THE FILM IN EDUCATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 84, 8 April 1936, Page 17

THE FILM IN EDUCATION

ITS USE AND ABUSE

The London County Council is conducting an interesting experiment to determine the value of films in education (states a writer in "The Queen").

Children from schools in certain areas to the number of 14,000 are to be taken, to cinemas by their teachers, where they will see pictures dealing with English country life, industrial Britain, and various subjects of general interest. . At the end of the experiment, whicn will last some months, the teachers will give their views to the L.C.C. as to its value educationally; We have here a very difficult question on the result of which our methods of teaching may be largely altered, it is therefore, of the utmost importance that all engaged in educational work should consider the advantages and the disadvantages of the film from the point of view of its capacity to So many people of all ages and varieties of temperament and training are apt to hold that what is new .must necessarily be true.. Our schools

have already been invaded by the wireless, and before we have learnt its value it is now suggested another new instrument for instilling knowledge should be introduced.

| The film certainly has its uses. Undoubtedly for certain aspects of geography and nature study if shown as an adjunct to the lessons given by teachers it is Of value, provided it is used sparingly. . But many teachers with whom I have discussed this subject point out that if films are constantly used in the schools children soon find it very difficult to listen to the ordinary lessons. Such maintain that if the object of education is something more than instruction the film offers little advantage.

The coming of the wireless and the film into the schools means to a great extent the pushing into the background, if not the actual abdication, of the teacher. Can a mechanical method, however wonderful, take the place of the living voice and the personality of the teacher? Young people are far more influenced by persons than by facts, as all good teachers know, and as many an adult remembers on looking back at her own schooldays. MAY LEAD TO MENTAL, CONFUSION. Another objection raisea against films in the schoolroom is that though they may and do entertain the children, it is questionable whether they can give any kind of training, and whether, indeed, the rapid passing of a large number of pictures within a limited period of time does not lead to mental confusion and prevent concentration and clear thinking.

Children from a very early age today know, see, and hear in their daily life a very great dealj much of which they must find difficult to understand or assimilate. Their lack of the power to concentrate has been noted by many teachers, and also their inability and often their dislike to grapple with difficulties.

Few, even of the older generation of pedagogues, would wish to go back to the more harsher and duller methods of teaching in vogue in some schools—not by any means in all— in Victorian days. But perhaps in a reaction against these methods the pendulum has swung too far to the other extreme.

The modern teacher sometimes forgets that the object of going to school is not to be entertained, but to be trained, and that therefore children who are to be preparqd for life, even the best life, will need to learn persistence, patience, the acceptance of work that may be hard and uninteresting, the power to stand up against difficulties which if attacked with determination will probably be overcome.

The wireless and the film may make education too easy and produce a race of young people who want, above all else, entertainment. We already know that owing to the cheapness of modern amusements people spend a great deal of their time and money in pleasures that cost money, and in no wise depend on their own capacity to make their leisure time profitable and pleasurable through their own powers of initiative and without any payment to others.