Continental Classroom

1958 American TV series or program

Continental Classroom

Also known as| Education Exchange
Genre| Educational television
Created by| Edward Stanley
Country of origin| United States
Production
Running time| 30 minutes
Original release
Network| NBC
Release| October 6, 1958 (1958-10-06) –
December 18, 1964 (1964-12-18)

Continental Classroom is a U.S. educational television program that was broadcast on the NBC network five days a week in the early morning from 1958 to 1963, covering physics, chemistry, mathematics, and American government. It was targeted at teachers and college students and many institutions offered college credit for courses of which the broadcasts were the main component. The physics course was the first course in the subject available for credit nationwide and the government course was the first nationally broadcast TV course in social studies; the mathematics course has been called the first MOOC (massive open online course) in statistics.

## Background, production and format

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The idea for the course came from the drive to upgrade science education in the US after the Soviet Union's successful launch of Sputnik in 1957. Learning of a plan by the New York State Commissioner of Education, James Allen, to spend $600,000 on a refresher course for science teachers, Edward Stanley, Director of Public Affairs and Education at NBC, decided the network could do the same nationwide for not much more money. The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education was also planning a pilot project on using television in teacher training. Major funding for the program came from the Ford Foundation and from various corporations.[1][2][3] The title came from a phrase Stanley used to explain the idea to James Killian, science advisor to President Eisenhower.[4] Physics for the nuclear age was the topic of the first year's course, which was broadcast from 6:30 to 7:00 in the morning Monday through Friday. The second course, in chemistry, was preceded by a rebroadcast of the physics course at 6:00 am.[3] Courses in mathematics and American government followed. The Ford Foundation withdrew its funding for the fourth season, and the network subsequently canceled the program. The fifth season was a rebroadcast of the fourth, the last program airing on May 17, 1963.[5]

Lecturers were paid $40,000 for a year of at least 130 half-hour lectures, and could have one or more paid assistants. They were given use of an apartment in Manhattan and their children were placed by NBC in good schools. They worked from outlines, rather than memorizing scripts. Each lecture was recorded in a four-hour studio session some two weeks ahead of the air date,[6] usually in the afternoon by instructor preference. The first two seasons used three cameras; after the loss of the Ford Foundation support, this was reduced to two. The total budget was between $1.2 and $1.5 million a year.[7]

The program attracted more viewers and a wider variety of viewers than NBC had expected:[8] 400,000 for the physics course, 600,000 for chemistry, and one and a half million for American government, and including high-school classes[9] (two of them for blind students), more than 800 engineers in the San Francisco Bay Area, nuns, 500 inmates of San Quentin State Prison in California, parents of students studying science, and other members of the public, including many 6–14-year-olds.[10][11][12][13] As of 1960[update], one eighth of the viewers were teachers, four fifths of those science teachers.[14] At its peak the program was shown on 172 stations, including some ABC and CBS affiliates and public television stations.[15] Each course had an accompanying textbook, and about an hour of homework was assigned for each lecture;[2] local colleges and universities were free to impose their own requirements such as discussion sessions, and to determine fees, for students to receive credit for the course. More than 400 institutions offered courses built around the program, for credit ranging from zero to seven hours; the maximum number of students watching the program for credit in any season was under 5,000.[12] (The physics course was announced only about a month in advance of its start, causing logistical problems for colleges.[6]) In some markets, such as New York, the program was ultimately re-run in the afternoon, and tapes were produced that some colleges used.[16]

### Season 1: Physics

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The first course began on October 6, 1958, and consisted of 165 lectures under the title Atomic Age Physics by Harvey White, head of the physics department at the University of California, Berkeley.[15] It was the first nationwide course offered for credit in physics.[13] White, described by Time as looking "like an insomniac alchemist" on the program,[13][17] had seven Nobel Prize winners appear as guest lecturers,[2][4][13] one of them being Carl D. Anderson.[18]

### Season 2: Chemistry

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For the second season, on chemistry, the lecturer was John F. Baxter of the University of Florida,[19] and NBC broadcast the program in color.[3] Nobel Prize winner Glenn Seaborg, then Chancellor at Berkeley, appeared on the first broadcast of the season.[20] The physics course was repeated during the preceding half hour,[3] and chemists and physicists began watching each other's programs in addition.[21]

