See and hear : the journal on audio-visual learning (1945)

(CONTINUED FROM PRECEDING PAGE) Office of Adult Education was re- created and a plan was conceived to have a more intensive and extensive teaching of the adult population. The Philippine government is not unmindful of the fact that democ- racy cannot long endure where the population is half illiterate and half- educated. Moreover, the new world trends emanating for the UNESCO give emphasis on mass education and are exerting salutary influence on the cause of adult education; hence many serious-thinking Fili- pinos are convinced now, more than ever, that the education of the adult citizens is a serious responsibility of the government. The Philippine Journal of Education one of the most popular teacher magazines in the Philippines voiced this attitude of teachers when it said editorially: "Ours is supposed to be a republican democratic state and yet there are thousands of adults luho can not even exercise the elementary right of voting be- cause they can not read and write and therefore they have no voice, no share or participa- tion in the choice of officials who govern them. They can not be expected to know and exercise the other elementary rights that citizens^ have under our laws and Constitution." It may be pertinent to note too that the significance of moving pic- tures in adult education acquires a unique meaning in the Philippines on account of the several languages spoken in the islands. As a neutral medium hardly affected by language differences, moving pictures have been effective in disseminating ideas. From one region to another, people of different languages understand the message of the films. In the lessons on health, character, home economics, vocations, citizenship, and others the people with different cul- tural backgrounds get the universal- (CONTINUED ON PAGE FORTY-SEVEN) Extra Copies of This Report ♦ You may obtain additional cop- ies of this issue of See & Hear at cost of 25c apiece. Simply address your request, enclosing stamps or coin for the number of copies re- quired to See & Hear, 812 N. Dear- born St., Chicago 10. AUDIO-VISUAL PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS IN EUROPE A-V learning in Britain's Scliools Two Reports from Overseas by J. F. B. Bunting, Assistant Editor, "The 16-Mil Film User" Howard Thomas, Producer-in-Chief, Pathe Pictures, Ltd. FOURTEEN YEARS AGO, when I was teaching physics to a junior class at an English public school, I spent the whole of one summer vacation making a film on the expansion of metals. The medium I employed was 9.5 mm Pathescope film, then very popular in Europe; and the completed pic- ture included a three-minute dia- grammatic sequence, which took me nearly seven weeks to prepare and photograph. On my return to school, I tried out an experimental screening of the film during a Friday afternoon period, usually devoted to revision. I discovered that in six minutes the scholars had learned more than in six hours of lecturing. Unfortunate- ly, the headmaster chose to visit the class as I was showing the film for the second time, and I was subse- quently severely reprimanded by him for the use of unorthodox meth- ods! To a great extent this attitude towards the use of the film in schools prevailed in Great Britain until two years prior to the World War, and there still exist today a great many teachers who are skeptical of its value. Radio, on the other hand, has be- come an established institution . in 90 per cent of the British schools. The British Broadcasting Corpora- tion has been transmitting regular programs to schools during term time for more than fifteen years. These programs are directed at both junior and senior students, and ev- ery subject capable of being taught by sound alone is included in the syllabus. It has been reliably reported that the number of radio receivers in British schools exceeds 100,000 but a recent census of school film pro- jectors disclosed a figure less than 2 jjer cent of this. Of these projectors, some 300 are in use in Scottish schools, mainly in the large towns, while of the balance approximately 350 are distributed among the small country schools of England and Wales, and about 1,000 in the urban areas. In Britain, the acquisition and al- lotment of school projectors is gen- erally in the hands of the local edu- cation authorities. Each county council and urban council possesses its own education committee, and these committees are responsible for all matters dealing with school pol- icy, maintenance and expenditure in their respective areas. They must depend for general guidance upon the Ministry of Education, but they have the power to interpret this guidance in a variety of ways. Thus there is nothing to prevent «very education committee from in- sisting that every school have its own projector. The Ministry of Educa- tion has made strong recommenda- tions about the use of visual aids in schools, although it has not insisted upon their use. Why, then, has Britain lagged behind so many other countries in the use of school projectors? The reasons are three-fold. First, there is the prejudice against unor- thodox teaching methods that I have already mentioned. As an example of this, one can quote the case of a very famous English public school where, although a film society has been permitted for many years, the headmaster and governors have al- ways opposed the use of projectors in the classroom. Many education committees are also still antagonistic. The second reason is the shortage of projectors. Faced with the pres- ent economic crisis, Britain is manu- facturing less than 100 projectors a week, and the bulk of these is for export. Again, the general trend of the British education authorities is towards the silent projector, and not one of these has been manufactured since the end of the war. High cost is also a deterrent. A new sound-film projector costs be- 28 SEE AND HEAR