WBEZ’s Beginnings With The Board Of Education

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2021

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

WBEZ, where Curious City gets produced, actually began as a radio station that broadcast educational programs for kids. In this week’s episode Monica Eng explores WBEZ’s roots in education and looks at how we went from math and fairy tales over the radio to a news and information station. Goodbye “Lady Make Believe,” hello “All Things Considered.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, I'm curious city reporter Monica Eng.
0:06.6	Like a lot of Chicago public school students, Gwen Casey had to finish her senior year totally online.
0:13.9	She said that was hard, but she also vaguely remembered that this wasn't the first time Chicago kids had to do remote learning.
0:22.3	Gwen recalled that it actually happened here a long time ago, but over the radio.
0:27.7	And it had something to do with a polio epidemic?
0:30.6	I just remember coming upon an article that had mentioned WBZ starting as an educational
0:36.5	program and being a CPS student and also, of course,
0:40.2	growing up with WVEZ on almost 24-7 in our kitchen, it just felt like a cool origin story that
0:45.6	they would have started together so many years ago. Gwen's right that experiment with remote
0:51.3	learning 80 years ago during another disease epidemic, it led
0:55.0	to the creation of WBEZ, the very station I'm recording this episode for. So Gwen wanted to know
1:02.1	more about how WBEZ got started and how that remote teaching sounded. Like, are there
1:08.7	some old recordings? If there are any still in existence, that'd be really cool to hear.
1:14.2	You mean recordings like this?
1:16.6	The Radio Council of the Chicago Public Schools presents Monuments to Men.
1:20.8	Yep, we found some.
1:22.7	Stage one, you'll be an egg, friend.
1:25.9	And after three more changes, it's a butterfly.
1:28.8	I don't want to be it.
1:30.1	And now, happy words and carefree music.
1:33.7	Well, let me pour this milk, and I'll get Mr. O'Leary to fail your trough.
1:40.0	Open a new window level E.F is on the air.
	...

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