The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

School Department This department is devoted to actualities. Theory and opinion very properly have a large place elsewhere in this magazine, but these pages will be concerned exclusively with practice and experiment in school class rooms and auditoriums. The department is edited by the Head of Visual Instruction in an important school district of Cleveland, Ohio. The substantial co-operation of all teachers throughout the United States, who are actively interested in the visual idea, is cordially invited and confidently expected. Editor. Foreword VISUAL education is more than a theory. It is more than an assumption that such and such opinions about the subject are peda- gogically sound and, therefore, should be workable. Visual instruction is a prac- tice, being carried on today after one fashion or another in hundreds of schools —wherever maps, graphs, charts, dia- grams, slides, pictures, films, or any other available visual materials are chosen to convey or elucidate an idea more clearly and more quickly than could be done by any other means. Even its most enthusiastic and earnest advocates, however,—considering, of course, only those qualified to have edu- cational opinions,—do not presume to assert that its practices are fixed, its present claims proven, nor its ultimate possibilities and limitations accurately guessed. Visual education is in a purely experimental stage, as were laboratories in school practice thirty years ago. ' It is merely a teaching tool of positive value —that has long been lying within reach of all but used by very few—now about to be put into the hands of present-day teachers everywhere. It remains for them to learn to use it sanely and intelli- gently. By its results in the classroom must this new force ultimately be judged and its measure for good or evil taken. As usual, it will devolve upon the minority to perform the tedious experi- mental work, endure the failures, steadily increase the successes and finally achieve the evidence to win over the majority. This department purposes to be of the utmost service to teachers who are on the firing line of the new movement's advance. It will print brief reports from the field of school practice, furnish an opportunity for directors of visual educa- tion to contribute accounts of the organi- zation of the work in individual schools and school systems; it will make possible the comparing of notes- by successful teachers on the methods and results of their own practice. In short, this de- partment aims to become a sort of miniature handbook of helpful notes, practical suggestions, concise accounts of actual workings, etc., written by and for the pioneer teachers throughout the country who are making the experi- mental journey toward higher educational efficiency. This space belongs, therefore, to our colleagues, the American teachers who are practicing visual instruction in any of its aspects, to any degree, under ideal conditions or under gravest handicaps. We can use a great variety of material that is germane to the question and based on experience, from 300-word accounts down to a sentence or two on the back of a postal. It should be remembered that we need to hear both the affirmative and negative sides of the question. The story of a specific failure may be more illuminating than a glowing story of success. Contributions are invited. M. E. G., Shaker Heights Schools, Cleveland, Ohio. 21