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

permanently set into the pupil's experience continuum. Seems, I say, for careful testing will often show that this unit did not stick, that it fell out, that this patch of learning on the child's life came un-sewed, that this new string on his ball of learning came off because it was never tied on in the first place. And not all of this sloppy audiovisual 'teaching' is being done in the churches. Too many AV courses for teachers never get beyond machinery to these decider considerations. And yet we know that where the motion picture is concerned we have several strikes against us when we seek to use it as that unit of experience to be set into the pupil's experience flow. Theatrical films and the junk he sees on most T\' programs have given him what turns out to be a negative bias or real psychological immunity to serious films. His readiness is for entertainment, for more of the same, for more of what he has generally had far too much of. He is not ready, generally, to learn anything from films. He has an entertainment bias. This disorientation even carries over from films to other visual media. I see it with the smallest children in mv church school. The teachers of our weekday nursery must deal with it. At one time this bias was so crystallized in the Senior Hi department of the church schcx)l that neither films nor filmstrips could be used. We could not make a breakthrough with that generation. We had to wait for a new one. Illustrations. May I close this discussion with several illustrations. Some years ago a fine and pious member of the church said her objection to our dances would be less if we would bring the yoimg people up to the chapel and show them a religious motion picture at the end of the evening. How would you have liked to have set that unit of experience into that experience continuum? Not long ago a fellow minister said that the men of our church would not listen to a 20-minute tape recording. I explained who the 'speaker' was, and even then he warned me that they would just leave such a program. The tape was set; its character could not be altered. That left the physical environment and the minds of the men to be controlled. I made certain that all could hear and understand with ease. Then with a little 'readiness' speech I tried to inject the bias I wanted— one which would match that of the tape's message— into the minds of the men. At the end of that listening-and-learning experience not one man in that hundred was smoking— and it takes a lot to separate Lady Nicotine and her devotees! Audiovisual teaching— to use a bad term— does not just happen. Bringing significant units of experience into the child's on-going life in such a way that future learning and life is favorably affected can be done in many ways, and one of the best is by the use of audio and visual media by those willing to learn the principles which underlie this art. Religious Records My friend and column-neighbor and savant in the field of phono discs has been kind enough to call my attention to a series of recordings of Biblical material. These four storiesGenesis, Adam and Eve, Noah and The Ark, and Moses and The Ten Commandments— are produced by P.R.I. (418 Lafayette St., New York 3) under the Tops label. He says that while for home use, they might be useful in the chiu'ch school. The format seems good: James Coronet Films announces a new FILMSTRIP PROGRAM WITH SOUND ON RECORDS to teach a full year 0/ FRENCH in the elementary grades EN Coronet Films now makes available an unusual new program, EN CLASSE. With sound on records, this course enables teachers with limited language training to teach a full year of conversational French, especially in grades three, four, and five. The program has supplementary use in junior and senior high schools . . . even in schools which already have an established language program. EN CLASSE was developed under the direction of Roger A. Fillet, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education in French, The University of Chicago. Combining 20 appealing filmstrips in full color with sound on 12" LP rejcords, EN CLASSE encourages maximum pupil participation — the best way for youngsters to learn a foreign language. It develops an extremely wide range of conversation on such subjects as greetings, numbers, songs, colors, days of the week, telling time, parts of the body and many others. Each EN CLASSE filmstrip unit is designed as the basis for two weeks of planned instruction— a full year of regular, intensive teaching. A 64 page Teacher's Manual accompanies the course — an authoritative guide to the most effective use of the program. Use the coupon . . . to order EN CLASSE at the full price of $195 with a fifteen-day examination privilege or to request full descriptiue information. 7.p7e746, CORONET FILMS 1 Coronet Building, Chicago I, Illinois ri Please send EN CLASSE on fifteen-day approval. It Is understood ttiat if the program is not entirety solisfactory. It may be returned for full credit of the purchose price. G PleoM sand dascriptiv* brochure on EN CLASSE. Name Poiition School — — — ■ City. _Zon«^ <F:3?qp^r5^«s'jiii»iLaL4«;^sae^r^'' -9«»^^: 'w',-^6*> .*, jtDLCATIO.NAL ScREEX AND AlDIOVISUAL GuIDE — ApRIL. 1961 197