The Educational screen (c1922-c1956])

Page 124 Educational Screen keep us supplied for five years according to our current bookings. Only we don't use them for orders, but for holding dabs of paste in mounting pictures for cur opaque projectors ! Centralized Libraries To avoid confusion, and to eliminate duplication of effort in the non-theatrical film world, we should embark upon a system of full coverage, centralized libraries for free distribution of films, or low rentals for films. It is time the producers of sponsored films get together and create those distributed centers. It is imperative that it be recognized that many schools will never have in the near future, sufficient funds for many rentals unless those rentals are low . . . quite low. No single reel subject, color or black and white, should rent for more than 50 cents per day. Postage or express charges in addition puts this well over a dollar. This is also a good argument for more sponsored and "adapted" films. When one hears war-boom-happy teachers talking of money for rental films in terms of, "Let them find the money", one begins to understand better why rental libraries charge all the traffic will bear. It is as silly as the teacher's attitude toward the Teaching Films Custodians project, "They're going to make a lot of money from those pictures." The sane reply was. Hozv? When? Where? Patrons are not going to take food from their children's stomachs or shoes from their feet in order to provide talkies in poorly heated classrooms. Coupled with centralized film libraries comes the recent growth of many film libraries. It seems Uncle Sam with his O.W.I, films and Co-ordinator of InterAmerican Affairs products (some prett}' poor product) sold every ambitious college on the idea of a film library. Probably it was these pictures which set them up in business. We blush when we admit we tossed out five waste baskets full of announcements and catalogues of such "libraries" when we cleaned our front yard recently. They were merely a two years' accumulation. Many were hurriedly mimeographed, and what mimeographing ! One almost prays for a deep depression in which to bury these over-duplications, while rigorous retrenching is required of the colleges offering government films and what others they have gathered tmder their wings. Teachers resent the "service charge" incidental to such films. They know it is a rental in disguise. An efficient system of handling films might not require as high a fee. If these libraries bought .such prints then we are being charged for something to which every taxpayer is entitled, for are not these films produced with tax money? Educators should have the courage to avoid euphemisms and say bluntly, "there is a rental for these films". Teacher Training One is not a Director of Visual Education very long before he discovers, if he did not know it before, that many teachers are imable to operate the simplest projection machine. They are not the old teachers either. The fault lies with the courses offered teachers in Visual-Auditory Aids. The instructors in these courses seem to carefully avoid the teaching law. "one learns by doing". If a Projection Club teacher in a high school can find time to teach twenty boys how to operate every type of visual education machine in a semester's time, then the same could be done with teachers in a teachers' college in less time. Not only do teachers not know how to operate, but they do not know the correct names for machines or materials projected. This is because they have much "book larnin' ", but little practical. They also do not know how to use films effectively. The causes seem to be (a) Manuals for teachers seem too involved, leaving the teacher in a muddle, (hi Manuals seem too long. (Who knows, the modern female teacher might have a date?) (c) They seem ignorant of a few simple rules which can apply to any film, and which will be effective, (d) Few colleges teach subject matter combined with a methods course. The writer knows of several subject matter professors who resented a suggestion that the teachers be told how to apply to a classroom situation the things they were learning. It can be done even with "fellow student teachers" as "pupils". Teachers then would enter classrooms armed for action, rather than having to feel their way cautiously, or never even venture into using visual aids. For not every teacher uses them. And she alone knows the reason. Projection Equipment Our post-war stillfilm projector should be at least 750 watts equipped with a fan. Then we could use it for auditoriums as well as classrooms. With a variety of focal lengths in lenses it could be adapted for use in school theatrical jjroductions where "trick effects'' and special scenes were desired. This is another story in itself. Inexpensive, standard approved curtains or methods for darkening auditoriums and classrooms should be developed. The stiff fabric, black, bellying, shrinking shade is not the answer any more than the sagging soft cloth shade. Once they are installed they become the teachers' and the director of vistial education's headache. Our schools need more powerful opaque projectors, which give a clean-cut focus of pictures on the screen. If necessary thousand watt bulbs should be used with more powerful fans. Cleaning Up Prior, then, to embarking on our strato.spheric postwar plans for audio-visual education, let's get down out of the air. Let us first get our front yards in order. This cleaning job concerns many things: Efficiency in our office routine ; right handling of mechanical procedures : systematic di.stribution and advertising of productions ; training of teachers ; better projection equipment ; and general recognition of the need for closer collaboration between makers and users. Next (and this will be for a second article) let us get our teaching material in order — films and slides that are right in form, content and quality. It is a matter of .sharpening old tools preparatory to making and using new ones such as, for example, the alluring but still more or less unknown quantity . . . television !