Learning by Radio

She never saw a teacher or a classroom, but for twelve years Rosetta Schroder was a prize student at one of New Zealand's busiest schools. The daughter of a sawmill operator, she lived with her parents and sister near Mount Turiwhate in the rugged bush country of the South Island's thinly populated west coast. The nearest school was a tough nine miles away, too far for daily travel. So when she was five, Rosetta began listening to lessons broadcast each day by New Zealand's national radio stations.

In operation since 1929, New Zealand's radio education programs for primary and secondary schools are tuned in daily by some 3,000 pupils like Rosetta, who send in their completed lessons by mail. Rosetta resolutely kept at her lessons, switching to a battery radio and kerosene lamp when the family's moody generator failed, and her teachers soon came to know her as well as if she had a front-row desk in their classrooms. She got a prize for written composition at eleven, and last year she graduated from high school with an armful of honors--one of the few New Zealanders to make it all the way through radio school, and the first of the group to be accepted for teacher training.

Last week Rosetta, now a bright-faced, brown-haired 17-year-old, was still getting used to learning from a teacher in a classroom. She is enrolled in Christchurch Training College, hopes to attend Canterbury University College next year. Note taking is hard for her; lectures in person are faster than by radio. The novelty of having other students to talk with is pleasant, although Rosetta is not sure she likes the clamor of bustling (pop. 210,000) Christchurch. Her goal: to prepare correspondence courses, teach arts and crafts for the same radio school that gave her an education during the lonely years at Mount Turiwhate.

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