International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1934)

THE TEACHER'S COLLABORATION film director, putting him in a position to explain the limitations and conditions governing the use of the cinema as a visual aid in teaching. His collaboration and intervention should be available in the following cases and circumstances : (a) In the choice of subjects for films, since the teacher knows what subject matter and which particular classes can best derive advantage from visual aids. (b) In preparing the scenario. Only a pedagogue can know what it is desiderable to film and what to leave to direct observation for comment and explanation in any particular scenario. (c) Mounting. It is the teacher's task to stop the film at a given moment, to interpose in it, if he deems fit some slides. He must be in a position to insist that certain details be " shot ' over again, and other details elaborated : all this in consideration of the pupils' age, their degree of knowledge and their intellectual possibilities. (d) During the actual making of the picture, the teacher must act as the close collaborator of the film director. He will explain what he wants, so that technique and pedagogy will between them produce a teaching picture. Cinema Technique It can be seen from for the Teacher. the foregoing considerations that it necessary to train in a special way those teachers whose work is partly to lie in the direction of collaborating in the making of didactic films. It is indeed because insufficient attention has been paid to this point that many educational pictures do not suit the purpose for which they were made. In the same way that collections of scholastic manuals can be published under one management or direction which gives all the publications a certain unity of spirit and method, so collections of scholastic films should have a single source of inspiration. In the case of films as with the manuals, indeed even more so in the case of the films, it is necessary that one at least of the persons responsible for the making of the picture should have an exact knowledge of the requirements of the pupils, the nature of their minds, their probable reactions, the details of their curriculum and their capabilities in adapting themselves to different scholastic courses. In higher class teaching, the teacher can act as absolute master of the situation and assume entire responsibility for the scenario. In elementary school teaching, it would appear advisable that at least two teachers edit the scenario. One of these teachers should bring to the collaboration his experience with children, while the other who should preferably belong to the second grade teaching staff, ought to be a specialist in the particular subject which the film treats, and should lend it the benefit of his authority and scientific knowledge. Films Should Follow Teachers should insist Lines of Scholastic tnat didactic films folCurricula. low closely the exact requirements of the teaching. Today, for reasons that more often than not are commercial, that is, to allow a film a wider circulation and also because the regisseurs are not always specialized teachers having a current knowledge of the scholastic curriculum and the pupils' needs, it happens that so called scholastic pictures are not made specially for the instruction of a particular grade or class. If their makers state they are suitable for several courses or grades, it will turn out that they useful for none. This is the case with those documentary films which can very well be projected in their entirety, since they have a real general interest, but they are far from being the kind of visual aids desired by teachers. Special Course in We may say that some Cine-Education for teachers ought to colFuture Teachers. ]ahorate very actlvely in the formation of teaching films, and that all teachers should do their best to secure the