"A Modern Box of Magic": School Radio in British Columbia, 1927-1984 |
VOL. 10, No. 1, 53-73
Interest in technology's promise as a means of enhancing instruction is certainly not new. Decades before educators proclaimed that computers, laser discs, and information systems were essential educational tools, generations of school officials, government planners, and teachers sought answers to the instructional problems of their day by adapting radio for educational purposes. To educators in the 1920s and 1930s, radio represented, as its enthusiasts put it, "a modern box of magic," an appliance that could make school lessons come to life in a way they never had before (CBC Radio Canada, Program Schedule [CBCPS], October 12, 1947, p. 6). Although the typewriter and phonograph had found their way into a small number of Canadian classrooms during the Edwardian Age, it was not until the introduction of radio-and the advent of school broadcasts in the 1920s- that the modern history of technology in schooling began.
This paper chronicles the history of school broadcasting in British Columbia from the pioneer experiments of 1927 through the introduction of instructional television in the late 1960s and the demise of school broadcasting in the mid-1980s. It investigates the Department of Education's attempts to use radio to enrich schooling, to reduce inequities of opportunity in rural areas, and, generally, to diminish the force of geography in determining the quality of school services. In addition, the paper examines how school broadcasting was institutionalized within the provincial education bureau, how it was governed and how particular organizational structures and policies shaped its services, and, ultimately, the extent of its influence on British Columbia education.
Ce n'est pas d'hier qu'on s'intéresse à la technologie comme moyen d'améliorer l'enseignement. Plusieurs décennies avant que les ordinateurs, les disques laser et les systèmes d'information ne soient considérés par les enseignants comme des outils éducatifs indispensables, les dirigeants d'écoles, les planificateurs du secteur public et les enseignants avaient déjà trouvé les réponses à leurs problèmes d'enseignement quotidiens, en se servant de la radio comme instrument pédagogique. Dans les années vingt et trente, la radio représentait pour les enseignants, comme le disaient les plus enthousiastes, « une boîte à surprise des temps modernes », c'est-à-dire un appareil qui, comme par magie, pouvait rendre les leçons plus vivantes que jamais (CBC Radio-Canada, Program Schedule [CBCPS], le 12 octobre 1947, p. 6). Pendant l'époque édouardienne, on trouvait bien dans quelques classes au Canada un dactylographe et un phonographe, mais ce n'est qu'après l'arrivée de la radio - et le début des émissions scolaires dans les années vingt - que commence véritablement l'histoire moderne de la technologie dans l'éducation.
Ce document raconte l'histoire chronologique des émissions scolaires en Colombie-Britannique, de ses premiers balbutiements en 1927, jusqu'à l'avènement de la télévision éducative à la fin des années soixante, et la fin des émissions scolaires au milieu des années quatre-vingts. Il relate les tentatives du ministère de l'Éducation visant à utiliser la radio pour enrichir l'enseignement en classe, accroître l'égalité des chances dans les régions rurales et, de façon générale, à réduire l'importance des facteurs géographiques dans la détermination de la qualité des services scolaires. De plus, le document décrit l'institutionnalisation de la radio scolaire au sein du bureau provincial de l'éducation, son administration et la façon dont les structures et les politiques organisationnelles particulières ont façonné ses services; finalement, il décrit l'ampleur de son influence sur l'éducation en Colombie-Britannique.
School broadcasting in British Columbia was part of a broad international movement to use radio for educational purposes. Between the 1920s and the 1950s, school broadcasts were introduced in various parts of the British Empire-England 1922; South Africa 1930; Australia 1933; India 1936; New Zealand 1937; Malaya 1950; and Wales 1950-as well as in other parts of the world. In Europe, despite the onset of the Great Depression, school broadcasts were introduced in the Netherlands in 1929, Sweden 1930, Switzerland 1930, and Belgium 1931. Elsewhere, radio in schools was introduced in the United States 1923, Brazil 1936, Chile and Argentina 1942, and Japan 1930 (UNESCO, 1949).
In the United Kingdom, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) pioneered school broadcasts in 1922 and provided the model for public-sector involvement in radio education for the Empire, heralding “as a means of information, education and entertainment” (Stephens, 1959, pp. 81-84). Within a decade, the BBC’s leadership in public, cultural, and educational affairs prompted a similar mandate for the establishment of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in Canada, and it led to the CBC’s early work in school radio. In contrast, private-sector involvement in school radio was primarily associated with the United States where no “single officially-established organization for school broadcasting” existed (UNESCO, 1949, p. 141). Although other nations experimented at times with provision of school broadcasts in the private sector-notably Belgium, Brazil, and Mexico-the development and delivery of school radio programs throughout the world was predominantly a state matter.
In Canada, radio first became popular as a medium for entertainment and information during the Great War, and its popularity expanded steadily throughout the 1920s and 1930s as the radio receiver became a focal point of family life. Between 1923 and 1936, the number of licensed private receiving sets in Canada rose from 9,954 to 862,109, that is, from about one radio for approximately 1,000 people to one radio for about 12 people (CBC, Annual Report, 1936, p. 8). Radio’s rapid expansion led to questions about its regulation and prompted the federal government to appoint the Aird Commission in 1928 to examine “the broadcasting situation in the Dominion of Canada [and] to make recommendations to the Government as to [its] future administration, management, control, and financing” (1929, p. 1).
Although the Aird Commission is best remembered for recommendations that led to the CBC’s establishment as a national non-profit agency in 1936, it also directed part of its attention to the educational implications of radio use. As the commission observed in its 1929 report: “The potentialities of broadcasting as an instrument of education have been impressed upon us; education in the broad sense, not only as it is conducted in the schools and colleges, but in providing entertainment and of informing the public on questions of national interest” (p. 1). Accordingly, the commission recommended that “certain specified hours should be made available for educational work both in connection with the schools and the general public, as well as the so-called ’adult education,’ under Provincial auspices” (p. 11).
