never knew that cats caught so many animals.

I
I
I liked the interesting names of the records.
I liked the l'Elusive TroutI best. (2)

I thought “Timothy Slaptail' was exciting.

I liked “The Cherry Queen'I because it was

about deer.

I learned that shrews are fierce.

I liked all the records except "The Ice Witch."
I liked the way we talked things over after
each record.

I liked to hear Grandpa Bauer tell the stories

sometimes.

I'm glad they had children in them.

.I liked the record of the “Fourth Magician”

because I never knew why the farmers plowed
around the hills until Grandpa Bauer told me.
I liked the story about the cat because it

caught mice, sparrows, and only one robin.

B. Boys' Comments

1.
2.

3.
4.

I liked “The Elusive Trout' best. (4)

I liked 'Timothy Slaptail' because it was about
an animal. (6)

I liked all the records.

I learned a lot of things I never knew before. (2)

11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.

18.

19.
20.

21.

22.

5
I liked "Timothy Slaptail“ best because I like
cats and other animals.
“Elusive Trout“ was the second best record.
I liked “Queen Anne's Lace.“
I liked when the boys talked about the elusive
trout.
I liked it when the animals made noises.
I liked “Timothy Slaptail“ and “The Elusive
Trout“ because I could understand them better. (2)
I liked the way you asked questions.
I thought most of the records were good.
I liked to hear Grandpa Bauer in the records.
I liked the English they used.
I didn't know that cats were so useful.
I didn't know that flowers are weeds sometimes.
I didn't know that the land wasn't good after
the “Ice Witch.“
“The Elusive Trout,“ “Timothy Slaptail,“ and
“The Cherry Queen“ were the most exciting.
I liked the way you came in the mornings.
I liked the animal stories better than the trees
and weeds.
I liked the way the man helped keep close track
of the things the cat caught.
I liked “The Elusive Trout“ because it had boys
in it.

23.

24.

25.
26.

I think that boys speak better.

I liked “Timothy Slaptail“ because it was more
real.

I liked where Timothy caught so many animals.

I did not know that poppies are weeds in France.

Part II. “Things I'd Improve“
A. Girls' Suggestions

1.
2.

10.

Don't have the records play so loudly. (2)

If possible I'd have the records made more
clearly. (a)

I don't think I'd have them more than once a
month because we'd get tired of them.

I'd like more records about animal life.

I'd change the records where Grandpa Bauer told
the story.

I would improve the transition from one scene
to another. (2)

I don't think I'd make any changes.

I would rather enJoy seeing some pictures on

animals outdoors.

“I think making the people sound clearer would

make the record sound better.
I'd try to get the voices more clear because

the boys and girls sounded alike.

B. Boys' Suggestions
1. I would change “The Ice Witch“ because it
didn't make sense.
2. I think it would be nice if they were films. (3)
3. I think I would make it more clear. (2)
4. They all sounded like ninth grade.
5. Put some things in between the breaks. (2)
6. Have more action in them.
7. I wouldn't change anything.
8. I think it would help if you made better endings.
9. I'd rather have more animal records. (3)
lO. I would change the title Of “The Cherry Queen“
because it was more about deer than cherries.
11. I would change some of the traveling to eXploring.
12. I would change some of it to a forest ranger.
13. I think I would have more boys in the stories.
14. I think that the boys sounded like the girls.
15. I would think that Grandpa Bauer could talk
louder.
16. I would recommend announcements between tran-

sitions.

Pg 3 III. “Things I Didn't £252"

A. Girls' Comments
1. I did not like Grandpa Bauer in the records. (5)
2. I did not like some Of the records because they

were mostly about boys.

I didn't like the record about “The Fourth
Magician“ because it wasn't very interesting
to me, but I would recommend it to someone

who was interested in erosion.

I didn't like the story of “Queen Anne's Lace“
because it wasn't too clear to me.

I did not like them so Often. (2)

I didn't like “The Fourth Magician“ as well as
the others.

I didn't like the “Ice Witch“ at all, because
I like things about animals.

I didn't like “The Fourth Magician“ because it

was too sad.

B. Boys' Comments

1.

I didn't like “The Fourth Magician“ because it
was not clear. (2)

I couldn't understand “The Fourth Magician.“ (2)
I didn't like the ones with Grandpa Bauer in
them. (3)

I couldn't understand some Of them very well.
I didn't like the records twice a week.

I didn't like the “Cherry Queen" because it
wasn't exciting.

I couldn't understand “The Ice Witch.“ (2)
Some Of the words were not clear.

I did not like “Queen Anne's Lace.“

Part IX. Observations through oral discussions.

1.

5.

l.

2.

 

The records would be more welcome once a fortnight,
or even once a month.

Most of the pupils would recommend them for other
sixth grades.

Most of the pupils would like an occasional film
along the same line.

The children seemed to think they would have liked
a little more preparation before the records were
played.

The children seemed to think that the conversations
sounded normal rather than rehearsed.

Most other things that they mentioned in discussions

were mentioned on their written papers.

Part E. A few teacher suggestions.

I think they would be more valuable if they were
not so frequent.

I would have liked a little more motivation before
each record. A

I think I would have had the pupils listen for one
or two key thoughts.

I think I would have explained the vocabulary a
little more thoroughly before each record.

All in all, I think this has been most interesting and

profitable for all of us. I know that the youngsters have

gained a great deal in their more intimate knowledge of
Michigan, their home state. I also think it was valuable
for them to realize that helping others very often benefits

them, and that there are many ways of helping others.

OWL:

’ [:35 RM I

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