educational programming for retrieval purposes. The television installation, a complete closed circuit television studio, includes the following equipment:
Television Tape Recorder-with VTR Table-1" tape
The overriding problem is the racial and cultural alienation, isolation and polarization of an urban community. The physical and psychological decay inherent in the urban condition demonstrates poor skill subject achievement. All these conditions are manifest in the typical symptomatology: poor attendance patterns, poor selfconcept, hostility, juvenile delinquency and a high incidence of drop-outs. This is all related ultimately to its base cause as seen from a psychological perspective which is a poorly developed self-concept. This poor development results in the lack of coping mechanisms. These coping mechanism deficits result in inappropriate reactions to the stimuli of the urban condition with its attendant physical and psychological pressures.
These problems are attendant to the urban condition and are replicated throughout the country. The attempt at improving a cultural self-concept is not typically done with the large group scale we are proposing in this project. Never before has a community been ready for the type of program planning in this design and neither has the technology been available previously in an urban site.
(b) The target population in this case, East Chicago, Indiana,
with its selected target area evidences all the problems.
This is the urban condition; these are the problems.
(c) Mass communications media has demonstrated that it is a
viable vehicle for breaking through barriers of hostility,
learning problems and lack of motivation while reaching
large groups. An emerging educational trend has illustrated
the validity of a multi-cultural experience as a basic need
for growth in a search for individual and cultural identity.
Active community participation has been seen as an absolute
necessity in creating a positive image of the schools in an
urban setting. These three themes, community involvement,
a multi-cultural experience and modern communications
techniques all speak to a resolution of the problem: polar-
ization and decay of the urban condition.
The target population to be involved in this design numbers
approximately 5,000 pupils, grades K through 12 housed in five
elementary centers, one junior high school and one senior high
school in one geographic section of the total community. Of
these approximately 5,000 pupils located in the target community,
1,717 or 34% come from low income families and meet Title I
income guidelines.
The social economic aspects of the target population and of the
community indicate that this is a typical inner-city pópulation
in that most of the families reside in housing units that are
either dilapidated or deteriorating and are over crowded. There
is a high concentration of welfare and township relief recipients
in the area. The rate of unemployment is unusually high for an
industrialized urban community of this type. There is a basic
language communications problem among most of the inhabitants of
the target area and they suffer the social implications that are
a natural outgrowth of economic and cultural deprivation. Most
of the residents of the target area exhibit a ghetto life style
in which they view outsiders, whether they be educators or not,
with distrust.
In comparison, the target population to be involved in this
design is a microcosm of the total client le served by the school
system differing only in that the social economic problems that
are common in the entire community are present to a greater degree
having greater impact upon this select group.
The development of a mass communications approach to a multicultural experience.
Involve an already aware community in a broadly based multi-
cultural experience.
Improve the self-concept of the racial/ethnic residents of
East Chicago.
Recognize the interdependence of socially and economically
different racial groups
Develop the target population into a total community of
teachers and learners
Reduce pupil learning/reading problems, alienation, hostility
and motivational deficits
The project is an outgrowth of community desires and needs as
it made demonstrably clear to the schools the need for a program
to reduce racial tension and polarization. The community will
have an active partnership on the Project Development Team in
the planning, programming and production of a multi-cultural
experience utilizing modern communications media. As the project
moves to its culminating phase, the community will assume the
leadership role in the planning and production of the extension
services, i.e. adult and pre-school programs.
This projects basic thrust is the implementation of a locally
designed experiential, multi-cultural curriculum delivered to
a large racially homogenous groups which transcend the typical
age-grade groupings. A central T.V. studio will broadcast the
curriculum to the five participating school sites.
This exper-
ience will initially be developed for presentation to the larger
groups for participation of at least two afternoons per week.
The larger teaching groups are K-3rd grade, 4-6, 7-8, and 9-12th
grades. They will be reached instantaneously and simultaneously
using the video tape capability of our 4 channel closed circuit
T.V. broadcast system.
The curriculum will be developed into two gross categories; a
skill subject core of science, math and reading and a cultural
subject core of language arts, social studies, music and art.
To maintain the humanizing aspect of this cultural experience,
it will be necessary to regroup the large classes into smaller
discussion groups led by racially aligned staff for culminating
expanding and individualizing experiences within the cultural
core of the curriculum.
The central T.V. studio and the resource centers at each participating site will be staffed with professional media experts and indigenous cultural aides who will be available for assisting classroom teachers in preparing material and developing instructional strategies.
The first two years of the project will be devoted to in-
service training of approximately six months and one and
a half years of study of an individual's own culture pre-
paratory to the second phase which is the cross-fertili-
zation aspect wherein pupils will then be grouped heter-
ogeneously by race and culture. It is seen that the
initial investigation of an individual's own cultural
heritage leads to a growth of self-concept. It is then a
natural, logical sequence that a study of other cultures and
the differences and similarities will lead to knowledge and
acceptance and appreciation of those similarities and those
basic necessary difference.
The project development team composition as dilineated in
Figure #2, has as its bridge to the target community of
teachers and learners the services of indigenous cultural
aides who will be the most humanizing influence of the total
project. The entire professional staff of media specialists,
resource personnel and instructional teams will be certified
employees of the schools. Administratively, the project
director will report to the Assistant Superintendent. Because
participating professional staff are members of the school,
this guarantees that the project will interface with the
schools total administrative and organizational structure.
The community is seen as reinforcing the curriculum via
establishing direction and active participation as
and paraprofessional staff members. The technological aspects
reinforce the cultural reshaping as the program is impossible
without technology's ability to reach large separated groups
instantaneously. The multi-cultural aspects of the curriculum
depend upon community input for leadership, direction and
support as they are a function of technology's capabilities.
We have previously seen with small scale pilot projects
locally the possibility of improving self-concept, hence ego
development. We have seen technology's success in skill
achievement as it reaches large groups of separated youngsters.
We have seen the efficacy of a mutually shared school-community
cultural enrichment program. We have seen already the benefits
of community involvement via our Title I community liaison
workers, Title I Advisory Committee, Headstart Parents Action
Committee, and most importantly, the Superintendents Task
Force. This Task Force is a Rockefeller Foundation funded pro-
gram which provides for site visits of community representatives
to view viable programs which might have transferability to
East Chicago. A proper and extensive mix of previsouly iso-
lated programs which can now be put into an organizational
umbrella with a broad thrust is seen as finally approaching a
solution of some of the urban condition's problems.
Obviously, the synergistic affects of the three program components community involvement in instruction and curricular design, multi-cultural core curriculum, and creative use of modern communications techniques is greater than these components operating in isolation or limited combinations. Viewing the entire urban target community as a community of teachers and learners utilizing modern communication equipment in a reshaped curriculum stressing cultural values with new teaching strategies is a unique experimental design not previously attempted or perhaps conceived.
Schematic Illustration of Time Sequences Involved in a Community in the Urban Condition' "Television Communications Approach To A Multi-Cultural School Experience for
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