The Educational screen (c1922-c1956])

260 The Educational Screen The Motion Picture as an Effective Teaching Aid ""(1) F. Dean McClusky Director of The Scarborough School, New York ' I 'HE motion picture began to •*• be used for instructional purposes in the schools of America in about 1919. Many believed it would be a panacea. Others were skeptical. The controversy thus aroused found fruit in experimentation. During the past ten years investigators at the University of Chicago, at Teachers College at Columbia, at the University of Illinois, at the University of Iowa, at the Ohio State University, at Yale and in other institutions of higher learning have made analyses and tests of the effectiveness of the motion picture as a medium of instruction. In addition, teachers in many cities have put the film through the acid test of actual use in the classroom. It is fitting, therefore, that we summarize in detail, at this time, the lessons which have been learned during the past ten years about the effective use of the cinema as a teaching device. For the sake of clarity, our comments will be placed under three headings: first, changes in the construction and organization of the motion picture for classroom purposes ; second, principles governing the correlation of the cinema with the curriculum; and third, principles underlying the technique of using films in the classroom for effective instruction. As soon as teachers began to try out the motion picture it became apparent that the expense of the new device and the complexity of projection machinery * — A paper read before the Department of Visual Instruction of the National Education Association, at its meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, July 1-2, 1929. were major factors in hindering wide spread use. To meet this situation the portable or "suitcase" projector was invented thus reducing expense and making it possible for teachers to free themselves of the incubus of the large projection booth. But the portable projector was not totally satisfactory. Fire laws cut into its mobility and the expense, while reduced, was still great. The next step was the invention of the narrow width 16 mm. film and projector. This was first marketed as a high grade toy for making home movies, but it soon was transferred into the school field. By means of this apparatus the cost of projection has been reduced, the cost of film has been cut to less than one third, the projection machinery has been simplified and the fire hazard has been eliminated through the manufacture of narrow width film on the acetate, commonly called "non-flam," stock. The Eastman Kodak Co. pioneered in this movement to simplify projection and demonstrated its own faith in the practibility of the new equipment by launching a million dollar corporation, Eastman Teaching Films, Inc., to produce and market high grade classroom films. Other firms have followed suit so that most school films may now be obtained on the 16 mm. width. A second change has occurred in the organization of the classroom cinema. It is now the practice to produce episodes, bits of contrasting events, and somewhat disconnected scenes rather than a complete cinema "lesson". Many producers of early school films were so intent on making the story of the lesson complete that they used hundreds of film feet for captions and reproductions of still pictures. They even went so far in some instances as to screen shots of old wood cuts and other lifeless subjects. The extent to which this "complete lesson" idea caused the producers of early educational films to use still shots and caption material was studied by the speaker in 1922. A second study of 96 subjects made by H. Y. McClusky in 1923 and reported in "Visual Education," The University of Chicago Press, showed that the percent of footage devoted to subtitles was 33.54, to still pictures 11.85 and to action 54.61. To quote the report, "The lengtli to which this excessive use of still pictures and subtitle material can go is illustrated by a film (entitled English Settlements) — This film is composed largely of still pictures; it deals with an historical subject, not by presenting a story especially dramatized for this film, but by offering a series of historical views and a succession of portraits of pioneer personages no better than those adorning the walls of the ordinary schoolroom. There is scarcely any action, in fact there 1: nothing exhibited in the film essential to the topic which requires motion for its portrayal. Such excesses appear to be the result of the uncritical opinion that any type of educational material by mysterious alchemy, becomes a desirable educational device when placed on a motion picture film." Experience and experiment have shown that these early mo(Concliided on page 262)