Three Propositions, Two Frameworksand an IndictmentKIT LAYBOURNE

PROPOSITION ONE: Redefining Survival SkillsUnderstanding Media is a Basic Skill . The tradition-al three R's simply no longer constitute the corecurriculum of things that kids need to know aboutif they are to make it in our society . There are en-tirely new sets of perceptual, critical and creativeskills. No medium is more important for kids tounderstand than video .

PROPOSITION TWO: The Importance of InterfaceUsing video with kids means more than extendingprograms in the Communications Arts . Similarly,the interrelationship of video to existing instruc-tional rubrics (and to the traditional basic skills)needs to be explored from a broader perspectivethan the familiar Audio-Visual frameworks have al-lowed . Video should be used to fuse separate disci-plines and to reintegrate school and community .

PROPOSITION THREE : How You Teach Is WhatYou Teach or Watch Out for Hidden StructuresWe who teach media have a special thing going forus. The very discipline we are engaged in teachingprovides important perceptions into how and whatwe should be teaching. We must use video to ex-tend the options for learning .

FRAMEWORK I

Video as Something to Know About and as a Wayof Knowing

This framework seeks to help a teacher in figuringout what kids should know about television and vi-deo. By outlining four broad teaching units, theframework points out concrete concerns fromwhich learning experiences can be designed . Exam-ples of specific activities are not included here .

1) Knowing Oneself: Defining a Video SelfA first priority in teaching video should be ground-ing each learner within his or her own realm of ex-perience . Kids ought to be provided with activitiesthat help them gauge their own facilities in video-related skills and that help them perceive the roletelevision plays in their lives .

Gauging FacilitiesLearning about any medium is, in a sense, contin-gent upon learning how one learns . The teacher,then, should design learning experiences that coverall facets of video communications. The goal here isfor kids to try on many different video-making andvideo-studying roles - being a "critic," a "writer," a"cameraperson," a "director ." But the teachershould also invent rituals through which kids canreflect upon the meanings of these experiences .Kids need to track their relative facility and interestin doing different tasks . From this they can fashiona realistic portrait of themselves as video people . Itshould be a tentative portrait however - continuingwork will let kids test further their sense of profi-ciency ; amplifying skills that are already good,strengthening those which are weak .

Here is a checklist of specific skill groupings thatmight be included : working with hardware, script-ing-conceptualizing, interviewing, analyzing videoproductions, directing productions, measuring im-pact upon audience, acting, researching, editing vi-deotape . And you could list more .

There are other important dimensions of workingwith video in which kids need to gauge their facili-ty : working styles (tenacity, independence, re-sourcefulness), group-relations abilities (working a-lone, or with others, following and leading), obser-vational skills (listening, being aware of the needs

of others, processing elements of group dynamics) .And more .

Perceiving Dependencies and Options

Television is such a pervasive constituent in the lifeof today's youngsters that they have no awarenessof its scope . The technological media of communi-cations and environment mold us in ways that wedo not see. Video Studies must try to carry theidea that "the medium is the message" past thethreshold of perception . By helping our studentslook at themselves and their work in new ways, wecan work the epiphany that accompanies seeingnew patterns to something more important - con-sciously molding patterns for oneself.

So an early necessity in teaching video is helpingkids discover what role TV watching plays in theirlives . Also, what is the full spectrum of television'sopportunities for information, entertainment andand interaction . Hardware isn't necessary in devi-sing activities that address this need .

2) Learning the Turf : TV StudyWith an understanding of themselves as video con-sumers, students are ready to participate in a moreformal study of the television medium . Two per-spectives can help the teacher discover ideas thatwill lead the kids in understanding television .

Surveying Local Broadcast InstitutionsThis is a "micro" perspective that includes study oflocal video mediums . Kids should examine whocontrols these institutions, the jobs existing withineach, what service they provide the community,what programming they carry and should carry, theaudience being reached and what effect the pro-gramming has both in terms of "content" and"massage."

Defining TV as Mass CommunicationThis is a "macro" perspective . The emphasis is ondiscovering larger patterns and issues which tie themedium into society as a whole . Concerns heremight include these topics : what is the history ofthe medium ; what is the nature of national net-work broadcasting; who regulates the medium ;can new technological developments expand andalter TV; how has the medium effected our cul-ture ; what ought its future be?

