The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

402 Visual Instruction Association of America The Educational Screen visual aids, especially in the development stage of the lesson. Useful for all ages, the slide is virtually indispensable with pre-adolescents. By shutting out distractions and facilitating concentration upon a leisurely series of agreeable images, it lends itself to an intimate give and take of observation, inference and judgment that can be secured by no other means of which I am aware. Yet the slide is frequently misapplied. Except with college classes, its use merely to embellish a lecture, robs it of its value as a teaching aid. The stereopticon is essentially a classroom instrument, better dispensed with altogether, unless used in the intimate manner indicated. Motion Pictures Last but not least comes the motion picture. Last in its application to the lesson, because it presents essentially a review, a summation, a coordination of the detached percepts and concepts of which the lesson has been built up. Last also with reference to the child's psychological age, because it addresses itself to powers of co-ordination, imagination, judgment and consecutive thinking, rarely well developed below the seventh and eighth grade. Last in all these senses, but, when properly applied, the crowning glory of the whole visual instruction edifice. To convince ourselves of this we have only to reflect how even the theatrical screen has broadened life's horizon for the masses. No door is shut to the camera's all seeing eye, no barrier deters, no distance daunts. It mounts up into the air, rides upon the wind and is companion to the cloud. It dives into the ocean's depths and brings forth the slimy secrets of the vasty deep. It penetrates alike the frozen fastnesses of the north and the tropic jungles of the equator, bringing back a faithful record of the life history of bird and beast and reptile, as also of the manners, customs and habit of thought of strange and divers peoples. It follows the statesman into his cabinet, mounts the bench with justice and accompanies the soldier out upon the field of battle. When the "rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air" have been translated from poetic trope to grim reality, it again follows the wounded soldier into the hospital. Plunging after the surgeon's knife amid nerves and tissues, it preserves the life saving operation for future generations of medical skill. It takes unto itself the telescope of the astronomer and the microscope of the scientist. It dissects and analyzes all manner of cell forma tions, traces the genesis of life, counts the red corpuscles as they course through the blood vessels, spies upon the virgin crystal, rising like Venus from its bath in the chemical solution, and reproduces mimetically the battle of the electrons, thus visualizing the whole structure of organic and inorganic matter. It fixes upon the tell-tale celluloid the record of world affairs and of the human drama of today, revitalizes the story of the past both in history and in romance, and lends a subtle aid to man's speculative impulse to prefigure ages yet to come. Yet its very power renders the film of all visual aids the most difficult and dangerous to handle. Merely turned loose upon the plastic mind of youth, its effect may be deadening, if not devastating. Its proper application requires judgment, skill and constant study. Unlike the slide it may safely be used for mass instruction ; but in that case, and in any case, the ground must be cultivated in advance and results very carefully checked up afterwards. May I offer a summary of ray conclusions, in the shape of a concrete illustration. If I were to teach a lesson on cotton to a third or fourth year class, I would begin with a collection of cotton products and I would probably end by letting the pupils examine some post cards, cuts or stereographs. If I were teaching the same lesson to a fifth or sixth year class, I would begin in the same way, and probably wind up with a stereopticon lesson. If the class were a seventh or eighth year class, I would omit no single step, but I would add the motion picture. Many may not accept all my conclusions, but I think we shall all agree that each of these typical visual aids must play its particular role in the teaching process; and that a large part of our problem is to allocate to each its own most effective place and function. Approved EducationalTilms BEGINNING next month, the Visual Instruction Association proposes to publish monthly in The Educational Screen descriptive lists of educational films approved by its Reviewing Committee, Miss Rita Hochheimer, Assistant Director of Visual Instruction, New York City, Chairman.