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

themselves. The R.W.U. either pro- duced its fihns or commissioned or bought them from a number of firms. The subjects of the fihns to be made were decided by an Advisory Council of the R.W.U. composed of representatives of provincial and local authorities, schools, universi- ties, and teachers' associations. The choice of films was based on the needs of the various schools and individual teachers were encouraged to send in recommendations to the Council. Certain films were made to illustrate text-books which were used in the German schools. Production was the result of the cooperative efforts of a film officer of the R.W.U., a subject specialist and the producer. .\11 of the films in the R.W.U. Catalogue issued in 1944 are 16 mm silent films, appar- ently for the following reasons: 1) Political reasons already men- tioned. 2) Expense—silent vs. sound. 3) Many teachers preferred the silent film on purely educational grounds, others resented a spoken commen- tary in that it introduced another authority into their jealously guard- ed domain. N'o credit titles appear on the films for the same reason. The teacher interpolated necessary explanations and conveyed supple- mentary information during the pre- view or follow-up work. A Teacher's Guide was issued with each film; these were complete and were com- piled either by the subject specialist or by a panel of teachers. Films were produced for four types of educational institutions, in order to meet educational requirements of both pupils and students: (below) To train teachers in the use of visual aids, courses were organized by provincial, district and local cen- ters. There were short courses of 3-8 lessons, mainly on how to use ap- paratus provided in schools. There were also longer courses which of- fered training in both the theory and practice of visual aids in education. In 1939, 79 per cent of the teachers in Germany were reported to have re- ceived some form of training. Following the end of the war over 175 films were captured and brought back to Great Britain. These films were recognized as being intended for use in schools corresponding to the primary and second grades in England. Some of the films also were suitable for trade or technical schools. It became the objective of the group of British educators to exam- ine the existing films so as to assess the possibility that there might be among them informational films of teaching value to schools in the lib- erated countries, as well as in Great Britain. It was felt that if this work of viewing and assessing the value of films was carried out by panels of capable teachers, it would be pos- sible then to determine the practical value and the possible interest of the content to teachers and students in Great Britain. Thus, it was that teachers from all over Great Britain participated. It was late in 1945, when the ac- tual preview and assessing of these films had been accomplished. The films were checked in terms of the following: 1) Existence of propagandistic ten- dencies. 2) The quality of teaching ap- proach and subject suitability. 3) The accuracy of materials. 4) The technical quality included in the film itself. On the basis of these four points one might well ask, "What were they Editor's Note: Recently 175 captured German educational films came into the possession of the English. A proj- ect luas set up to discover which of these might he of use in the liberated countries in the conduct of post-war educational systems. Some of these films after being carefully previewed have bee?! judged to be acceptable teaching material. Others were judged to have been made under the stringent regulations of the con- trolled authority in power in Ger- many during the fne-war years and were, therefore, estimated to be unfit for use in the democratic countries. like?" In short, what are the 175 films like? The statement of the committee follows: 1) The films are primarily instruc- tional and not propagandistic in ap- proach. Only 13% of the films would be excluded on the grounds that they were propagandistic. 2) The value of films and their re- lation to British practices in educa- tion would not be as high as they had been to German curriculum. The selection of topics under the subject headings is rather limited and in many cases does not include what is generally considered essen- tial subject matter. 3) With the exception of the propa- ganda films, the film content mate- rial was judged to be highly accurate. 4) The films were judged to be background films rather than teach- ing films, according to English staadards. 5) Over 70% of the films examined ran over more than 10 minutes in length, and of these, 22% ran more than 20 minutes. Therefore, the es- timate of the committee was that they were too long. 6) The technical quality was some- what disappointing in view of Ger- many's high reputation for photo- graphic equipment and technical skill. 7) Subject content covered among 175 films was as follows: Geography —63 films; Science—46; Craft and Handwork—37; Physical Education— 8; Miscellaneous, 21. All credit is hereby given to the British Film Institute for permission to arrange the above abstracts from the general report of German Edu- cational Films. • MAY • 1947 3»