3) Choosing Weapons : VT MakingThe content of a new medium is the form of an oldmedium. For the most part, television today car-ries the forms that were developed for earlier dra-ma, radio, motion picture and newspaper mediums .In using portable and simple-to-operate video sys-tems, most of us (like broadcasters) tend to use themedium from the perspective of these older,known mediums . To a certain extent, this is fine :kids ought to be provided with experiences thatpromote their criticial and creative competencies

with regard to current television forms. At thesame time, we need to be particularly sensitive tothe unrevealed potentials of this new medium . It isclear that portable video systems can do things thatno other medium can do . We need to create oppor-tunities and tolerences for our students to exploreand chart the full domain of videotape.

Production ModesHere is a checklist of production modes that kidsshould be introduced to : Dramatic (theater games,improvisations, original teleplays, adaptations ofstage productions) ; Documentary (studies of o-ther cultures and sub-cultures, portraits of friendsand institutions, investigative reporting on schoolor community issues) ; Bio-Documentary (self-por-traits, studies of own family and peer groups, re-flections on facets of one's own culture and envi-ronment); Group Processing (role-playing, valuesclarification games, ethnography of the video class,tape exchanges with kids in other programs at o-ther locations) ; Journalistic (street-shooting, in-depth interviews with playback to subject, schoolnewscasting) ; Experimental and Non-Figurative(video-feedback, collage and resynthesis of broad-cast materials, non-narrative studies of motion,time, place) ; Mixed Media (tapes designed for usewithin other performing contexts - music, dancetheater, recitation, the plastic arts .)

4) Making Changes : Purposeful VideoThe focus now turns outward. Emphasis falls on lo-cating a problem and then trying to effect it insome known way . The process here centers on theconcept of a "student-task force" and it incorpo-rates four active phases : research, production, pre-sentation and evaluation .

This final portion of the framework ties togetherthe preceding ones . Much exploration of various"study" and "making" facets of Video Studies hasequipped students to use their new critical and cre-ative skills for a purpose . Working as a group, theyput their artistries and understandings to task,They use video to communicate a message of theirchoice to a specific audience outside the class . Thecriteria for success become objectified and concise -of effecting real change .

FRAMEWORK II

Video as a Communication Tool Serving Education

It is not enough that video and television enter thecurriculum as a new and legitimate subject . Videoshould be used for the purpose of breaking down -not reinforcing - the anachronistic structure of ourschools .

Here then is another very short framework . It pro-scribes another set of concerns that ring those ofthe preceding framework .

1) Interdisciplinary ToolIn the degree that video joins reading, speaking, lis-tening and writing as an integral part of the Com-munication Arts, it can become a constant pres-ence in any teaching situation . Because video is atool for gathering, processing, and presenting in-formation, it can be placed within any of the tradi-tional curricula . But more, it can fuse what are im-plicitly presented to kids as distinct and unrelatedfields of knowledge . Projects can be designed thatuse video to wed, say, athletic programs and theEnglish class or political campaigns to social studiesor science field trips to journalism classes .

2) Intra School Information SystemsParents, teachers, students and administrators needto stay in touch with each other . Either used aloneor programmed into existing closed-circuit systems,video can serve the needs of a school's communityto keep itself informed . We tend to forget some-times video's capabilities to store and re-cycle in-formation .

3) A Mirror for Self-RealizationVideo is a therapeutic tool . It has important uses inlielping individuals or groups gain more objectiveaccess to their own behavior and feelings . Videotools have important applications in areas of stu-dent counselling and in on-going teacher develop-ment . The ability of videotape to capture learninginteraction is such that it will be necessary for ma-ny teachers to develop completely new skills in ef-fectively utilizing this dimension of video .

4) Access to Community ResourcesWith video the real (reel) world can enter the class-room . Making tapes necessarily turns kids to re-sources and issues beyond the school's walls . Con-sider cable television . Our inherited notions aboutschools and education will be broken to pieceswhen cable head-ends become located in institu-tions of learning . Not only will kids have real audi-ences, but they will also have real services to pro--

vide various community groups as they enter theschool to do their own programming .

