International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1931)

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— 330 — lence to our own conviction that 65 children is not the ideal size of class; how much less then 400. Au fond we are on such occasions only " teaching " by film in order to satisfy our professional consciences and in order ourselves to learn the art of film-teaching. We are all quite aware that 80 % of the class is beyond the reach of our instruction. We realise that of this 80 % the great majority is not digesting what is being taught and pointed out, but is' passively engaged in watching. In this case what is lost and is bound to be lost are the explanations of things not at the time understood and of things imperfectly seen. Subsequent explanations during the ensuing weeks — only practicable if the form-master or specialist was present at the showing — cannot as a rule replace the commentary which should accompany the film at the time of projection. The large number of children has the effect of converting co-workers and class-mates into a public of spectators animated by mass-psychology, the individual cowed by numbers — with the result that only a few timid questions will be put or, on the other hand, following the collective instinct of the mass, questions will be asked, if at all, then noisily and all together and just for the fun of it. Such consequences will destroy the effect of whatever teaching may have been found feasible. Let us therefore acknowledge that mass-instruction is not ideal even with the use of films. Whether we employ the touring teacher with his improvised efforts or the extension lecturer with a cut-and-dried film-lecture, or whether we ourselves attempt to discharge the functions of both, makes no great difference from the point of view of systematic teaching. Those who learn are quite certainly we ourselves; whether the children will also learn depends upon circumstances. When films are projected, not for their subject-teaching value, but as classics, that is to say, film classics, the position is, to be sure, essentially modified. By these we mean certain travel films — the Scott and Shackleton expeditions — films about strange parts — " Nanuk ", " Moana ", " Chang " — classified by the unfortunate name of " cultural " films, or again dramatic films made from fairy-tales, novels, plays or from original scenarios. Experience of such projections even now may be, though it is not always, comparable with the experience of a stage-play. It is to be anticipated that one day motion-picture plays will take their place with the spoken drama in the German curriculum. True, the material is as yet scanty, but it exists. The supple ski-jumper, in Marvels of Ski-ing No. 2 (Fox-hunting in the Engadine), whose enormous jumps seem to solve the lighter-than-air problem, the expert runner, as he cuts his lightning track through the glorious winter snowscape, its poetry and silent beauty made perceptible to the senses, furnish material for experience of no small value, material that will one day form part of the schoolroom's normal stockin-trade, to be regarded as the equal and no longer subordinate of the spoken or written word, but conceived on lines and designed to produce effects