Radio’s cultural and educational value was also brought to public attention by J. C. Stobart, the BBC’s educational director, during his 1929 tour of Canada. Addressing the National Council of Education’s Conference in Vancouver, Stobart hailed radio as “an instrument of citizenship and culture, as an enricher of the school program, and an aid to the constructive employment of leisure” (Victoria Daily Times, April 11, 1929, p. 1). To illustrate radio’s educational application, Stobart cited an experiment that had taken place two years earlier in England, involving the co-operation of some 80 schools in Kent. So successful was the experiment in stimulating students through radio lessons, Stobart reported, that, at its conclusion, the schools involved refused to be deprived of wireless instruction.1
Stobart’s remarks had particular effect on at least one member of his audience, Joshua Hinchcliff, British Columbia’s minister of education.l Hinchcliff, charged with overseeing schooling across a vast and thinly populated province, was struck by radio’s promise in “implementing the work of education, especially in isolated sections of the country.” As the Victoria Colonist reported: “Honourable Mister Hinchcliff has been so impressed by the success of the system in Great Britain that he has collected in the past few days a file of information on the subject.” Moreover, the newspaper added, referring to the province’s still young correspondence education branch: “Officials in Mr. Hinchcliff’s department have especially recommended the plan in respect to helping out where lessons formerly have gone out by mail” (“Use of Radio,” 1929).
Hinchcliff need not have looked across the Atlantic for inspiration in using radio to solve the problems of the more than 900 one- and two-room schools in his care. Indeed, he could have gazed across the Straits of Juan de Fuca to Vancouver where, two years before Stobart’s visit, the first documented educational experiment with radio in British Columbia had already taken place-an experiment that may have been the first of its kind in the Dominion. The Vancouver radio station CNRV, in conjunction with the Vancouver School Board, had created a series of educational programs in 1927 “by children, for children” under the direction of Vancouver’s municipal inspector of schools, G. S. Gordon (Lambert, 1963, p. 35). The radio series was prepared by principals, teachers, and students from 24 schools, with a class from each school preparing a 60-minute program consisting of educational games, songs, and lessons. Although they were intended for children within the Vancouver system, these early broadcasts, aired Friday evenings during the school year, also attracted a large number of adults wherever CNRV was received (Lambert, 1963, p. 35). In the farming communities of the lower mainland, for example, rural teachers gathered their students in homes “where there was good radio reception, to listen and learn” (Lambert, 1963, p. 35). The response the programs received was such that the broadcasts were continued the following year (Lambert, 1963, p. 35). Three years later, in 1930, the Vancouver Principals’ Association, again using the facilities of CNRV, mounted a radio series that would transcend the “entertainment purposes” of the earlier experiment and be “both entertaining and educational” (Meadows, 1930, p. 6). Among other things, this experimental series, broadcast each Tuesday at 8 p.m., featured lectures by prominent University of British Columbia (UBC) professors, such as H. F. Angus and Charles Hill-Tout, and sought its audience in “the older student and the adult.”2
Despite the minister’s professed interest-and that of his department- the success of the Vancouver experiment apparently went unnoticed, and no provincial initiative in radio education was undertaken for almost a decade. Sharply reduced government revenues in the Depression and the fall of British Columbia’s Conservative Government in 1933 stifled development. In the meantime, experiments in school broadcasting were taking place in other provincial communities.
Chief among these was an initiative sponsored by Carlyle Clay, an Armstrong elementary school teacher and, later, provincial school inspector. Clay advocated using radio to provide “music appreciation instruction on a large scale” throughout the province’s interior. In particular, he believed that radio could be used to counter some practical difficulties teachers faced in obtaining phonographs and records for music instruction (Dawe, 1937, p. 342). Clay approached the Okanagan Valley Teachers’ Association (OVTA) in 1936 with a proposal to experiment with radio for this purpose (Lambert, 1963, p. 36). The head of the OVTA, Kenneth Caple, agreed to use some of the association’s surplus funds to support this proposal, and, together with radio station CKOV in Kelowna, the OVTA developed six music appreciation programs, which proved immediately popular with Okanagan teachers.
News of the OVTA’s experiment reached the British Columbia Teachers Federation (BCTF) president, Ira Dilworth, who was soon to hold the important post of Western regional director for the CBC (Lambert, 1936, p. 36). It was also reported to S. J. Willis, superintendent of the govern-ment’s education office since 1919, who was familiar with Hinchcliff’s 1929 plan to use radio to enrich rural school instruction. Support for experiments with radio in schools was also expressed when the British Columbia School Trustees’ Association (BCSTA) passed a resolution at their 1936 annual meeting in Penticton requesting that provincial authorities investigate the possible use of radio and motion pictures to enhance classroom learning (“Radio is Urged,” 1936). As a result of the success in the Okanagan and, no doubt, the enthusiasm of the BCSTA, Superintendent of Schools Willis decided to explore further the idea of using radio for instructional purposes. Acting on Willis’s advice, the minister of education and former UBC education professor, G. M. Weir, appointed a committee to investigate the possibility of “using radio profitably in the schools” (“Radio is Urged,” 1936).
The first formal meeting of the Committee for Radio in Schools was convened on August 23, 1937 (Lambert, 1963, p. 36). Albert Sullivan, one of the government’s two high school inspectors, chaired, and Alex Lord, principal of Vancouver’s Normal School, was appointed secretary.3 Committee members included Isabel Bescoby, the provincial officer in charge of the Elementary Correspondence Branch, and BCTF representatives Harry Charlesworth and R. H. Bennet from Vancouver’s John Oliver High School (Lambert, 1936, p. 37).
