BRIDGING CULTURES
The 44^th Annual National Conference
Adult Learning Australia
18 – 20 November 2004

Adult Learning Australia is the peak body representing organisations and individuals in the adult learning field.

Their mission: advancing a learning society.

Radio Adelaide could itself be described as a learning society - where adult learning is encouraged and supported through ongoing professional development and training and demonstrated through the diverse programming by trained volunteer broadcasters.

To demonstrate the many ways Radio Adelaide provides adult learning and bridges many cultures, station manager Deb Welch and producers Laine Langridge and Angelina Edwards presented the workshop:

7 MILLION PEOPLE CAN’T BE WRONG!
HOW COMMUNITY RADIO WORKS TO BRIDGE CULTURES

Introduction : Deborah Welch

We should have called this paper ‘7 million and 20 thousand people can’t be wrong’

•        7 million is the number of people who listen to community radio around Australia

•        20 thousand is the number of active participants – volunteers – involved in all areas from management to program making to administration to technical management

Community radio is one of the major sites of adult learning in the country.  And it’s all voluntary.

It’s the epitome of ‘bridging cultures’

 

Take Radio Adelaide

•        500 volunteers, aged from 10 to over 80

•        8-16 staff at any one time, including a mix of full time, part time and those on short term projects

•        we create 168 hours of radio a week in at least 10 different languages

•        we broadcast on 101.5fm to greater Adelaide and near regional area

•        we broadcast online on the net around the world

•        we’re been a Registered Training Organisation since 1996 and deliver courses from Cert II to Bachelor level

In our workplace, there’s a wide range of

•        ethnic community background and language

•        age

•        gender and sexual identity

•        educational background – from professors to those who left school as early as possible and an enormous fluid continuity between student / worker / teacher and moving continuously between these roles

Our organisation itself works at different times as an audio producer / an educator / a community group / a university / a business / a training organisation / a media organisation / an arts organisation / a volunteer organisation; often presenting and working as many of these things simultaneously

When we broadcast – we reach everyone in Adelaide and beyond including other community radio station audience to whom we are linked by satellite and shared programming, and the world via our online broadcast.

Commitment to diversity is written into our planning

It’s one of our 6 core goals and it is a living and daily challenge to embrace it.

(Think about most radio stations, the way they operate and present.  They aim to capture and define a ‘demographic’ in quite simplistic terms and in the process become the epitome of a monoculture)

Running through everything we do is a philosophy of sharing the knowledge

It works because it’s driven by need, because it’s necessary, because we’ve got to go to air!

It’s the ultimate deadline culture!

With the learners upfront

It works because there is repeated experience of success

With a diverse community of people and a national network of stations – people see ‘people like me’ succeeding every day.  And ‘everybody learning’ as a normal thing, every day.

So it is critical there are enough ‘people like me’ for every type of person.

With that background, we’d like to suggest you think about engaging with radio as a learning resource.

It’s is the most endlessly adaptable, cost effective and popular communication technology in the world.

It’s particular strengths:

•        its free & accessible to all – 4 radios per household, not including the car

•        technology of production is cheap, easy to learn, accessible

•        its portable – can accompany you on your daily life and doesn’t require you to stop everything else

•        it reaches you in a uniquely receptive mind space (think about when you listen to the radio.  You are usually alone, but not in the ‘blank-space’ of TV watching, but active, unselfconscious and receptive.  What you could call the perfect mind-space for learning)

At Radio Adelaide, we do radio in a different way from mainstream models

Participation is as important as communication and both are essential

Our contemporary version of radio we describe as ‘at the intersection of education and technology’

Think of our radio station as new model : a 21^st Century Audio Station

•        We produce and distribute audio ‘content’

•        We’re an educator, working in partnership with all sectors – schools, universities, vocational, community groups, anyone!

•        We produce educational resource material

•        We provide audio production services

•        We are a site of practical learning with a strong emphasis on access and equity

And we frequently do all these things in the one project.

Our audience resource material is available in 2 major modes:

1.  As a producer of audio resource material

•        free to air – accessible to all

•        local – on 101.5FM

•        state-wide on up to 20 stations statewide

•        national – via the Community Radio Satellite Network

•        international – real time streaming of all our programs

2. When and where people want it

•        on CD – on demand

•        online  – downloadable with backup materials

•        via mail or email in a myriad of digital and analogue audio formats

To illustrate this, we’re going to talk about two recent projects

First up, here’s Laine Langridge

Laine Langridge

I retired at 62 after a career in radio. I came out of retirement at 66 years of age to produce a 20 part radio series on mature age employment and intergenerational issues.

