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Today schools seem to be brimming with technology, with even primary schools having several computers, TVs, video recorders and those fancy-shmanchy electronic white boards. In the eighties we thought ourselves lucky (and we were!) if we had one BBC Micro for the entire school and a single big TV on wheels.
Did your school have one of these? The big TV was sat on a massive wheeled stand, and was contained in a wooden cabinet with two doors that covered the screen. If your school was lucky the stand also housed a video recorder, which none of the teachers seemed to have the foggiest idea how to operate, so the class was left for ten minutes yelling what needed to be done whilst the teacher fiddled about, called another teacher, who fiddled some more before giving up and then calling the one teacher in the school who actually did know how to use it, and promptly did exactly what the children had been saying to do.
Everyone used to look forward to seeing the TV set appear, both because of the high spirits that occured whilst waiting for the teachers to get their act together, and also because it meant you were going to be allowed to watch one of those programmes for schools and colleges instead of doing some real work!
Sometimes the big TV also doubled as the afore mentioned BBC Micro’s monitor, which was even more fun as it required the teacher to work out how to connect up and start a computer, which was guaranteed to be even more fun that seeing them struggle to work a VCR.
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Yes, I remember that kind of thing from my own school days. Indeed, at one school I went to, the TV on wheels was housed in its very own room: the AV room! Ooh ah! (Like a shrine it was!) I also remember when VCRs first made their appearance, and how amusing we all found it to watch stuff when either the fast forward or rewind button was pressed. With regards to computers, I was a bit luckier than you, I have to say. The first school I went to that got them, way back in 1984, acquired a number of Commodore 64 machines (and it was a pretty small school too!)*, while a school I went to after that had a WHOLE ROOM filled with Apples!
*They probably wouldn’t have gotten them, though, if a new headmaster hadn’t taken the reins the year I started there. Apparently the previous headmaster had refused to get computers for the school, on the grounds that the Bible forbade them. Say what?!
I’m a primary teacher and have to tell you that most schools I’ve worked in still have the big tv on wheels! Thank god too as the schools have loads of videos and no DVDs! We also have the fancy shmancy white boards which I love but older teachers often have fits over.
This week I had a really cheeky kid take the piss out of me because I said, “We have free time tomorrow if anyone has a video they want to bring in”, of course I should have said DVD. Way to make me feel old kid!
I remember these very well. Every break time I was tasked with distributing the tv and audio equipment to the next class that needed it. A lot of the other kids took the mickey, because I didn’t get out out break, but what they didn’t realise was that the tv room was very secluded and dark and i occasionally had visits from some of the girls. Much better than behind the bike sheds.
Wow, Zosimus, you sure were lucky to have that many computers. I was still using BBC Micros until I had nearly finished school…
Jo, I guess you get used to cheeky kids after a while, but I can imagine you felt a bit silly. Still, glad to hear the big TVs are still doing the rounds. Shame the kids don’t get to play pretend target practice shooting the timer marks that used to come on before the schools and colleges programmes.
And Paul, I hope you mean you were a pupil at the time…
We also have the fancy shmancy white boards which I love but older teachers often have fits over.
Well, at least with the white boards, you can’t make hideous noises on them by running your fingernails down them. Ugh! (I still get nervous tingles every time I see someone writing on a blackboard (usually only in the movies or on TV these days), thanks to a number of unpleasant childhood experiences involving sadistic classmates who seemed to love making the aforementioned noises on the old blackboards to gross everyone else in the room out.)
I work in a well known supermarket and up to quite recently they had a big tv on wheels for people to watch training video’s and dvd’s on. But they now have a small pink tv dvd combi which they ues instead.
So now they can only train a handful of people at once, since they all have to cram round a tiny pink TV?
Ooh, I hate that noise. It’s right up there with people touching their eyeballs, or touching that horrible thermal paper that photocopiers used to use years ago (our primary school had one, and I used to dread being giving a sheet of the stuff for any reason).
“If your school was lucky the stand also housed a video recorder, which none of the teachers seemed to have the foggiest idea how to operate, so the class was left for ten minutes yelling what needed to be done whilst the teacher fiddled about”
Never have truer words been spoken.