Since nothing was known about school broadcasting, the committee began its work by sending a “circular” out to the province’s school inspectors requesting a status report on “the value of radio in schools, the most suitable type of program, the most desirable type of program, and the number of schools possessing receiving equipment.” The committee soon learned that only 26 schools in the province were equipped with radios. Undeterred, the committee enlisted the assistance of the CBC, which placed its broadcasting facilities at their disposal “without charge” (British Columbia Department of Education, Annual Report of the Public Schools of the Province of British Columbia [hereafter ARPS], 1937-38, pp. 28-29). Throughout the autumn of 1937, with the help of teachers, pupils, and some professional actors, the committee developed three short series of instructional programs designed to be aired Friday afternoons (a stipulation of the radio licensing authorities) over a period of ten weeks. Of these half-hour programs, ten offered strategies for music appreciation, five dramatized “important events in British Columbia History,” and five surveyed “simple phases of Elementary Science” (ARPS, 1937-38, p. 29). For its part, the Department of Education dispatched bulletins to schools known to have receiving sets. These bulletins provided teachers with scheduling and program details and with suggestions about how to use radio broadcasts in classrooms (ARPS, 1937-38, p. 29). Although modest in scope, these first school broadcasts nevertheless represented an important part of the CBC’s regional programming.
Although a policy was never explicitly stated, Department of Education staff initially assumed that school broadcasts would eventually be linked to the province’s elementary and secondary correspondence programs. Beginning in 1919, British Columbia had pioneered correspondence schools in Canada with the establishment of the Elementary Correspondence Branch. A decade later, in 1929, J. W. Gibson, who had previously headed agricultural education in schools, was appointed to direct the department’s secondary school correspondence division. On the eve of the province’s first school broadcast, Bescoby’s elementary correspondence program provided instruction to about 900 pupils annually, and Gibson’s secondary branch offered courses to more than 1,400 youngsters scattered in farms, logging and fishing camps, and other settlements with populations too small to support a school or in communities where schools could offer only a few secondary subjects.
Unfortunately, however, the exact nature of the relationship between school broadcasting and the correspondence branches was never clearly specified. As a result, school radio was destined to remain “a supplement to the regular course of studies” rather than a means of delivering the “authorized program of studies” to the province’s schools or to students dependent on “education by mail” (Kitley, 1959, p. 133). School broadcasting was restricted to three general purposes-providing material for appreciation (in particular, music), providing information on current events, and providing material to enliven or enrich the regular curriculum (p. 133).
Several other factors inhibited radio’s use as a means of delivering the provincial curriculum. Provincial topography and the limitations of radio transmitters in the 1930s and 1940s prevented the school broadcasts from reaching youngsters in some mountainous and remote parts of the province. As Anna Miller, Bescoby’s successor in the Elementary Correspondence Branch, observed in 1939: “the broadcasts of the British Columbia Radio School are listened to with interest by many of our pupils. . . . [But] for various reasons it is not possible for all of our pupils to hear these programs” (ARPS, 1938-39, p. 71). Margaret Clark (personal communication, February 23, 1994), who began her teaching career in a small rural school on Malcolm Island in 1933 and who also taught north of Duncan and in Cedar, reported that she could not listen to the broadcasts until she began teaching in Nanaimo in the 1940s because they could not be received where she taught.
Likewise, the schedule for radio broadcasts often did not correspond to instructional schedules that secondary teachers followed in presenting the curriculum. Ed Breckenridge (personal communication, February 23, 1994), who began teaching in 1925, did not listen to school broadcasts for this reason, even when he was in schools where radio reception was good. Nor, for the most part, did Quesnel teacher John Clark (personal communication, February 23, 1994), who only “listened in” to the “odd broadcast” with his 1949 Grade 8 class. As one department official later recollected: “The business of actually dovetailing the broadcasts to the school program was one of the big problems. And it wasn’t until the days of tape recording that that was overcome” (Kitley, personal communication, February 2, 1994).
Such difficulties, however, were unanticipated amid the enthusiasm that greeted early broadcasts.
When the first provincial school broadcast was aired from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. on Vancouver’s CBR, as well as on CBC stations in Kelowna and Kamloops on March 21, 1938, the response was overwhelmingly positive.4 Clay’s telegram to the committee during the first broadcast read: “Three hundred twenty listening in. Reception excellent. All enjoying the program” (“We’re on the Air!,” 1938). By April, the B.C. Teacher, the chief organ for professional discussion, advised its readers that “98 schools . . . have reported the installation of radios for the series” (“We’re on the Air!,” 1938). As months passed, teachers and other educators were evidently excited by the broadcasts’ effects on student learning. Radio, they reported, seemed to appeal to the students’ imaginations because it made “characters come alive” (CBCPS, October 7, 1945, p. 1). R. G. Gordon (1938) at Kitsilano High observed: “A desire is created in the pupil . . . to know more about [events], which may then be satisfied by further reading” (p. 290). Parents and teachers were also impressed with the attentiveness of students during radio broadcasts and their high retention rate of “important factual material” (p. 290). By the end of the tenth week, 195 schools reported that they had radios. Written comments submitted to the committee by teachers, pupils, and parents proved so positive that the committee continued radio broadcasts the following year (ARPS, 1937-38, p. 29). Six months after the first broadcast, the number of schools in the province with radios increased to 486 (ARPS, 1944-45, p. 149). It was evident that radio was capturing the imagination of even the youngest pupils. A poem by a Grade 2 correspondence pupil in Coquitlam illustrated their interest.
