Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
O
ne day, sometime in the early part of the 20th Century,
Hiramba Maitra, an educationist famous for his puritanical
views, was walking along a narrow lane in north Calcutta. He
noticed a movie poster stuck on the wall of the lane and the frown
on his brow deepened. “Bioscope!”, he muttered, “This new craze
will be the ruin of today’s youth!’He was deeply disapproving of the
growing popularity of this new medium of entertainment in India
and considered three hours spent in the sinister darkness of a
movie hall to be an utter waste of time. Movies were addictive, he
thought, and should be shunned like dope.
Just then, a young man bumped into him and asked him the way to
Roopabani Cinema – the movie hall where the movie announced in
the poster was playing. Hiramba Maitra turned away from him in
disgust. “I don’t know,” he snarled. But then after walking a few
paces, he realised that he just lied to the young man. And because
he considered lying a graver vice than watching a movie, he hailed
young man who had turned a corner. “Hey!” Hiramba Maitra
shouted, “ I do know the way to the movie hall, but I won’t tell
you!”
Even in the 21st Century, one comes across teachers suffering from
the Hiramba Maitra syndrome, who believe that education is
serious business while movies are entertainment and “never the
twain shall meet”. But just think about it. When we come out of the
dark movie halls after watching other peoples’ lives for three hours,
aren’t we all a little wiser? Aren’t we a little more knowledgeable
about the ways of the world? We know that a well made movie
stays with us for a long time and may influence our thoughts and
actions.
A
group of enthusiastic teachers, who have been exploring
alternative approaches to learning, gathered in Kolkata and
organised Tools in Schools - a workshop to encourage teachers to
bring cinema into the classroom. Cinema can be very effectively
used as a pedagogical tool to initiate classroom discussion, to
illustrate certain parts of the text book, to
draw students’ attention when a topic is
Cinema can be very
effectively used as a
boring or difficult, to make the abstract pedagogical tool to
tangible and to seep some emotion into dry initiate classroom
and dusty logical arguments. discussion, to
illustrate certain
Over and above, cinema itself can be a parts of the text
topic for discussion in the classroom – why book, to draw
the students liked the movie they watched t d t ’ tt ti
over the weekend, which parts of the movie touched them the
most, what the message of the movie was, whether they agreed or
disagreed with the message and whether they had an alternative
message to offer …
Tools in Schools Kolkata
A
t the Tools in Schools workshop held at the Birla Industrial &
Technological Museum at Kolkata (August 19 to 21, 2010),
teachers who use cinema in the
classroom shared their experiences
It grew
and expertise. They demonstrated the
apparent that
use of cinema in the classroom and
clippings of
popular movies
illustrated how lesson plans could be
could be used to
constructed around a movie clipping.
teach history,
It grew apparent that clippings of
geography
popular movies could be used to teach history, geography, physics,
life science and most importantly, life skills. Often, as the teachers
illustrated, the same film could be used in different classes to
generate different levels of discussion and initiate diverse activities.
Day 1
T
he workshop began with an introductory session on film
appreciation conducted by Dr. Somnath Zutshi. A teacher has
to realise that a movie can charge a student’s mind and a movie
can open many worlds at the same time with knowledge,
imagination and wonder. In the subsequent session, taken by
Subha Das Mollick, the participants watched a charming short film
“Muted Music” (Courtesy Prix Jeunesse Foundation) about a child’s
loss of hearing. One of the teachers found it just the right film for
discussing non verbal communication, while another said that this
film should be used for teaching life skills such as anger
management and coming to terms with a disability. For science
teachers this is a great film for initiating a discourse on hearing and
the human ear. The teachers’ responses to this Icelandic film
exemplified multiple possibilities even in a different culture and
context.
Bubla Basu began her English session with the reading of a poem
‘Mebula Ramasandra’ by Valerie Noble. The poem, obviously about
racial prejudice, was complemented by clips from a PBS
documentary, A Moral Journey (etc) giving actual news footage of
the 1960’s in America and introduced Robert Coles, a child
psychiatrist who counseled 6 year old Ruby Bridges, the first Afro-
American child to attend a previously All-White school and the
impact that this created –on her and those around her. The class,
one of input and opinion, is one after which the exercise given to
the children is “ That morning, I looked out of my window and ….”.
