The blind and the one-eyed monster in the living room
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011Edward Thompson was responsible for some significant developments within the field of history, notably The Making of the English Working Class. He also worked for the WEA and recently an article (possibly unpublished) for the WEA magazine, Highway by him, about the OU has come into my possession (thanks to Malcolm Chase). Although undated there is a reference to the Sunday Citizen (Reynolds’ News as was) which ceased trading in 1967. There are other references which make it clear that the way in which the OU was to be structured had not reached the author’s ears (and indeed may well not have been devised).
Thompson argued against the OU (which he consistently referred to by its older name of the University of the Air) because it appeared to him to offer centralised lectures, not ‘the essential mutuality of the teaching relationship… the controlled dialogue between teacher and class’. He suggested that
The limitation of the television screen is not only that the student cannot question it or answer back; it is also that the man on the screen is blind (more…)