By the end of the first year of operation, coverage extended to most of the province’s southern interior. Transcriptions were provided to stations in Prince Rupert and Grande Prairie, Alberta, extending the areas of reception to “most of the northern coast and on adjacent islands and throughout . . . the Peace River area” (ARPS, 1938-39, pp. 32-33). During the 1939- school year, programming expanded to daily half-hour broadcasts. Content was also augmented to include high school literature and poetry in addition to existing programs on science, social studies, and music. Again, bulletins were mailed to schools with receiving sets, and the CBC continued to donate facilities and air time, as it would for years to come. Apart from the CBC’s support “in kind,” the Department of Education contributed $877 toward program development, including wages paid to writers and actors. Funding for travel costs and salaries came in the form of a generous $3,000 grant from New York’s Carnegie Corporation, which was interested in radio’s use in rural education (ARPS, 1939-40, pp. 32-33).
Despite the excitement and optimism about provincial broadcasts expressed in rural communities, the committee continued to move cautiously. They polled teachers for information about radio’s effects and impressed upon them that “a permanent radio policy [would] depend on the reception accorded [this] experiment” (“We’re on the Air!,” 1938). Even Alex Lord (1938) admitted a certain apprehension about radio’s future in the classroom in a letter to the B.C. Teacher: “These programs,” he wrote, “are experimental; they may be of considerable help or they may not” (p. 376). Evaluation of radio’s utility went far beyond the merits of the programs themselves.
Questions about whether “radio will replace teachers” or whether “radio will make education easier” were debated throughout the educational community (Woelfel & Tyler, 1945, as cited in “No Deep Freeze,” 1952, p. 56). Although such inquiries did not retard program development, they reappeared from time to time as testimony to teacher disquietude with the use of radio. Aggravating these concerns were statements such as one in the CBC’s 1943 Annual Report that pronounced that radio had a “definite responsibility in days when the teaching profession is being hard hit by the demands of military service with the consequent lowering of teaching standards.” Such commentary did little to alleviate the fears of teachers, some of whom were apprehensive that radio would one day replace them.
After 18 months of experimental broadcasts, the Department of Education concluded that “education by radio had justified the cost and the effort involved” (ARPS, 1939-40, p. 30). Aside from many positive reports received from teachers and the public, committee members had also assured themselves of radio’s value by visiting classrooms around the province when broadcasts were being received. From these reports and visits, the committee learned that school radio could substantially improve learning opportunities for rural students; that passive listening was less worthwhile for pupils than programs that required pupils to participate through “before and after” activities; that difficulties in providing receiving equipment could be surmounted; and, finally, that despite refinements in broadcasting technology, it would be virtually impossible to service all areas of the province by radio.
And so, late in 1939, the committee, convinced of radio’s viability but no longer able to provide adequate supervision for a growing network of schools, began to look for an officer to direct school broadcasts on a full-time basis (ARPS, 1939-40, p. 30). An appropriation was made by the British Columbia Legislature to hire a director of school broadcasts, and an agreement was subsequently reached between the CBC and the Department of Education to cover broadcasting costs. Although the director would be appointed as an educational civil servant, both the department and the CBC would contribute equally to the director’s salary (Lambert, 1963, p. 49).5 The terms of the agreement also provided that the director would work out of an office provided by CBR, CBC’s station in Vancouver, located on the Hotel Vancouver’s mezzanine floor (ARPS, 1944-45, p. 150). For its part, the CBC would provide the studios, technicians, and other facilities for broadcasting and secretarial assistance. Although the director would plan and supervise programs “in consultation with the committee,” program production and program quality would remain CBC responsibilities. Eager to provide a public service in accordance with their own mandate, CBC officials “were glad to cooperate with the Department of Education [who] provided the script and paid the cost of actors and musicians who were used” (Duffy, 1982).
Finding a person experienced in education as well as radio to fill this position was a challenge in the early 1940s. However, in January 1940, Ira Dilworth, then the CBC’s regional director, recommended Kenneth Caple for the job, an individual whom he described as an “experimenter with vision and initiative” (Lambert, 1963, p. 44). Dilworth’s praise, combined with Caple’s earlier experience with the OVTA’s experiment, proved sufficient. On March 1, 1940, Caple was appointed director of radio school broadcasts and charged with carrying out the work prescribed by the Radio in Schools Committee (ARPS, 1939-40, p. 30). Armed with a $5,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation to explore what “radio could do in the way of education” (Chisholm, 1983), Caple began his work by touring the United States “to acquaint himself with the progress of school broadcasting” (Lambert, 1963, p. 44).
Caple, soon to be known as “the man with the biggest class of boys and girls in B.C.,” became the most influential figure in school radio until he resigned his post in the summer of 1944 to become regional program director for the CBC (CBCPS, September 26, 1943, p. 3). During these four years, Caple forged close links with teachers throughout the province and attempted to make more explicit the role of school broadcasts in education. Much of what he accomplished was the result of personal initiative. From this time on, neither the Department of Education nor the committee who supervised him proved particularly helpful. Nor could much assistance and support be found elsewhere: CBC officials understood little about the needs of educational broadcasting (Kitley, personal communi-cation, February 2, 1994). Decisions related to program production and publicity were left entirely to Caple and then to his successor. Despite their lack of experience and formal preparation, the school broadcast directors were obliged to make the best decisions they could without much administrative support.
