The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

A Presentation Lesson An introduction, through Pictures, to a Study of Norway in 7th Grade Geography THERE is a tried-and-true statement in educational psychology to the effect that interest is a necessary preliminary to attention and learning. Nor is it a new discovery that a picture will attract and hold attention more surely than a page of type. To arouse interest in the study of the geography of a foreign country, an obvious method is, therefore, to permit the child to travel for a little while through that country via the silver screen, and read what he may from pictures. A scenic tour of a country with eyes open to see what pictures tell is a fasci- nating introduction to a study of its topography, climate, industries, and the life of its people. It should be said, in passing, that much of the success of such a visual lesson lies in the attitude of the class toward what they are to see. A few moments of pre- liminary discussion should result in an anticipatory attitude. Questions should be raised which it is promised the pic- tures shall answer, if the class is alert and misses nothing which is to be shown. If rightly done, this preparation gives the class not only eager interest but definite purpose, and they will come to the picture with a whetted attention that insures results. In the case of the lesson under dis- cussion a dozen or fifteen slides of Nor- way were chosen: several scenes of fields, mountains and waterfalls, some dews of the "land of the midnight sun," and several glimpses of Norwegian farms and Norwegian cities. Not an elaborate collection of material, but one which any slide library could be expected to furnish. What may be taught from such material? Norway has a rugged surface. Any geography test will tell the child that fact, in these or similar words. Yet, how little the statement may mean to him, particu- larly if he be a child who has spent his life somewhere in our great Central Plain, and how uncertain we may be, even though he repeat the words from memory, that he has anything like an adequate mental image of such a topog- graphy. But he sees on the screen several views of Norway's steep-sided fords, her narrow mountain valleys and plunging waterfalls. When he is asked, then, to supply from his own vocabulary a word which will describe such a surface as he sees, the statement becomes real and full of meaning. Nor will he be in any doubt as to Nor- way's climate, if he is led to read from the pictures all that they show. Her snow-clad mountain tops, the gaping crevasses of her glaciers, the ice-fed lakes and the abundance of rivers will estab- lish facts concerning temperature and rainfall. At the same time a picture of haying in mountain valley, and a view of cows standing knee-deep in the limpid waters of a shallow fiord-bay will serve to raise the question: How does it happen that Norway, as far north as Greenland, is not an Arctic waste? It is only a step from the contempla- tion of Norway's scenery to her indus- tries. The limitation to agriculture in Norway becomes most apparent in look- ing at her narrow, rock-strewn villages; or a picture of a little cabin perched almost in the path of a torrent, that its owner might cultivate the tiny ledge of green on a mountain slope. No elaborate process of reasoning is necessary for the class to understand that Norway's de- pendence on the sea for a large share of her living is a natural consequence of her scanty agricultural land. 22