We’ve got the audio piece and the 1951 map of instructional radio stations across the country. But there’s only so much ground they can cover. Here are more cool things to know about the history of radio as an education technology.
The hype was huge. In his 1932 book, Radio: The Assistant Teacher, Benjamin Darrow (who founded the Ohio School of the Air) wrote: “The central and dominant aim of education by radio is to bring the world to the classroom, to make universally available the services of the finest teachers, the inspiration of the greatest leaders… and unfolding events which through the radio may come as a vibrant and challenging textbook of the air.”
Stations named themselves after their educational missions. At WABE in Atlanta, the ABE stands for Atlanta Board of Education. The BE in WBEZ (Chicago) stands for Board of Education. Bonus points to anyone who knows what the Z stands for. Do we need to tell you what Cleveland’s WBOE stood for? And you might think that the “ED” in KQED stands for “education”? Turns out KQED comes from the Latin quod erat demonstrandum, “which was to be demonstrated.”
Some classroom-broadcasts were… live. Check out this archival broadcast from WBOE. Around 0:40, there’s an example of why there’s nothing like live radio. The clip comes courtesy of John Basalla, archivist at the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.
It wasn’t all about listening. Worksheets came with many of the lessons. Here’s one that went with the radio show “Good Health to You”, from WBOE in Cleveland. We found it in Teaching through Radio and Television, published in 1952, by William Levenson and Edward Stasheff.
Educational broadcasting was college material. Ohio State University offered a college class in “Education by Radio” in 1930. Bonus points for anyone that can dig up a syllabus for us.
Public radio almost got left behind. The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, was originally the Public Television Act of 1967. Jack Mitchell wrote a great history of how radio finagled it’s way into the legislation over on Current.org. The story includes Scotch-taping the word “radio” into the law at the last minute.
We want to know what else we should add to this list. We know you’ll write. From 1930 to 1940 radio listeners sent approximately 225,000,000 fan letters to radio stations.
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