Educational screen & audio-visual guide (c1956-1971])

DRAMATIC HEV FILM ^ ^ Produced by SAM ORLEANS Film Productions, Inc. NOW AVAILABLE "Man Enough For The Job" is the heart-warming story of a typical, young American boy growing up in these challenging times and of his relationship with his family, friends and community. This brilliant new film has universal appeal and dramatically emphasizes the positive values of life in America today. In line with President Kennedy's inaugural statement . . . "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" . . . this compelling story vividly reveals the responsibilities of our future citizens and stresses the importance of patriotism, high ideals, and community spirit. "Man Enough For The Job" is an ideal film for use in assembly programs, vocational programs and in promotion of community relations. Why not send for a preview print today? Prints are now being sponsored by university film libraries, power companies and other Industries. WRITE TODAY FOR FURTHER INFORMATION Sam Orleans FILM PRODUCTIONS INC. * 211 W. Cumberland Avenue Knoxville, Tennessee Ph. 523-8098 AV in the Church Field hy William S. Hockman What Is AV Teaching? AV teaching is learning for the pupil. No learning; no teaching. Just like buying and selling. No buying; no selling. To teach is to cause learning to take place. But learning is taking place all the time. Is that teaching? Not exactly. The teaching and learning we are talking about has a more formal and planned context. This formal teaching (or education) takes place when a person sets out to insert in the experience continuum of a pupil a unit of experience which will then qualify subsequent experience. There are three things to note here. The teacher sets out; plans; organizes and gets ready. She knows what she wants to happen and has a pretty good idea of how to bring it about. To get this thing to happen in the experience of the pupil she must set into his on-going e.xperience this unit of experience which she has planned for him. Experience is a continuum. It never stops for the pupil. As liis living is continuous, so is his experiencing. Neither he nor his teacher (nor his parents, for that matter!) can turn his experience off and on. Its flow cannot be interrupted. Now this means that the teacher must get into the experience stream of the pupil. It's like hopping a moving vehicle— he must be moving in its direction as he hops on. It means something else, which is harder. This unit of experience which he %\'ould bring within the experience continiuun of the pupil, if it is to be accepted by the pupil, should have as near as possible the same psychological grain or sti'ucture, shall we say, as the stream of experience of the child. This takes some doing. More doing than a lot of pseudo-educators assume. Structure and Bias. Structuring must be done. First, the unit of experience will need to be structured, as far as possible, to harmonize with the grain and structure of the pupil's experience flow. The wise teacher will anticipate what this flow of experience will be like in psychological texture at the time she seeks to alter it and bring about learning by the insertion of the which she has unit of experience planned. She will not only anticipate. She will plan to do something about this bias and grain and structure which the pupil has as he is living in the locus and moment of that educational encounter. If not, she will be rubbing the pupil's mental fur the wrong way, and working against the grain of hismental wood. What can she do? She can ta positive hold of the pupils (the clas and make them ready for what shel about to bring into their experien| continiuim. Let's be .specific. If it information she wants them to learn she may not be able to change it in substance but she can change it in form. She can tell, question, demonstrate and show. She can, secondly, affect the mental bias and grain of her class. She can get them ready to ask questions, to watch an experiment, to dramatize, to listen, and comprehend as best they can. Much of the art of teaching is right here. It's in getting the class ready to learn xchai they are to learn. Same Bias. She tries to give the unit of experience which she intends to be set into the experience-continuum of the class the same bias and grain which she seeks to bring about in the class as she makes it ready to learn. Not to do this is to abandon elemental common sense. The serious teacher is not casual and nonchalant about this matter, either. This set-in luiit of experience must turn out to be determinative. It must have significance for both future 'learnings' and future living. Both must be favorably afi^ected by this unit which was 'learned.' Yet as we all realize, in the use of audiovisual aids we find scads high-rated teachers who ignore these principles. Some there are who ignore them only when using audio and visual aids— when this unit of experi-i ence takes the form of some audio oi visual media. It often turns out that by the acci dental nature of things-the ingratiate ing character of things visual and audi tory— this unit of experience seenw T?niTr'AT¥rfc7W4T ^/^nl7inv Aivn A irnirkVIQTTAT rilTinP ApRII.. 196i