Educational screen & audio-visual guide (c1956-1971])

This is the second in a series of "stories behind production"— reports from producers on neiu developments in audiovisual teaching materials. Mr. Churchill is one of the partners in ChurchillWexler Film Productions. A recent arrangement between that organization and D. C. Heath and Company is bringing forth a new series of science films for correlated use with the "Heath Elementary Science" texts by Herman and Nina Schneider. This film series is described in the following report, reprinted ivith permission from "The Packet," a service bulletin for elementary teachers published by D. C. Heath and Company. From the film "Plants Make Food." The food-making process can be unforgetfabie to the child who sees it taking place. by ROBERT B. CHURCHILL SCIENCE IT IS PROBABLE that every teacher who used motion pictures in the classroom before 1945 looks back on tlie experience with mixed feelings. 'Good classroom films are, for the most part, of recent vintage and not yet so numerous as to be a drug on the market. I say this despite the fact that I have heard, even from people who should know better, "any film is better than no film." I suppose that, as one engaged in producing and selling films, I should delight in the above attitude. I don't because I share with many teachers a vivid recollection of what the bulk of the older educational films was like — essentially illustrated lectures — a dreary succession of tenuously related scenes accompanied relentlessly by unending narration in a voice redolent of radio commercials. This is bad enough in a high school classroom, but at the elementary level it is impossible. We have, it seems to me, come a long way in the past ten years and it might be instructive to consider the nature of the progress made. Some of the defects of the older films are directly due to the theory of education which assumes that children are jugs into which education is poured. (Some jugs are large, some are small; some jugs, alas, have holes in them.) Application of the jug theory to film produc tion accounted in large measure for the illustrated lecture or fact film, certainly one of the best non-habitforming soporifics ever devised. This same theory justified the making of many films on subjects which were not essentially film subjects, i.e., they were not really "moving pictures" — to use the phrase in its most literal sense. Frequently, no attempt was made to distinguish between subject matter so static that it might just as effectively be presented in a slide film (at a fraction of the cost) and that which is uniquely suitable for the film medium, i.e., subject matter which is elucidated by action or motion. Films, as everyone knows, are expensive. They are expensive to make and expensive to buy. School budgets being what they are, it seems obvious that classroom films preferably should not deal with material that is unsuited to the film technique, nor, of course, should films be used as a substitute for either a teacher, a text, or the oldfashioned process of cerebration. With increasing acceptance of the integrated curriculum and the realization that the child learns as a whole, educational materials have changed and are changing. The nature of films is changing too. The illustrated lecture, the chalk talk on film, although still with us, is giving way to other kinds of films. If progress has been slow, consider the circumstances under which educational films are customarily made. For the most part, films are produced by film producers. Most film producers are not qualified educators. Nonetheless, they are learning steadily more about both film making and the learning process as it relates to film making. For instance, teachers have taught us to consider the limitations of the attention span in deciding how long a film should be; we have become aware of vocabulary limitations at different grade levels, of the need to look at a subject through the child's eyes; we have learned from teachers what kind of introductory materials are helpful supplements, and how the content of a film affects the discussion which follows. Some films we know are so shaped as to dry up discussion. Others leave the child impatiently waiting to ask questions. Perhaps one of the most important lessons we have learned from the elementary school teachers is the need for a certain kind of timing in the pace of the film; if the film moves too fast, much of the content may be lost; if it moves too slowly, boredom sets in. Recognition of the need for limiting the amount of information contained in any one film is another important lesson in our maturing, loo much material can be just as indigestible in a film as in any other 176 May, 1956 — Educational Screen