KINEMA SCHOOL LESSON

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8178, 3 May 1919, Page 3 (Supplement)

KINEMA SCHOOL LESSON

By CLIFTON BOBBINS. “What a power the kinerna. is going to be in education!” So many people have used, are using, and will go on using this catch-phrase, and that seems to be as far as they go. Itl is time, however, that some practical scheme was discussed, or tho value of the greatest invention of recent times —not even excluding the aeroplane—will be frittered away for some years to come in a series of spasmodic and unorganised efforts.

Many education experts are in favour ot a kinema for every school, but this will take time, and a good suggestion has been made recently that instead of tlte kinema going to the school the school should go to the kinema.

It would be an excellent idea if kinema theatres arranged a “school afternoon’ every week, and if children attended them as part of the sohoo’ curriculum under the supervision of their masters and mistresses. On these afternoons couM be shown a series of pictnres calculated to interest and instruct school children. The natural history pictures, sometimes shown now as an “incident” of a general (programme, would he included, and also travel pictures —i much easier way of learning geography than the present primers.

Pictures of how manufactured articles are produced, and all the many processes, wuold bo shown; parts of the films now being taken of the industries of British towns could also he given with advantage. Films that have faithfully reconstructed historic scenes would be (f interest, an 1 those officially made of the Great War would lx? extremely valuable in education. The weekly gazettes of the world’s doings which are now so popular would also stifnulnte the clii'dren’s minds Arrangements might he made between the theatres and the schools for a synopsis of the “ school afternoon” to he drawn up so that the subjects shown could he explained by the teachers in

school lessons beforehand. A discussion in the class-room with the children after the show as to what they had observed would also be a good feature. Chi’dren love “pictures,” as can l>e judged by seeing the audience leave tho kinema theatre any afternoon. Why not turn this tnste to some good use ? The children would certainly learn as much as they Jo from school books.