### Season 3: Mathematics

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The Contemporary Mathematics course that began in fall 1960 was divided in two ways: each week, the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday classes were for college students and the Tuesday and Thursday classes for teachers;[22] and in addition, the first half of the course was Modern Algebra, taught by John Kelley of Berkeley and Julius H. Hlavaty[23] of DeWitt Clinton High School, New York, respectively, and the second Probability and Statistics, taught by Frederick Mosteller, chairman of the department of statistics at Harvard University, and Paul Clifford of Montclair State College.[24][25] The number of institutions offering credit for the course rose that year; probability was not commonly offered at the time.[24] Exams were mailed out to participating institutions. According to Mosteller, more than 75,000 students took the probability and statistics course for credit at 320 colleges.[26] Some high schools also gave credit for it. Gottfried Noether, then at Boston University, helped develop the course and administer it at the institutional level.[16]

### Seasons 4 and 5: Government

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The course in government was titled American Government: Structure and Function and taught by Peter H. Odegard, chairman of the political science department at Berkeley.[5][27] It was the first college-credit course in social studies to be available on national television;[28] the audience included over half the high-school social science teachers in the US.[29]

For the fifth season, in 1962–63, there were plans for a course in economics,[30] but NBC decided the cost of the program was too high, and instead the government course was repeated.[5]

### Education Exchange

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In the 1963–64 season Continental Classroom became Education Exchange, which aired for the last time on December 18, 1964.[15] This took the form of short courses on specific topics developed by outside agencies, such as a 20-day series on safety,[31] and series titled Wall Street for Everyone[32] and Sex in American Culture.[33]

## Reception

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In its first season the program won the 1958 Peabody Award for Television Education[34] and the 1958 Sylvania Television Award for Outstanding Public Service Series.[35]

Stanley of NBC said that Alexander Stoddard, the former superintendent of schools in Los Angeles, had told him Continental Classroom was "the most significant thing that happened in American education in the last 100 years" and that the League of Women Voters had been convinced NBC had produced the government course "just for them".[5] Teachers taking the courses for in-service credit reported that they were useful for keeping up to date, even for recent graduates.[36] In 1992, David S. Moore looked back on it as "quite remarkable", a precursor of programs for highly motivated learners like the National Technological University.[16] The statistics and probability course has been called the first MOOC in statistics.[26]