Caple began his work by requesting-if not demanding-comments and suggestions from teachers in the special school editions of the CBC program schedules he circulated. “A listening class is not doing its share toward building school broadcasts,” he advised, “unless it is sending in its comments at regular intervals” (CBCPS, September 26, 1943, p. 3). On the basis of comments solicited from teachers, he convinced the School Radio Committee that 20 minutes was the “optimum” length for a school broadcast for the senior grades, that most programs for elementary pupils should be reduced to 15 minutes, and that broadcast times should be changed from 9:30-10:00 a.m. to 2:00-2:30 p.m. in accordance with teachers’ wishes (ARPS, 1943-44, p. 46). He also oversaw the production and distribution of a 32-page mimeographed teachers’ manual, which outlined program schedules, provided program details, and instructed teachers on how the broadcasts and receiving equipment should be used (ARPS, 1943-44, p. 44).
In Caple’s view, “the purpose of school broadcasts [was] not to teach a curriculum, but to enrich it by bringing the world outside into the classroom.” He attempted to achieve his aim by developing new program ideas, several of which proved immensely popular. Among these were such programs as “The Mighty Fraser,” in which the great river recounted adventures it had witnessed; a science series called “The Great Wonderers,” which dealt with the lives of famous scientists, including Galileo, Newton, and Archimedes; and a series called “Working together in Tukwilla Valley,” in which schools were encouraged to develop their own curricular projects. This particular series was so well received that students petitioned to have it extended, and, eventually, it was made into a film by the National Film Board (CBCPS, July 23, 1944, p. 1).
Caple’s successes in British Columbia led him in 1942 to direct a co-operative scheme for the four western provinces (CBCPS, September 26, 1943, p. 3). The following year, as the province’s representative at the National Advisory Council on School Broadcasting in Toronto, he “conceived and planned” the national school broadcasts for 1943-44, which consisted of three series with democratic themes designed for a wartime school audience-”My Canada,” “The Way of Free Men,” and “Proud Procession,” a chronicle of prominent Canadians (CBCPS, September 26, 1943, p. 3). By 1944, Caple’s views about the purpose of radio in schools had become departmental policy, as the 1943-44 Annual Report of the Public Schools confirmed:
The aim of school broadcasts is to provide programs which will be acceptable to all schools as an enrichment of their daily work; but first consideration is given to rural schools, which obviously stand to benefit much more from such service than schools in more organized areas. No attempt is made to do things which can easily be done by a teacher. This means, for instance, that programmes will seldom be concerned with tool subjects. Rather, school broadcasts aim at stimulating imagination and providing material that may be otherwise difficult to obtain or, in general, too highly specialized for all teachers to handle with ease. Thus, music programs stand at the head of the list, and following this social studies (including news digests especially prepared for schools), science, literature, and kindred subjects. (p. 149)
Discussion of school broadcasting in the 1944 Annual Report broke four years of silence about the state of radio in the schools. Between 1941 and 1944, no mention of broadcasting had been made, except for a note about the provincial government’s contribution to Caple’s salary and an inventory of other costs associated with the broadcast branch. Why the government’s official record of educational developments overlooked Caple’s work is unclear. It may simply have been an oversight, or it may have been a result of the fact that, during the war years, the department’s focus was elsewhere.
It may also have been the result of the fact, as one official later pointed out, that during the early years of school broadcasting, nobody knew exactly who was responsible for what despite the apparent divisions of authority outlined in the organizational charts of the educational civil service (Kitley, personal communication, March 2, 1992). Moreover, it may also have been related to the fact that school broadcasts originated in Vancouver rather than Victoria. Given the unusual way in which school broadcasts were administered and the unconventional terms of Caple’s appointment, the import of the broadcasts, or their popularity, may not altogether have been understood by senior staff in Victoria. In a department whose chief organizational characteristic was its centralized structure, the advent of school broadcasting marked the first instance in which the Department of Education geographically separated one of its branches from its main offices. Ironically, the separation of school broadcasting from headquarters in Victoria established a tradition of locating educational technology branches outside the department (today the ministry).6
If Caple’s gift for broadcasting had been overlooked by the department, it was not lost on the CBC, which offered him the regional director’s position when Dilworth moved to Montreal to take charge of the CBC’s overseas broadcasting. Caple’s contribution had been considerable. Hundreds of British Columbia schools had received his programs. Still, many of the province’s schools remained beyond radio’s reach when he resigned. However, the future looked promising. New relay transmitters were beginning to open up the interior, and the number of schools tuning in was growing annually (CBCPS, August 22, 1943, p. 1).
Caple’s successor was Philip Kitley, a Kelowna teacher who had also experimented with radio. Kitley’s radio club made regular broadcasts of school news over the local station, which proved popular with students and the public alike (Kitley, personal communication, March 2, 1992). His success did not escape the attention of High School Inspector J. B. DeLong, who was one of the most influential figures in educational government. During the summer of 1944, when Kitley was in Victoria supplementing his salary by marking provincial examination papers, DeLong offered him the director’s position (Kitley, personal communication, March 2, 1992). Although Kitley felt ill-prepared to direct school broadcasts for the province, largely because of his lack of technical understanding, he accepted the position. He soon realized that the Radio in Schools Committee, now chaired by Alex Lord, “didn’t know anything [about broadcasting] either” (Kitley, personal communication, March 2, 1992).
Like Caple, Kitley operated from the Hotel Vancouver, and, until 1946, his salary was jointly shared by the CBC and the Department of Education (ARPS, 1944-45, p. 149). However, communications between the CBC and the department were beginning to break down, and the CBC was trying to get out of the salary-sharing arrangement they had made in 1940. In fact, confusion about who was responsible for what was such that Kitley was unclear about who paid his salary until 1946, when it became solely the department’s responsibility (Lambert, 1963, p. 49). The organizational confusion that marked Kitley’s early years in school broadcasting went far beyond the question of who paid his salary. No one seemed prepared, either in the department or the CBC, to tell him what he was to do, or who was to pay for what, so he operated for the most part by trial and error.
