Visual Education (Jan 1923-Dec 1924)

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March, 192 3 87 Putting the Blackboard to Work Dorothy Dease Miles Standish School, Cleveland, Ohio ONE of the most interesting developments in modern educational method is the practical use which present-day pedagogy is making of the sense of sight. Year by year we find "visual education" assuming more and more importance in the educational scheme. The need of visualization is everywhere acknowledged, from the remotest little country school with its limited facilities, to the most up to date city school, equipped with every sort of device to make teaching tangible. Whether or not a school makes much of visual education is something that depends at least as much upon its teachers as upon its equipment. Many a classroom blessed with a fund for film rentals, a portable motion-picture machine, a stereopticon and a complete stereoscopic outfit, actually enjoys less visualization of its course of study than some poorly equipped little school that is nevertheless rich in the possession of a teacher with a vision of the economy and essential "rightness" of the picture way in teaching. Such a teacher will have the initiative to introduce pictures into the work at every turn, even when they are not "nominated in the bond." Visual Material Everywhere Every classroom has access to newspapers and magazines from which pictures may be clipped for the making of scrapbooks and posters. Every classroom has a blackboard and a supply of chalk. Every classroom has maps. Most schools have charts, models and specimen cabinets ; and many are blessed with such modern visual tools as portable museums, slides, stereographs, and educational motion pictures. It is, indeed, the recent development of the school film that has been primarily responsible for stimulating interest in the whole subject of visualization. We might almost say that it was not until the movie came along, with its challenging values, that the still picture really came into its own as a teaching aid. The idea of the picture is ancient ; the idea of using the picture in the business of education is comparatively new. Use — that is the nub of the whole matter. No tool, however sharp and efficient, is worth a picayune except as it is used. Therefore the sincere and earnest teacher, firmly convinced of the value of visualization, must ask herself, "How can I make the best use of this great educational idea?" Enlarged Images Essential We are told to bring pictures before the children; but how can these pictures function at one hundred per cent of their efficiency when the majority are so small that only one child can look at them at a time? We cannot expect a child to grasp and retain an impression of a small picture which is quickly passed around in class. The solution of the problem is — ENLARGE ! With a large picture constantly before him as topics are discussed, the pupil receives a clear impression that is not easily forgotten. Films and slides projected on the classroom screen enlarge the original many, many times. Wall charts and wall maps show details clearly. The blackboard is an everconvenient medium for displaying enlargements. And since no school is too small or poor to own a blackboard, let us discuss ■ — as a simple means of bringing visual education into every classroom — the use of a de OUTLINES ALL CAN STUDY AT ONCE Of all the studies in the curriculum, none better repay visualization than geography and nature study. A simple outline of a bird provides a basis for lessons on size, color, habits, nest, food and the like, in preparation for observing the bird itself in its favorite haunts. A blackboard map large enough to be seen from every seat, and that any boy or girl is delighted to enlarge for Teacher from a small copy, serves as a visual peg on which to hang day-by-day lessons on physical features and natural resources.