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FILM IN THE CLASSROOM: A COMMENT By RICHARD HARVEY Why did you begin to use film in the classroom? Is your film usage today based mainly on pedagogical theory or on personal experience? How does film differ from print and speech as a means of teaching and learning history? Those questions, and others which arose spontaneously during the discussion, were considered by a panel of four historians at a session on "Film in the Classroom" at the May 15th meeting of the Community College Social Science Association at the Sheraton Inn-Hopkins Airport, Cleveland, Ohio. The panelists were Lee Makel a (Cleveland State University); Marvin Fletcher (Ohio University); Taylor Stults (Muskingum College); and Richard Harvey (Ohio University, Chairman). Ten years ago, such a session would have been innovative. Ten years ago, such a session would have lacked academic respectability. Today, one cannot claim innovativeness for such sessions. Indeed, they have become almost routine at professional meetings everywhere, even receiving the high-powered backing of the American Historical Association on some occasions. And yet, it appears that they continue to be somewhat beyond the pale: for the most part, only academics in the lower reaches of the pecking order and those who do not publish much participate in them. And much the same may be said of the use of film in the classroom: it, too, is not quite respectable, being used (so it is thought) by "with-it" historians and by those anxious to inflate sagging enrollments in their classes. The film in the classroom scene today, however, is a little more complex than that. On the one hand are the "film freak historians," ranging from those who, with troubled consciences, are only beginning to Rlcha/id HaAvey lt> a memben, o{ the Vepa&tment o{ HAatony at Ohio UnlvenAltsj In Athenb, Ohio. explore the possibilities of film supplements to print and lecture, to the veterans, who have been using film for a decade or so, who (one imagines) identify with Eisenstein, or Truffaut, or Peckinpah, and who, at the moment, seem especially interested in taking stock of the situation before going on. Judging from the views expressed at the "Film in the Classroom" session, the veterans now have serious reservations about the value of film in the classroom. They no longer look to film as the best, and surely not the only means, of adding a visual supplement to lecture presentations. They regret the loss of control over classroom materials which the use of film entails. And, in some cases, frustrations with budgetary and utilization problems have decided the issue, against the use of film. These historians, self-taught and now competent in a good many areas of media technology, are adopting a confident do-it-yourself attitude toward media usage. Some are making their own films; some are creating new soundtracks for older films; some are creating sophisticated slide-tape shows for classroom use; all, it appears, are exploring with their students the real and potential uses of media techniques in the classroom. Thus, it would appear that the vets are abandoning the use of a commercial product, readily available on the market--the finished film at a set rental--for visual and sound supplements which they themselves create, and thus control. On the other hand, the use of film in college and university classrooms is still widely regarded as faddish, as a "pop" means of increasing enrollments, as an abdication of one's lecturing responsibilities, as a lapse from the professionalism which all historians espouse. These negative attitudes are fervently held, perhaps because they have to do with professional identity, and thus appear to be serious obstacles to communication between those who use film (and other media) and those who do not. Yet, I should like to suggest that common ground does exist. It consists of two propositions. Proposition one is: historians can and must do everything they can to stimulate an interest in history. They may generalize; they may philosophize; they may dramatize; they may popularize. They must help the individual student to find his place in the continuity of human experience. No means, not even film and other media, ought to be regarded as off limits. The...

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