Such organizational difficulties were only aggravated by problems at the production end. As an educator, Kitley believed that school broadcasts had certain requirements that CBC producers did not readily accept. For example, in scripts for school broadcasts, he insisted on reiterating important instructional points or areas of content. In contrast, the producers, who were schooled in the dramatic arts rather than education, were frustrated by his emphasis on pedagogical practice (Kitley, personal communication, March 2, 1992). The producers were also reluctant to approve Kitley’s decision to hire students as actors and teachers as scriptwriters, arguing that such individuals were not sufficiently experienced to be involved in professional productions.7 Consequently, Kitley was forced to fight, for different reasons, with both the CBC and the Department of Education to establish what he saw to be quality programs (Kitley, personal communi-cation, March 2, 1992).
Like Caple, Kitley brought to the post a mind brimming with innovative ideas. He developed new and popular program series such as “Pictures in the Air,” an art program; “My Neighbour and Me,” a guidance program; and “Écoutez,” a French-language program (ARPS, 1949-1959). Some of these programs earned national and international recognition. In his enthusiasm for developing new programs, he also blundered on occasion. In one instance, he decided to produce a show featuring a school band to capitalize on the growing popularity of school orchestras. When students gathered for rehearsals at the CBC studio, he was advised by the producer to obtain permission from the musicians’ union before airing the program. He proceeded anyway, which provoked the ire of the union’s secretary, who lobbied to have him fired. Fortunately, Alex Lord, who knew the secretary, intervened and resolved the problem (Kitley, personal communi-cation, March 2, 1992).
In addition to program quality and relevance, Kitley was also concerned with the quality of classroom radios and whether teachers were using the broadcasts effectively. As director, he changed the mimeographed teachers’ bulletin developed earlier into a printed booklet with illustrations (Lambert, 1963, p. 47). These bulletins informed teachers about the types of radios best suited for schools and how the broadcasts could be enhanced by proper classroom management.8
He also gave talks and demonstration lessons at teachers’ conventions, including a regular session at the BCTF’s Easter Convention and annual presentations at UBC and at the Victoria and Vancouver normal schools (ARPS, 1945-46, p. 152). Under Kitley’s encouragement, formal teacher training in the use of radio was also established. Beginning in 1946, a course called “The Radio in Education,” which outlined classroom techniques, was offered at the Victoria Summer School of Education on an occasional basis. In the first year it was taught, 94 teachers participated. When it was not offered in its entirety, three-day professional development sessions were provided (ARPS, 1946-51). In 1949, a six-week course was made available to teachers through the Vancouver Normal School. It covered auditioning, transcription, and, most importantly, details on “techniques of using the programs” (ARPS, 1949-50, p. 130).
Under Kitley’s direction, school radio programs increased steadily, as did the number of schools with receivers. When he took up his post, eight stations, one of which was shortwave, carried school broadcasts. A new shortwave station introduced by the CBC and reputed to “be the most powerful on this continent” began operating in 1944 and served to “open up” remote areas of the interior (CBCPS, October 22, 1944, p. 1). Even with these advances, difficulties still existed. Because of the war, radios remained in scarce supply, as did batteries. Kitley could do little about batteries, but he ensured that radios were available by developing a design for radios suitable for classroom use and having them manufactured in Vancouver.
By the time Kitley took the job of co-ordinating teacher recruitment for the Department in 1959 (he had earlier turned down an offer of a senior administrative position at the CBC), he had almost doubled the number of school radio programs. Under the 15 years of his leadership, nearly 250 programs were being produced annually, over 100,000 students were regularly listening in, close to 80% of provincial communities had access to the broadcasts, and the province had won more than 10 national and international awards for school broadcasts.
With Kitley’s departure, Margaret Musselman took over as director until 1966, when she became the department’s assistant registrar, at which time Barrie Black was appointed to the director’s post. In 1969, the department amalgamated School Broadcasts with Visual Education to form Audio Visual Services. The new division, now under Black’s direction, continued co-operative production arrangements with the CBC as well as the functions carried out by Visual Services since 1946, which included dubbing audio and visual materials and distributing them to schools and colleges (ARPS, 1945-46, p. 151). Between 1966 and 1968, the number of schools that received school broadcasts peaked at 870, and the number of students listening in rose to nearly 130,000, before beginning to decline slightly by the end of the decade. The numbers continued to decline through the 1970s and 1980s.
School television broadcasting also fell under the control of Audio Visual Services. It began haphazardly in the early 1960s, and by 1970, equal numbers of schools reported use of radio and television broadcasts. Television’s popularity in schools soon surpassed that of radio in the 1970s.. In light of this change, the department apportioned certain parts of the curriculum to television and others to radio in 1972 as a means of defining operational jurisdictions: “Emphasis in television broadcasting was placed upon science and social studies for all grades, while radio programming stressed music and art for elementary schools, and languages for secondary grades” (ARPS, 1971-72, p. 39). Also, in 1972, the Provincial Educational Media Centre (PEMC), a television production and duplication facility, was established at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (ARPS, 1971-72, p. 39).
In the spring of 1974, the Audio Visual branch was disbanded, and its responsibilities were relocated within PEMC, which continued to produce radio and television broadcasts for schools with CBC assistance. Regular weekday school broadcasts, from 10:00 to 10:30 a.m. for television and from 2:00 to 2:30 p.m. for radio, continued for another decade, in spite of a declining number of listeners. The advent of inexpensive new technologies, especially audio and video recorders, provided teachers with greater freedom in selecting supplementary curricular materials and also freed them from a set program schedule.
