SCHOOL AND CINEMA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 264, 7 November 1931, Page 5 (Supplement)

SCHOOL AND CINEMA.

An inquiry into the educational influence of the cinema was conducted recently by the International Educational Cinematographic Institute. One section of the report states that the value of school films in teaching is almost universally admitted. Teachers declare that wall diagrams and fixed projections are being supplanted by the more easily assimilated film, and that the lesson of the screen is often more intelligible and profitable than the words of an intelligent and conscientious teacher.

The importance of such a statement is more than theoretical, the report adds, when it is borne in mind that these replies emanate from persons in daily contact with children who are in a position to appreciate the value of new methods. The spoken word, however eloquent and persuasive, is wearisome in the long run. It is also not strong on detail. Mural diagrams and fixed projections have the static value of lifeless matter.

The cinema, it is considered, has all that they lack—movement, illusion of real life, with a wealth of technique beyond the reach of any other art; its mastery of detail makes it especially effective as a means of communicating knowledge. Moreover, the cinema, unlike these older instruments of teaching, amuses at the same time that it instructs.