Of AV, the birds and the bees
Audio-visual,
or "AV" as we used to call it, has changed a lot. There is a TV in every
classroom at my sons' school, equipped with either a VCR or DVD player—or
both. It's standard equipment. Only once in grade school did I see a TV
permanently in the classroom. That was in second grade and I managed to break
it by climbing on the cart and pulling the whole thing over. That cost Dad
money to replace it, and me in terms of sitting ability. Otherwise, the only
time a TV was wheeled into a classroom was on the rare occasion of a live news
event. And back in the day, AV
itself was an event.
We all
remember filing into our classrooms for another day of droning from a teacher,
with the sound of an oscillating fan muffling the tap and scratch of chalk as
the teacher scribbled on the blackboard. But when you walked in and saw a screen
set on a tripod and that old gray, bulky Bell & Howell projector on a cart
set in the center aisle half way back—it was filmstrip time, baby. Not
quite as good as a day off—though it was close.
The
lights dimmed and the blinds closed, if the classroom had blinds. The shade was
pulled down over the window in the door. You heard the flick of the switch and
the whirring of the little electric motor ramping up. Then came the rattle of
the sprockets hitting the film. Suddenly the filmstrip rolled, the bulb warmed
up and the countdown shown on the screen was matched to the telltale blips
confirming the sync-up of the sound. Mono, by the way, was what we
got—amounting to muffled narration and music horrendously high-treble and
tinny background music.
In
addition to questionable audio, the visual was sometimes as bad. The filmstrip
might be scarred from abuse, holes for the sprocket were often torn or missing,
cellophane tape was even used to repair splices. And every now and then, the
film got hung up in the works and you watched a brown hole burn into the film
from the heat of the lamp.
Still,
somehow, you came away with knowledge about the life cycle of frogs, lizards,
or something teachers were convinced was important. Ones that I still remember
are the short documentaries on the Nazi atrocities. To this day I can recall
those filmstrips with graphic images of horrors endured by millions of Jews.
There was also one that was a Vietnam-era anti-war film staring Michael
Douglas. He was a reluctant soldier forced by his father to respond to the
draft. Douglas died in the end.
But
the all-time blockbuster was the one about the birds and the bees in 5th
grade. Yeah, that put it all
together and lifted the veil surrounding those wacky feelings that abound in
the moody prepubescent. Not. In fact the clinical presentation bore no
resemblance to the truth that was inevitably discovered.
Nevertheless,
bear in mind that this was in Catholic school, so you can imagine the
controversy that stirred up. Still, only one girl in the whole grade was
excused from viewing the material—which was in a coed environment. We
were not segregated. The girl's mother was from Spain and felt she shouldn't be
exposed to such knowledge so young. She might have rethought the strategy had
she known her daughter would grow up to have three husbands and something like
five kids. I'm reasonably sure she was done with kids at last contact, but I
think she had husband number four in the crosshairs.
Certainly
AV has changed. But in the coming weeks, the birds and the bees curriculum is a
train chugging toward my older son's 5th grade class. It's scheduled
for later this month. Knowing my son, I'm sure he will immediately provide a
report on his view of accuracy and the quality of the production. Stay tuned.
Copyright 2008 by David Falloure