In the early 1980s, CBC officials began to complain that school broadcasts were hindering other kinds of program development and generally disrupting the network’s regional schedule. In short, the CBC increasingly expressed its wishes to be relieved of its commitment to school broadcasting (W. Groutage, personal communication, February 28, 1992). The CBC’s willingness to surrender the role it had played in educational broadcasting since 1938 was not surprising in one respect. Its presence as an educational force in British Columbia was being overshadowed by the newly established provincial Knowledge Network. In 1982-83, for example, the CBC produced only about 30% of school broadcasts for television: the remainder were produced by the Knowledge Network (ARPS Statistical Supplement, 1982-83). Moreover, the introduction of other technologies into classrooms, including microcomputers and software developed for instructional purposes, was returning control of instructional resources to teachers and thereby reducing their reliance on broadcasting. And, so, in 1984, school broadcasts were abandoned by both the CBC and the Department of Education, which had been recently renamed the Ministry of Education.
The history of school broadcasting represents an important chapter in the larger history of British Columbia education. In its simplest terms, it is the story of how Canadian school radio broadcasting was pioneered in British Columbia by provincial educators who sought to enhance instructional opportunities in rural schools. Overall, the success of experiments in using radio as a means of distance education-and its eventual institutionalization as a branch of the province’s education bureau-was, in many respects, because of the efforts of a few individuals, notably Kenneth Caple and Philip Kitley. They recognized radio’s instructional potential and developed the management structures and pedagogical techniques necessary to support instruction employing this new medium.
At the same time, the history of school radio is also a chronicle of more complex events-the story of how the Department of Education sought to address longstanding problems of provincial geography and the inequities it caused in rural schools as well as the story of how departmental personnel attempted to manage an educational innovation they never quite completely understood. As the historical record of the broadcasting branch illustrates, the department generally proved unable to grasp radio’s potential either as an instrument to support the work of the province’s correspondence education divisions or as a vehicle to deliver prescribed provincial curriculum to youngsters scattered across a vast hinterland in settlements too small for schools.
From its inception in 1938, the school broadcasting branch was kept isolated and apart from departmental headquarters in Victoria. In the early years, this action was no doubt warranted. The CBC’s studios were situated in the Hotel Vancouver, and the state of radio’s technical development and the government’s finances, at least in the late 1930s, prohibited a change of venue. However, this physical separation persisted over time, even when it became technically and financially possible to relocate broadcasting facilities in Victoria.
That the school broadcasting branch was not assimilated into the department’s base of operations, either physically or culturally, suggests a conviction within government that technical processes to deliver curricula should somehow be organizationally distinct from educational units where curriculum was actually made, in particular, that technical processes should be distinct from the superintendent’s office and the textbook branch. In other words, although it was never explicitly stated in policy, school broadcasting was relegated from its beginnings to a service role where it remained for almost half a century. It could supplement or “enhance” the prescribed curriculum through radio and, later, television broadcasts, but this branch of educational government was forbidden to deliver the prescribed curriculum. In this respect, British Columbia’s experience stands in sharp contrast to other jurisdictions, such as Australia and New Zealand, where school broadcasting delivered prescribed curricula to children in sparsely populated outback and mountainous regions.
Why departmental officials in Victoria were reluctant to grant the broadcasting branch this authority remains difficult to explain. After all, the Radio in Schools Committee of the 1930s and 1940s was comprised of individuals intimately aware of the inequities between British Columbia’s urban and rural schools, as well as the generally depressed state of learning in the province’s interior and northern communities. J. B. DeLong, Albert Sullivan, and Alex Lord, for example, had all patrolled the province as school inspectors for decades, and Isabel Bescoby had pioneered elementary correspondence education in Canada beginning in the early 1920s. All of these individuals heralded the cause of rural schooling. None, however, had any experience with radio’s use in instruction, nor, indeed, were any of them inclined to advocate its potential within the department’s councils where such decisions were made. The reluctance of these senior officials to embrace a new educational technology may have had to do with their age. At the time of school broadcasting’s introduction in the late 1930s, all these individuals were on the verge of retirement. Moreover, they adhered to the traditions of a department that defined curricular resources as materials in print-a tradition that has changed little even to the present day. In other words, school broadcasting’s restricted role in provincial schools was likely caused by the department’s innate pedagogical conservatism and by the fact that those who envisioned larger or brighter futures for radio in schools were at less senior ranks within educational government-and kept at arm’s length in Vancouver. Histories of the department confirm that until recent years advocating change was never considered by government’s education officers as a way to build a career or ensure promotion.9
For all these reasons, the British Columbia Department of Education never seized the opportunity to address the problems of inequality in rural schools more fully by using radio broadcasting or even to use it to support the otherwise noble efforts of the correspondence officers. Nor has the perspective of educational government changed much in this regard over the past half century. Even today, the provincial government’s educational technology centre continues to be separated from ministry offices in Victoria’s James Bay. Its location atop a hill in North Saanich, some 30 kilometres away from the city, parallels earlier government decisions to locate the Provincial Educational Media Centre (PEMC) in Richmond and Burnaby during 1970s and 1980s. Moreover, the absence of a clearly articulated government policy about educational technology in the mid-1990s earkens back to the indecision and confusion about instructional technology’s value and uses in earlier decades. Sadly, Philip Kitley’s admonition that the “modern school in itself is unable to provide all [the] educative experiences which a modern philosophy of education deems valuable, [and] which are relatively inaccessible because they lie beyond the facilities of the school or the abilities of the teacher,” continues to be ignored by educational policy makers today (ARPS, 1944-45, p. 125).
