International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1931)

— 1024 — nations, which should be short, simple and clear. How then, may fixed and moving' pictures be utilized in a lesson? It is not possible to establish an immutable law in this respect. The method employed will necessarily differ according to the master's views, character and temperament, and also according to the degree of intellectual development attained by his pupils, their aptitudes, turn of mind, and the kind of subject that is being dealt with. In my opinion, however, the best method is that which incorporates the projection in the lesson, accompanying eacn phase and interpreting the more or less abstract explanation by the realistic image. Apart from its inherent pedagogic value, this method offers various advantages : it avoids fatiguing the eyes of the pupils, for pauses and intervals are frequent; it sustains their interest by its diversity, and wakes up to attention pupils who, without the cinema, are distracted and inattentive. I consider cinema projections out of class hours much less desirable. In this case pupils of different classes are associated in a hall, which has very much the character of a cinema theatre. It is obvious that the cinema must not be abused and « overdone ». In our « ecoles stephanoises et foreziennes "lessons are more oj less frequent, according to personal taste, varying from once a week to once a month, which is the average. Complete liberty being left to each one, there is plenty of scope for initiative. But here the question arises? Which are the subjects that may be taught by projection? M. A. Colette, member of the extra-parliamentary Commission for the School Cinema provides the answer (14) : « It does not follow that because our pupils like the cinema, we shall show them films on, all occasions. In our opinion, the moving picture, constituting \ means of instruction and an intellectual educational process, must necessarily be strictly limited. We shall therefore only use the projecting apparatus when we wish to show an object in motion, a live animal, successive phases of a fact, or when we wish to replace description by vision. Natural history and Geography cannot dispense with moving pictures, unless they are to be treated as mere classifications or enumerations, demanding only an effort of memory. Cinematographic projections complete object lessons by showing the places where the object come from, their manufacture and use. They also illustrate lessons on technology : ... we also make use of the cinema for the study of vocabulary, for to acquire the use of a vocabulary is simply to know how to recognize the figure of the designated object by a name, and of the action by a verb! (15). And here we should like to remark that cinematographic films, . even those meant for educational purposes, do not all reproduce scenes taken from real life or acted by actors in a natural or specially prepared setting. . Eve nin public halls, where the. cinema is an amusement, one often sees films of so-called « animated drawings », especially in advertisement films, in which amusing and unforeseen « surprise » effects arieasily obtained. On the luminous background of the screen, which serves as a blank page, lines are drawn, prolonged, interlaced and traced by an invisible hand. The final result is a drawing, no doubt simplified and schematic, but 1 drawing that moves — an animated drawing-! When it is remembered that the « shot » film is only used after the eli (14) See his article « Cinematographic Projection for Instruction », in « Le Travail Manuel, les Sciences Experimentales et le Cinema a 1'Ecole » (N. 1, Oct. 1922). (15) M. Colette is evidently an enthusiast of the cinema, for which reason he must be quoted here. But this does not prevent us from making reservations ith reference to animated projections which, we repeat, should complement the fixed picture slide in most lessons. The fixed slide-, items relating to natural history which we saw at Geneva, were mere nomenclatures, classifications or enumerations.