Video is far more than a new configuration of basicskills, a new subject to be squeezed into theschool's curriculum . It is a communications medi-um, a cybernetic information system with poten-tials for re-shaping both the structure of teachingand the structure of schooling . People who use vi-deo with kids ought to consider the medium's po-tential to interface all segments of the learning en-vironment - subjects, institutions, and people .

AN INDICTMENT AND A MODEL

Frameworks and diagrams are a little cold . I wantto balance them with something more personal .The concern here remains that of structure . But bylaying down some indictments and then by describ-ing how I think video should be taught, I hope toexpress more personally how I feel about all this .

Some Personal Observations Aboutthe Way Things Get Taught

Almost all of what passes for learning in ourschools and universities has four basic components :the subject area, the space/schedule, the student,and the teacher . Interacting, these elements pre-scribe the ground of what is to be learned and theydefine the processes by which learning will takeplace .

My own experiences as teacher and student con-vince me that, by and large, those who teach havethought very little about the nature of learning orthe implicit statements about knowledge-gettingthat reside within the curricula that are offered forstudy . The emphasis always appears to be placedon the "subject" and course content. At the sametime, my own work in media constantly supportsthat proposition that how we learn is, in fact, whatwe learn .

Subject AreaEvery teacher is forced to teach in a specific area .It would be impossible not to do this . Yet too of-ten in making the necessary decisions about thesubject we will teach, we carelessly adopt para-digms that were developed for other fields ofknowledge and developed at a time when both thenature of knowledge and the needs of learners wasdifferent than they are today. Continuing speciali-zation is part of the problem . The more we knowof a thing, the less we teach of its whole . Interdis-ciplinary approaches are rare. Thus we leave it tothe bright student to perceive not only the waythat our own field fits together but the mannerthat all fields interweave their concerns in all waysand always . I observe that in teaching media we al-most invariably disconnect making things fromstudying things . There are some reasons for thisbut none of them are congruent with the nature ofthe field .

Schedules and SpacesWe all know that any subject area is affected byhow it is packaged as well as how it is defined . Butit is uncommon to find teachers or departmentsthat challenge their own institutions' packaging ofestablished and arbitrary schedules, length of clas-ses, durations of courses, places for learning or thevery notions bound up in departmental structures .Each of these things affects what it is we have cho-sen to teach about .

StudentsThe one-dimensional perspective by which studentsare viewed is similarly out-of-sync with what ourown discipline makes clear. In planning courses anddepartmental curricula we take little account be-yond lip service of the fact that there is no suchthing as a typical student - that each learner comesto us with different concerns, different experiencesand, most important, different ways of learning . Aspeople have noted before, our educational systemsare based upon the model of the factory ; each of usholds our position on the production line as weperform the same operation upon an endless streamof similarly perceived objects . We even insist on ourown forms of quality control - grades, require-ments and degrees .

TeachersThe observations one can make about the fourthcomponent of formal schooling are no less chilling .We have chosen to define our roles as teachers innineteenth century terms even though we claim toknow something about twentieth century commu-nications forms and our post-industrial society .Like our own grade school teachers, our studentswill be able to say of us, "He didn't teach video forfifteen years, he taught the same year of video fif-teen times ." Fortunately, elementary school teach-ing is beginning to change today and there is muchwe can learn from the movement towards "openeducation ." We can learn as teachers, for example,to evaluate and distinguish between activity-basedand lecture-based learning, between inductive anddeductive learning processes, between student se--

John Hilllected and teacher-selected curricula . If we perceiveourselves as mediums through which discovery is totake place, we ought to be able to adopt a varietyof roles equal to the variety of learners and the va-riety of subject areas we teach . And if we werereally to apply the media truism about form-is-con-tent to our selection of colleagues, we would findour institutions maintaining the eclecticism and dy-namism that is inherent in our field . The frighten-ing movement towards certification of instructorswould be exposed for the featherbedding apparatusit really is .

It is difficult to observe the medium of existing, in-stitutionalized education without indicting it . Yet,faced with the pervasive and persuasive presence ofestablished norms for teaching and learning, it iseven more difficult to begin turning things around .But it is precisely this task that I feel the teachersof media are specially equipped to do .

An Integrated Video Studies CurriculumAs a way of discussing a re-integration of the whatsand the bows of teaching, I would like to describea model video curriculum . Putting it another way,here is how I would structure an integrated set oflearning environments for video . The broad aim be-hind this plan is simply to open-up many ways oflearning and many ways of defining subject matter .

Formal Video StudiesThere should be at least one course in video . Itwould address the concerns and follow the develop-mental structure outlined in Framework I . Butthere would also be an introductory course aimedat "exposing" students to the fundamentals ofimage making and image study as coexisting withinfilm, photography, sound and video .

In designing a specific curriculum for a formalcourse, care would be spent in constructing activi-ties that cover as broad as possible a spectrum ofexperiential processes . Sometimes students wouldbe forced to work together, sometimes alone .Sometimes the teacher's input would be quite cen-tral (lectures, analysis of videotapes, discussions of

Tad Danforth

readings, etc.) In other activities, students might berequired to teach each other . Sometimes theywould be required to take on problems withoutany guidance. In all formal courses, students wouldbe urged to reflect upon the variety of ways inwhich they were being asked to learn .

Such formal offerings would provide students witha highly structured and tightly focused field tolearn about. The pace and content would be prettymuch controlled by the teacher. Informal courses,required readings, viewings, discussions, field-trips,production projects and presentations by guestswould seek to insure that kids perceive the field ofvideo and television in its broadest sense .

Interdisciplinary Video StudiesA video teacher would carry less than the full aca-demic load in order to work with others on thefaculty in developing cross-disciplinary projects .Teaching units that involve broadcasting analysisand VTR production could be scheduled for"American History" and "Urban Studies" classes .Elsewhere in the school's curriculum, video wouldbe incorporated within theater, dance and writingcourses .

In order to insure that the interdisciplinary workhave an impact upon both school and community,a special interdisciplinary course would be offered .Here small groups of kids with production compe-tence in video would use their skills in seeking toeffect specific change within the school or largercommunity . Although video would be extensivelyused within this course . The real subject matterwould be determined by the students. The only re-quirements placed on each of the small video taskforces would be that it research its problem, deve-lop a strategy for change, produce a video-basedstatement, present this message to a targeted audi-ence and evaluate the message-success in terms ofgoal. It would be through this "process" ratherthan a prescribed "content" that this course woulddefine itself. An interdisciplinary focus would beachieved, of course, regardless of what specific"problem" students choose .

Informal and Independent Video Studies

Finally, an integrated video curriculum should laygreat stress on creating opportunities (and toler-ances) for "other" contexts through which toteach and learn about television .

The teacher would try to establish work-study orapprentice-type situations where individual kidswould work on video related projects . Perhaps, forexample, kids would spend time at a local broad-cast or cable station . Or they might use skills theyhad developed (and the school's equipment if nec-essary) in providing video expertise to groups out-side the school . Or some kids could teach videowithin nearby elementary schools .

Open workshops and free access to hardware would

be available for any student who wanted to trysomething with videotape . The teacher's goal insuch an open context would be to accommodateeach individual's rate, level, purpose and style oflearning - even when the teacher could foresee fail-ure on various terms . Indeed, failures would becommon . A specific concern in creating informalworkshop environments would be to help studentsgain the confidence to experiment freely and forits own sake instead of constantly seeking a "suc-cessful" product and a teacher's sanction .

A Summary

Education is an art . It takes its form from the deli-cate and shifting engagement between those whoare learning, those who are teaching, the environ-ment of that learning and the subject matterthrough which and for which the meeting takesplace . Because teaching is an art, because video isan art too, there is very, very little that can be saidin a general way about any specific component ofthe exchange . Similarly, there is very little that canbe assumed or left unstudied .

It is not the purpose of either the two frameworksor this model to provide formulas for working withvideo and kids. I believe there are no prescriptionsto be handed down about what constitutes a goodteacher, or learner, or source, or curriculum . Rath-er, the purpose of this article is to open-up options,to encourage diversity, to help in considering allpossibilities and dangers

. And to show how these are interrelated completely .

Ellie Bartow