International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1934)

THE CINEMA AND TEACHING METHODS 357 and the accumulation of so large a capital of images can provide material for new combinations and constructions and the exercise of a vigorous fancy. There is no question that the possibility and the habit of translating the invisible into the visible, of connecting every mental operation with a sensitive image that is definite and precise is not the best way of satisfying that special need of children for moving freely and fantastically with their imaginations and spirits in the realm of the uncontrollable and undetermined, and of exercising their imagination at the age when it seems most inclined to require stimuli to secure its proper working. However, it is only proposed to give a relative weight to this consideration. It is not my intention to insist over much on it in view of the various and even contradictory means which a good educational method must in practice have resort to. What is undoubtedly true in every sense and in all circumstances is that the motion picture, especially if it becomes an end in itself, when it is not subordinated and enclosed so to speak in a teaching method which exists outside of it, and does not allow it to act alone on the child's spirit, inevitably tends to draw with it in a kind of fascination the child's interest, leaving it much less capacity for personal examination, control, self-criticism and various mental elaborations in a much greater degree than the lantern slide. What is especially and necessarily excluded by the very nature of the luminous projection is the child's initiative, its real capacity for work, its tactile and muscular experience of the object fact or phenomenon, its possibilities for " doing it ", modifying it and making use of it. It is this which constitutes the essence of the active method, especially in the lower teaching grades, and to a certain extent and in certain forms and subjects, also in the higher grades. The thing which is presented as a luminous image becomes isolated and withdrawn from all other forms of the child's activity apart from its purely visual activity. The cinema renders the object rather than the subject active in that it shows the mobile and dynamic aspect of reality, while the subject is rendered active only to that degree with which this mobility and changing life of the object imparts a more rapid rhythm to the contemplative and emotive activity of the subject without depriving it of active force in other respects. From this point of view, graphic or plastic representations of real objects of whatever kind have an undoubted claim to superiority since they can be handled by the child and can be compared, measured, copied, completed with missing parts or indications, combined with others and used for different purposes. This means a possibility of becoming familiar with them, an active practical intervention on the part of the child, which is a matter of great importance not always negligible in comparison with that which is evidently lacking in graphic and plastic representations of reality and real aspects of life and movement. The essence of a really active method lies only in complete contact between subject and object, in the fullest liberty of the former to operate on the latter and to appropriate it for itself, both intellectually and practically. Here too lie the most favourable conditions for a clear, full and stable record of objects learnt, which is assisted by what the Germans call komplikative Geddchtniss, that is by the mnemonic images of the same object relative to the senses and forms of various experiences. We must realize that the motion picture determines a form of teaching which is more contemplative than active and means in substance, even admitting its new and admirable possibilities, the final increment of the intuitive phase of didactics (1). (1)See my article" For and Against the Cinema in Schools " in the review Vita Scolastica, Florence, January, 1934.