The purpose of the series was to inform a wide range of the community about the issues and problems in both these areas and what can and is being done about them.

From an Adult Learning point of view this type of learning is one that is done through getting the listener's interest: by raising points and discussing them in a way that isn't preachy or telling them ‘you are going to be learning something so you'd better pay attention’.

People quite often listen to the radio with one ear and when they hear something that concerns or interests them they listen with both ears - sometimes they even turn the sound up!

As a radio producer you know you've only got a couple of minutes to get a point across before something else happens - the toast burns or it's your turn in the shower.

It's sort of the opposite end of learning from sitting in a lecture and giving full attention - even taking notes.

But the great thing about radio is it reaches such a wide audience and it knows how to get to the point.

When radio approaches adult learning this is what you take into account:

•        Mostly you get only part attention to start with

•        The information has to be succinct and clear.

•        It mustn't sound like a lecture or a class.

•        It has to be enjoyable in some form. Either with the voice, with humour, music or drama.

The beauty of working on a radio series rather than a one-off in-depth interview or one class or lecture is that:

•        you have time to research the subjects thoroughly

•        you can talk to lots of people and then

•        pick out the ones that are the most interesting to listen to and make the points well.

Then you can edit these parts down even more so you get to the guts of the issues or information you want people to grasp.

In the editing process you have the opportunity to hone it down to the essence and interesting points and put them together so they can be heard once and still convey meaning.

It's sort of like how you'd like your dream lecture or class to be but rarely is.

You can probably tell I'm passionate about this type of learning.

But I'd like to talk you specifically about this series Keep On Keeping On – a 20 part series looking at challenges in work and life for our ageing population.

To give you an idea of how Keep On Keeping On took shape, I'll go through the steps.

First I had to deal with the unhandleable name – convert the project subject as outlined in the grant agreement mature age employment and employer issues and intergenerational links and come up with a catchy title that would work for radio.

Then I researched the subjects thoroughly, decided who I needed to talk to, to give good, clear information about the issues and find people who were living through those issues and talk to them. So a lot of detective work goes on before you do the first interviews.

I ended up interviewing over 40 people and many of them spoke for up to half an hour. Then I had to listen to all the interviews and work out which ones and how much to use. This is the editing process.

And I must say one of the great joys for me doing this series is how wonderful the technology is now. Digital editing is the sexiest thing that's come into my life in the last 1ast 10 years!

The tedious part is cutting out most of what people say but still leaving the essence in.

Again, all the time you are trying to give people information in a non- structured way so you don't frighten them off -Not "Ooohh this is too complicated for me." "I can't understand that point."

But "How can I find out more about this?"

You have to set the scene - Catch their ears and definitely don't say – “please sit very still and listen carefully and be prepared to answer questions at the end”. Although that's exactly what you want them to do ... so you set the trap!

Click to Play audio file 1

Click to Play audio file 2

Now with all the info. I gathered, I realised that the important issue in mature age employment is how hard it is for workers over 50 to get back into work if they've lost the job - be it by redundancy or whatever. There are thousands of over 50s sitting at home right now - depressed and lacking in self esteem - let alone not knowing how they're ever going to live through and finance a retirement that may well last 30 years.

And I found that there are many ways they can be helped but most haven't heard about them. There are agencies- private, volunteer and government that will advise and retrain the mature age, but lots of people don't know this.

So some of the programs gave examples of groups and people who were offering these services.

I interviewed people who had successfully been through them and were now working - as well as others who had been looking for work for years.

The first program set the scene and focused on the issues of changing work and how it affects older people and just who are the new old.

I wanted to highlight the current issues and give people ways of helping themselves deal with those changes.

So I talked to agencies that help mature age people who've been out of work for am long time and don't know how to get back into work.

Here's one woman who went back to work at age 62.

Click to Play audio file 3

Another form of employment that's becoming more popular for the mature age is called portfolio employment. Here's Jeri who was made redundant and then started her own part-time business.

Click to Play audio file 4

There is also another group of mature age people who want or need to get back into work and haven't got the skills or know where to go for help.  Community centres are places that help many people like this.

Click to Play audio file 5

The second part of the series was on intergenerational issues. Here there were several major points I wanted to highlight - first the position of grandparents and how they can get help for what can now be a very expensive childcaring role.

Click to Play audio file 6

While this is a major concern one of the other intergenerational issues is breaking down communication barriers. I interviewed several people in Tasmania and this is a great community project that hopefully other places can pick up.

