International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1934)

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THE CINEMA IN VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE BY Professor Luc GENERAL DIRECTOR OF TECHNICAL TEACHING AT THE FRENCH MINISTRY OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. It was thought advisable and urgent, after the war, to direct the attentions of our children towards specialized crafts and trades. It became, in consequence, necessary to examine carefully the most suitable conditions for inducing the child to show his inclinations for any special trade or kind of work. We thus arrived at what is known as vocational guidance. We are dealing with a comparatively new science which it would be impossible to examine properly within the limits of this report. Those interested in the matter can have any supplementary information from the Institute for Vocational Guidance (29 Rue d'Ulm, Paris) or from the article on the subject by M. Fontegne, General Inspector of Technical teaching and co-director of the Institute in question. The article which appeared in the March 1933 number of the Review of the I.I.E.C. gives a fairly complete picture of what the motion picture can do for vocational guidance. Ever since the creation of a vocational guidance service, the objects of the bureau of Technical Teaching have been twofold. It was sought, on the one hand, to encourage the children to learn a proper trade or craft rather than yield to the attraction of immediate earnings which inevitably result in subsequent inefficiency. It was also desired that the child schould be steered towards a trade or craft which seemed best suited to his possibilities. We must take into account: (1) the physical and psychical capacities of the child and (2) his natural preferences. The first of these questions is undoubtedly connected with medicine, while the second means a work of education in the case of a child who is not only ignorant of his possibilities, but even of his likes and dislikes. In order to choose a craft and know its possibilities, one must know several crafts. Visits to factories, etc. may seem useful, but they are surrounded with difficulties and drawbacks such as the material impossibility of taking a large number of children to factories and workshops, etc. at the same time, the danger for the children in approaching too close to the machines, the difficulty of explaining their working and so on. It is chiefly for reasons such as these that the management of the Vocational Guidance Service has suggested the use of the motion picture. If the screen is only a reproduction of reality, it possesses advantages over the latter from the demonstrative point of view. The contrast of black and white revealed on the screen shows the objects projected enlarged, and renders them more easily understood. In this way many details are observed which would otherwise pass unnoticed. The slow motion projector, moreover, can split a movement up and reveal it in a way that nothing else can. Animated cartoons can break up the most complicated movements, and recompose them without arresting the motion. The cinema can therefore well assist unaided in defining and helping one to choose a craft or trade, for it should be remembered that vocational guidance does not set out to teach a trade but only to give an idea and illustration of it. The child gets a general idea from the projection, and can