Aird Commission. (1929). Report of the Royal Commission on Radio Broadcasting. Ottawa: F. A. Acland Printer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty. British Columbia Department of Education. (1936-37 to 1983-84). Annual report of the public schools of the Province of British Columbia. Victoria: Crown Printers. CBC Radio Canada. CBC program schedule. B.C. regional edition. Vancouver, B.C.: Press and Information Services.
CBC. (1936 to 1960). Annual Report of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Ottawa: J. O. Patenaude, I.S.O. Printer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty.
Chisholm, E. (1983). Interview with Kenneth Caple (Audio Tape-British Columbia Archives Reference 4059:1).
Corbett, E. A. (1938, April). Education by Radio. The Canadian Forum, XVIII, 374-377.
Davis, P. (Retired Teacher). Personal Interview March 11, 1994.
Dawe, F. H. (1937, March). Music appreciation in the Okanagan. B.C. Teacher, XVI, p. 342.
Duffy, D. (1982, March 10). Interview with Kenneth Caple (Audio Tape-Archives reference 3951:1).
Elementary Correspondence School Magazine. (1941, May). Victoria, B.C.:Parliament Buildings (Archives reference: GR 470 Box 2)
Fleming, T. (1986). Our boys in the field: School inspectors, superintendents, and the changing character of school leadership in British Columbia. In N. M. Sheehan, J. D. Wilson, & D. C. Jones (Eds.), Schools in the west (pp. 285-304). Calgary: Detselig Press.
Fleming, T. (1989). In the imperial age and after patterns of British Columbia school leadership and the institution of the superintendency, 1849-1988. B.C. Studies, 81, 50-76.
Gardiner, D. (Retired Teacher). Telephone Interview, February 24, 1994.
Gordon, R. G. (1938, February). Radio in education: An experiment. B.C. Teacher, XVIII, 290.
Here and there. (1928, November). B.C. Teacher, p. 39.
Kitley, P. J. (1959). Canadian school broadcasts. Shiksha: Journal of the Education Deptt.U.P. Special Radio and Education Number.
Lambert, R. S. (1963). School broadcasting in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Lord, A.R. (1938, March). Open letter to teachers in British Columbia. B.C. Teacher, XVIII, 361.
Meadows, S. D. (1930, January). The radio and education. B.C. Teacher, pp. 6-7
No Deep Freeze for Teachers. (1952, January). B.C. Schools, VII, 56. Vancouver Sun Magazine Supplement, pp. 4-5.
Radio is urged as school aid. (1936, September 22). Victoria Times, p. 3.
Stephens, M. (1959, January). A note on the indirect impact of broadcasting. Shiksha Journal of the Education Deptt.U.P. Special Radio and Education Number.
UNESCO. (1949). Broadcasting to schools: Report on the organization of school broadcasting services in various countries. Paris: UNESCO.
Use of radio is suggested for teaching. (1929, April 13). Victoria Colonist, p. 5.
Victoria Daily Times. (1929, April 11). p. 1
We’re on the air! (April, 1938). B.C. Teacher, XVIII, 375-376.
1. It is interesting to note that even before Stobart's address, radio's success in British classrooms had come to the attention of of British Columbia educators. A 1928 issue of the B.C. Teacher had informed its readers that nearly 5,000 British schools had been equipped with wireless installations and that more than 3,000 schools "listened in" to at least one wireless lesson every week. See "Here and There," (1928, November), B.C. Teacher, p. 39.
2. Charles Hill-Tout was trained at Oxford and was president of the Anthropological section of the Royal Society of Canada. His particular ethnographic interest was in the Salish people of British Columbia.
3. The 1938-39 Annual Report of the Public Schools of the Province of British Columbia lists all of these people as members of the committee. Lambert, 1963, p. 37, suggests the membership grew throughout the investigation period.
4. Lambert, 1963 (p. 38), identifies the date of the first broadcast and the daily time slot for the broadcasts. There is some confusion among sources about which stations broadcast during the first year. Lambert states that radio stations from Chilliwack and Trail carried the broadcasts in addition to the ones listed above. 'We're on the Air!," the B.C. Teacher, XVIII (April, 1938), p. 375, expresses thanks on behalf of Mr. Lord to the stations in Chilliwack and Kelowna as well to the Vancouver station. ARPS 1937-38, p. 29 lists only the three stations identified above.
5. This arrangement continued until 1946 when the Department of Education assumed full responsibility for the director's salary.
6. In the 1970s and 1980s, for example, the Ministry of Education located its Print and Educational Media Centre (PEMC) in Burnaby and Richmond and its Educational Technology Centre (ETC) in North Saanich.
7. Once a script was drafted, Kitley circulated it to specialist teachers around the province for their response. After revising the script, he would take it for practice testing in classrooms. At each stage, he reported later, "some features would be eliminated and others added." His emphasis on quality programming set a standard that was followed by other provinces in their educational radio development.
8. The proper use of radio as a teaching aid was outlined in bulletins sent out by the committee and later by the directors; in CBC program schedules; and in educational magazines such as the B. C. Teacher and B. C. Schools, a departmental publication (CBCPS, September 26, 1943). An example of the rules for effective use of school broadcasts, "The Ten Demandments," were excerpted from the Wisconsin "School of the Air" and published in the CBC Program Schedule. According to these rules, a teacher should:
9. See, for example, Fleming, 1986, and Fleming, 1989.
Dr. Thomas Fleming is a professor of educational history with the Faculty of Education, University of Victoria, British Columbia.
Tara Toutant is a graduate student in educational administration at the University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia.