St Edwards University - Tower Yearbook (Austin, TX)

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the president and faculty of St Edwards University cordially invite you to A, Convocation honoring Joan Ganz Cooney President, Childrens Television Workshop Creator of Sesame Street” and the third recipient of the St even Serie aw Quest Tuesday April, [TH a+ 8:00 p.m. The Atrium, Moody Hal| Reception Aferwards

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nore the complementary truth that direct lk experience undisciplined by technical reason can also be a treacherous master, ‘a leading to slovenly mysticism and, ul- timately, to a breakdown of communica- ’ tion. Both forms of thought are as nec- Ta essary to create understanding of reality as both sexes are to create new life... The search for the sacred in nature, ny the third major theme in the student movement’s system of ideas, has many of « the same characteristics as the concerns with reason and the nonrational. There is the same partial truth, the same unreal- istic turning of one’s back on what has ey already been accomplished, but also there is the same unerring aim at one of the most dangerous and critical imbalances in our American culture. The point can be conveyed, as my colleague William Bar- rett points out, by contrasting a windmill with a bulldozer. The windmill has to Ui ricdate iteelt to the wind and the terrain. To fulfill its function as a windmill, it makes use of the region even as it accommodates itself to it. It uses + the wind in such a way as not to consume it. The wind continues on and remains the wind. The windmill can use the wind only by giving itself to it; it lets the wind be wind. The bulldozer is a human artifact of a very different kind. Its name appropriately conveys the idea of power: It does not accom- modate itself to the objects of nature, but overpowers them. It bursts through obstacles, pushes them aside, levels them ... It is in this sense that the student ‘movement rejects the sharpness of the dichot- omy between man and his environment, deval- uing the artificial works of man and el- j the | all ent | sil evating instead the natural environment to the status of the sacred. It should be clear, then, that the great idea embodied in the student move- ment, the mass media to the contrary, is not that of political revolution in the classic sense of an overt transfer of power from those who now wield it to those who carry out the revolution. Since the early 1960s, the campus has served as incubator for two kinds of social change—one political, the other cultural. Up to now, the two have inter- penetrated each other, with the political side being the more prominent. Our re- search has shown that the tide of poli- tical radicalism on campus shifted direction in 1971, receding from its 1970 high. Although the number of students who identify with the New Left has not di- minished significantly over the past sev- eral years, the campus as a whole is far less politicized today than in previous years. The question now is, what will happen in the future? . . - Has the major thrust of the campus- led political revolution merely paused be- | fore renewing itself or has it entered a period of decline? How deep are the roots of student political radicalism? Our interpretation of the student move- ment suggests that the campus-based poli- tical revolution is over for the fore- seeable future, while the cultural revo- lution—the new naturalism—will continue to grow at an ever increasing tempo .. . Great ideas work by a covert underground process. Just when the students have aban- doned their evangelism and activism, the seeds of the idea that now flourishes on campus have taken root in the larger culture. Before the decade of the 1970s has passed, the new naturalism will become a powerful force, nationwide in scope. April 1, 1972 Copyright, Saturday Review, Inc. 41

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iailenzing educators to put away the schnology of the past 500 years Mrs. Joan sanz Cooney accepted St. Edward’s Univer- ity’s third Quest Medal, the university’s ighest honor, created to recognize individ- als whose life work has been characterized y creative enterprise and original thought. Mrs. Cooney is the founder and presi- ent of the Children’s Television Workshop, | project which adapts television to early hildhood education. The workshop’s chief roduct, Sesame Street, aimed primarily at isadvantaged children, is seen by greater nan half of the 12 million three-to-five- ear-olds in the United States. The Electric | 1 ‘ompany for older children, is a more recent roduct of the workshop. “Our view,” recalled Mrs. Cooney, when we began in 1968, was that television yas not about to go away, that we who were terested in the education of children had etter capture some of television’s methods nd turn them to our own purposes.” | On the strength of Mrs. Cooney’s study . or the Carnegie Corporation, which detailed he unprecedented pervasiveness of the tele- ision medium in youngster’s lives, and with elp from Head Start, Carnegie, Ford and Jarkle Foundations, and the Corporation or Public Broadcasting, the Children’s Tele- ision Workshop was born to address these urposes through some very specific curricu- um goals; recognition of letters in the alpha- et, counting ability, beginning reasoning sills, vocabulary, and an increased aware- ess of self and the world. “We co-opted,” Mrs. Cooney explained, commercials for our own purposes.” “We knew that children loved television, specially the animation and music and 10vements. And, above all, young children »ved commercials.” “We knew that children learned from aem. Children, all over America, were heard nging catchy little songs about Ballantine eer and Sominex.” “So, why not use these devices—really 1arvelous audio-visual techniques, and ef- 2cts—to teach something more constructive, ke numbers and letters and concepts, in- ead of advertising jingles?” “In the process of putting Sesame he Second Generation of Educational Television Street together, using all the standard techniques of commercial television, we evolved a new form. In other words, changing the content transformed the style as well.” “. . . Virtually everything about the series is ¢xploratory, and subject to modi- fication. That it remains so after the production of more than 500 hours of broadcast time, is the result of one of the more unlikely marriages in the history of television.” “That is, the union between produc- tion and research—involving educators in the determination of curriculum, and keeping them involved as the Series progressed.” “Putting research and production to- gether was a trial marriage. A number of television professions suspected it would be more trial than marriage. But they were wrong. A marvelous spirit of cooper- ation developed between broadcaster and researcher. It has kept us questioning, probing, innovating, adapting.” “.. . The galleon on the Quest Medal reminds me that before Columbus dared to:sail the Atlantic, it was well known that the world ended out there some- where beyond Gibralter.” “To the Spanish, one of the real sources of pride was that they were the last outpost of the world, with their nation fronting on the Great Beyond. Therefore, the royal coat of arms showed the Pillars of Hercules, the great columns guarding the Straits of Gibralter. The royal motto said plainly: Ne plus ultra. “There is no more beyond here’.’ “But, then, Columbus came back. And the ancient coat of arms didn’t seem ° so appropriate any more. In this crisis someone made a noble and thrifty sug- gestion that they simply kill the first word, ‘ne’.” “So the coat of arms read, and has read ever since, just two words.” “Plus ultra. ‘There is more beyond’.” “T believe that about the use of tele- vision for education: There is plenty more beyond. It remains for us to find it.” g « a] % ‘7 ak €€ Teaching and television are a logical and necessary match, and they must become the best of allies and most trusting of partners. 99