Click to Play audio file 7

And finally an example of how schools and other training centres are part of the intergenerational community.

Click to Play audio file 8

So that's an outline of how Radio Adelaide takes on a lifelong learning project and makes it accessible and hopefully informative while reaching people in their homes.

Of course with the great addition of the internet the programs can be heard again and again and specific information accessed.

Right now Keep On Keeping On can be heard on the Radio Adelaide website or the CDs can be purchased also on that website so if people want to go back to it later - it's still available.

There are certainly different ways of presenting adult learning via radio - this was just one of them.

Angelina Edwards

Unlike Laine and Deb my involvement with radio has only been for a couple of years. 

My background is health education and I’ve come from a predominantly teaching and education background.

I was a TAFE lecturer and after deciding I liked the teaching but the marking was starting to lose it’s gloss… I began working at the Centre for Research in Education, Equity and Work at the University of South Australia.  Working with plenary session presenter, Professor Roger Harris and Dr Michele Simons on all sorts of interesting research projects in education, training and the VET sector.

While I was working at CREEW I starting to miss teaching and I read about community radio and it seemed a great way to incorporate a lot of my interests.

Since 2002 I’ve been involved in a number of programs including a 5 minute consumer segment I produced and presented, called Taking the Pith – that took a humorous but informative look at health and consumer issues and products.

This year an opportunity came up to produce a series that looked at how improving literacy had helped people achieve personal, employment and educational goals.  Literacy being another of my interests I decided to give it a go.

As I was developing the 20 short programs I decided I wanted to make a series that raised awareness of the range of literacies and that literacy isn’t just about learning to read and write.

I also wanted the series to demonstrate that all of us regardless of social, educational, employment and cultural background can continue to improve one or more literacies throughout our lives.

The 20 part series evolved into a literacy journey beginning at the reasons for people beginning or returning to learning, the various service providers, the reasons for people improving their literacies and ending with the many benefits that can come from it.

I interviewed over 50 people aged from 16 to 74, from a variety of educational, employment, social and cultural backgrounds with a wide variety of reasons for improving one or more literacies.

I also went through the process that Laine described and to ensure that the programs would connect with as many listeners as possible I included something from all of the interviewees – so we could all hear someone who sounded like us and was doing something about their literacy level.

Program one in the series helps to demonstrate these points

Click to Play audio file 9

Having completed the series, I am now involved in promoting the wide range of fascinating series that have been produced by Radio Adelaide.

I’ve said to Deb that I wished I’d known about these series when I was teaching because they would have been a great way to introduce an alternative learning method into the class and could also be used by external and flexible delivery students at a really low cost.

While I have been at Radio Adelaide it’s been fabulous to see the philosophy of lifelong learning be in place everyday, from the continual professional development and training opportunities through to the wonderfully diverse range of programs that we broadcast. So lifelong and adult learning is part of the underlying philosophy and the 24 hour broadcasting.

I often say to people that there really is something for everyone on Radio Adelaide.

Summary: Deborah Welch

The core expertise - or literacy - of radio producers/presenters is effective communication.  It’s our daily practice. We depend on our ability to involve and engage both participants and listeners

Lifelong learning for us is

•        an educational philosophy

•        a practical reality

•        an operational necessity

Whilst community radio is an enormously under-funded sector - we receive approximately $7 million government funding per year for over 300 stations nationally; the ABC receives approximately 3/4 billion dollars (2004 ABC financial statements – annual budget).  A recent large scale audience study has revealed we have a significant number of listeners - across Australia 24 % of the population (aged over 15) listen to community radio each week. Here in Adelaide the figure is much higher: 31% or 286,000 people in Adelaide listen to community radio each week, for an average of 8.5 hours per week.

Equally interesting are our listeners’ ‘reasons for listening.’  At the top of the list nationally and in Adelaide are diversity in programming; they have specialist music or information programs and  programs not available elsewhere.

 In a mono-cultural radio landscape, there are plenty of people who want what we offer, strong on new ideas, different voices and the opportunity to learn something new

So we’re interested in creating partnerships with a variety of educators, who share our aims and wish to take advantage of the people, expertise, training infrastructure and audiences that are available to you through Radio Adelaide.  We need to jointly source the funds to do this, but we’ve long experience at doing this. 

To see the range of our Lifelong Learning projects to date please go to our website: www.radio.adelaide.edu.au/lifelonglearning

To talk to us about your ideas, please contact Manager Deborah Welch on 08 8303 5000 or deborahwelch@adelaide.edu.au