## See also

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* Sunrise Semester

## References

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1. ^ Robert D. B. Carlisle, College Credit Through TV: Old Idea, New Dimensions, Lincoln, Nebraska: Great Plains National Instructional Television Library, 1974, OCLC 1661809, pp. 46–48. Carlisle's account of Continental Classroom is reprinted as "Flashback: Continental Classroom" in Robert Heinich, Michael Molenda, and James D. Russell, Instructional Media and the New Technologies of Instruction, 1st ed. New York: Wiley, 1982, pp. 219–20; 2nd ed. New York: Wiley, 1985, pp. 232–33; 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan, 1989, ISBN 9780023530203, pp. 254–55; 4th ed. New York: Macmillan, 1993, ISBN 9780023530609, pp. 294–95, pdf online.
2. ^ a b c John Crosby, "Television and Radio", Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Sarasota, Florida), January 16, 1959, p. 13.
3. ^ a b c d "TV Course Offers Chemistry, Physics", The Victoria Advocate (Victoria, Texas), October 4, 1959, p. 11C.
4. ^ a b Carlisle, p. 48.
5. ^ a b c d Carlisle, pp. 51–52.
6. ^ a b Stanley K. Derby, "Continental Classroom: an Experiment in Educational Television", School Science and Mathematics 59.8 (November 1959) 651–59 (subscription required).
7. ^ Carlisle, pp. 49, 51, 52.
8. ^ Edward Stanley, United Press International, "'Continental Classroom' Has Varied TV Audience", Schenectady Gazette (Schenectady, New York), September 29, 1959, p. 12.
9. ^ Ralph Olive, "Students Learn Physics From Movies", Eugene Register-Guard (Eugene, Oregon), December 22, 1958, p. 1.
10. ^ Charles Mercer, Associated Press, "Television Talk: Youngsters Display Interest In 'Continental Classroom'", Ocala Star-Banner (Ocala, Florida), December 22, 1958, p. 12: this tells of a class in a Montclair, New Jersey, high school who at 7:00 one morning discovered "an elderly couple" sitting at the back of the room; their TV had broken the previous night and they had not wanted to miss the broadcast.
11. ^ Marie Torre, New York Herald Tribune, "A Treatise on TV Education", Lawrence Journal-World (Lawrence, Kansas), June 6, 1960, p. 4.
12. ^ a b Carlisle, pp. 49–51.
13. ^ a b c d Marcel C. LaFollette, Science on American Television: A History, Chicago/London: University of Chicago, 2013, ISBN 9780226921990, p. 32.
14. ^ Leon C. Fletcher, Instructional Television Review 1959–1961, Educational Television Research Association, Menlo Park, California: Pacific Coast, 1961, OCLC 4026085, p. 50.
15. ^ a b c "Continental Classroom", Wesley Hyatt, The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television, New York: Billboard, 1997, ISBN 9780823083152, p. 105.
16. ^ a b c David S. Moore, Interview with Frederick Mosteller (conducted on December 18, 1992), Journal of Statistics Education 1.1 (1993).
17. ^ "Education: Eye Opener", Time, February 9, 1959 (subscription required).
18. ^ "Nobel Winner To Lecture On Continental Classroom", The Victoria Advocate, May 3, 1959, p. 8.
19. ^ "TV Classroom Set As Springboard In H.S. Teacher Plan", Lawrence Journal-World, September 2, 1959, p. 4.
20. ^ "Modern Chemistry Course On Continental Classroom", The Victoria Advocate, September 27, 1959, p. 7.
21. ^ Carlisle, pp. 49–50.
22. ^ Fletcher, p. 51.
23. ^ "Julius H. Hlavaty Biography - National Council of Teachers of Mathematics". www.nctm.org. Retrieved 2025-04-21.
24. ^ a b Carlisle, pp. 50–51.
25. ^ G. Baley Price, "The Mathematical Scene, 1940–1965", in A Century of Mathematics in America, Part 1, ed. Peter Duren with Richard A. Askey and Uta C. Merzbach, History of Mathematics 1, Providence, Rhode Island: American Mathematical Society, 1988, corrected repr. 1989, ISBN 9780821801246, pp. 379–404, p. 398.
26. ^ a b Rick Wicklin, "The first MOOC in statistics", blog, SAS Institute, October 2, 2013.
27. ^ Richard F. Shepard, The New York Times, "'Continental Classroom' To Teach U.S. Government", St. Petersburg Times (St. Petersburg, Florida), July 4, 1961, p. 3D.
28. ^ "Expansion of Educational Television", Editorial Research Reports 1 (1962).
29. ^ Sheilah Mann, "Introduction", Political Scientists Examine Civics Standards; PS: Political Science and Politics 29.1 (March 1996) 47–49, p. 48.
30. ^ G. L. Bach, "Economics in the High Schools: The Responsibility of the Profession", Papers and Proceedings of the Seventy-Third Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association; The American Economic Review 51.2 (May 1961) 579–86, pp. 583–84.
31. ^ American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation, Annual Safety Education Review, 1967, p. 32.
32. ^ Broadcasting 71 (1966) 56.
33. ^ Library of Congress catalogue Films and Other Materials for Projection, 1974, p. 295.
34. ^ "Continental Classroom: Winner 1958 | NBC-TV", Peabody Awards, retrieved March 26, 2016.
35. ^ "Television Awards for Two University Programs", University of California University Bulletin 7.28, March 2, 1959, p. 126.
36. ^ Donald H. Dooley, "Chemistry at the Crack of Dawn", The Milwaukee Journal, February 21, 1960, p. 26.

## Further reading

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* National Broadcasting Company. The Story of Continental Classroom on the NBC Television Network. New York, [1958]. OCLC 13530125.
* Frederick Mosteller. "Continental Classroom's TV Course in Probability and Statistics". The American Statistician 16.5, December 1962, pp. 20–25.
* Edward J. Robinson and Otto Lerbinger. "Subjective Reactions of Students to a Programed Workbook for a Continental Classroom Course". Audiovisual Communication Review 11.6, November 1963, pp. 241–52 (pdf).
* Frederick Mosteller, ed. Stephen E. Fienberg, David C. Hoaglin, and Judith M. Tanur. The Pleasures of Statistics: The Autobiography of Frederick Mosteller. New York: Springer, 2010, ISBN 9780387779553. pp. 259–64.