International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1934)

THE CINEMA IN TEACHING Adherence to the time-table is of even greater importance. The use of a general classroom for lessons requiring cinematograph demonstrations will inevitably affect the time-table. The fact that the class lesson must be prolonged to allow of the projection should not be allowed to interfere with period of recreation in the open air. It is better to add one or two supplementary hours weekly in the free afternoons, which could be considered as school performances and be given in one of the big common classrooms of the school. Technical Preparation of Teachers. New teaching methods necesitate new cours es for the preparation of teachers. To avoid unduly burdening the school budget by engaging cameramen, and also to avoid over-taxing the teacher of physics, every teacher should be something of a technician, at least to the extent of being able to work the cinematograph projection. He could learn this work while attending institutions. A few supplementary courses would be quite sufficient to prepare him for this task. The teacher of physical sciences could assume control of the installation, with the aid of a mechanic when possible and necessary, and could act as technical adviser to his colleagues. Use of Pamphlets and There is no pedagogLeaflets to Explain Jcal ut;ijty m following 1 s* the custom practised in some cinemas, of giving the spectators a printed explanation of the film. It may be of use then, to give the audience something to do during intervals, or help them to follow a film spoken in a foreign language, and so on; but the school film is quite another matter. Pedagogy requires that the school text be used and the pupil encouraged to make an intellectual effort to understand the film by himself, arriving at this point by his own observation of the things that are being shown to him. By giving him this knowledge or understanding all ready prepared, we should be going back on all good pedagogical rules and encouraging intellectual laziness in the pupil. The verbal comments of the teacher are quite sufficient to aid children to understand a film ; to establish a connection between its action and their perceptive preparedness and to add a new class of cognitions to those they already possess. The less a child knows of the sequences and end of a picture he is he going to see on the screen by reading about it beforehand, the more attentive he will be to the scenes that are unfolded before his gaze. A much better system than that of providing pamphlets and leaflets to be read beforehand is to ask the pupils to write a description of what they have seen after the end of the projection, and to give their impressions and possibly a criticism. The scenarios published by producing firms might in certain cases be useful for the teacher, by assisting him in preparing his oral comment. Comparative Value The sound film is a of Silent and Sound Jecided step forward Film in Teaching. as compared to the silent film from the didactic point of view. Its chief advantage is that by the association of sound, word and music with form, movement and gesture, objects, phenomena and living things are presented in all the completeness and realism of nature. The sound or talking film can never, of course, take the place of the teacher, or relieve him of so much of his work that he has practically nothing to do. This might happen with lectures, up to a certain point. It is always more satisfactory to listen to the explanations of an authority than to those of an incompetent person charged with commenting on a scientific film. When the film is a strictly scholastic work, however, the explanation must always be suited to the intellectual possibilities of the little spectators, and comment must therefore vary in