Day 2
D
ay 2 began with a refreshing session by Sumita Mazumdar on
how an atmosphere of freewheeling and self motivated
learning can be created outside the confines of the classroom. All
that is needed is to arouse the curiosity of children with some
snippets of information, anecdotes, movie clippings etc and they
can independently source and research content, even download
images from the Net and line them up to make a film of their own.
Technology today is literally at the fingertips of our children and
they are capable of recording the germination of a seed with a
mobile phone camera or recording their thought process on the
mobile camera mike.
Day 3
D
ay 3 began on the chimes of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times
illustrating the point of man turning into machine. Rupali
Sachdev initiated a discussion on our dependence on machines and
how this most unfortunately has led to our materialistic values. In
the same session, a music video by Anand Patwardhan was shown,
where an optimistic popular song sung by Kishore Kumar on the
soundtrack contrasted with the images of nuclear holocaust on the
screen. This session triggered off an animated discussion on the
defence services, a borderless world and whether being offensive in
self defence was morally right.
The final session of the workshop was taken by Mita Pramanik who
illustrated “The Shield of Achilles” by W.H Auden, concerning
heroism in ancient Greece could be made more relevant using film
clippings. Worksheets were given to participants to show how the
clippings could be integrated into the lesson plan. In the same
session a short film called Rice Plate was screened to generate a
discussion on a deep seated prejudice in our society. As part of a
‘personality development’ class, such a film can help the students
become more sensitive to individual differences in religion and
society.
Group work
P
erhaps the most exciting part of the workshop was the group
work. The participants were divided into
five groups according to the subjects they The
taught and each group was given a short film
participants
or a film clipping around which they had to
were divided
into five
develop a lesson plan. The two largest groups
groups
were the group of Primary school teachers and
according to
the group of English and History teachers. The
smallest group was the group of Mathematics and Science teachers.
The other two groups comprised teachers of Life Science,
Geography, Environmental Science and Life Skills.
Road ahead
Before bringing this report to a close, plans for the immediate
future include:
T
he group of 49 participants at the workshop was indeed
heterogeneous, across boards, from urban to semi urban
schools, from principals to primary teachers, from art teachers and
Ngo trainers to teacher trainers.
T
he feedback form was designed to gauge which sessions they
had enjoyed the most, which ones they felt were relevant to
their classes and if the group work to design a lesson plan for the
classroom situation was useful. From the analysis of the feedback
one can deduce that the workshop in general was enjoyed and
appreciated by all, save for a couple of sessions which some of
them felt was relevant as a teacher in general but not to their
subject, in particular. The group work most felt was extremely
enjoyable and relevant, giving them hand on experience on linking
a film clip to a teaching issue and devising ways to introduce it in
class.
The workshop was intensive, over 3 days (with tea being served
during sessions for paucity of time!), but most were happy with the
length of the workshop given the fact that that they took back
several skills at the end of the three days.
S Das Mollick
The list is not exhaustive. Suffice to say that the task of the History
teacher appears to be a daunting one. The text books that are
available to History teachers fall far short of what is required and
the teacher has to rely on a variety of other materials to help her
fulfill this onerous task. Films are a valuable resource available to
us and, if used judiciously, can go a long way to fulfill our goals.
This workshop will attempt to look at how the above mentioned
objectives can be achieved through the use of films.
Some of the film clips that will be used to demonstrate this process
include:
• Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi
• History of the Cellular Jail
• Purva Uttara: a series of short films on historical sites of
India (Marg Publications)
• You tube video clips
Amita Prasad
Films and teaching language (Session 4: Aug 19)
This session will draw from visuals re: 1955-1960's in America. Film
clips will be used from:
Bubla Basu
Cinematic stimulus in the class (Session 5: Aug 19)
Anjum Katyal
Sumita mazumdar
S Das Mollick
Films in the scope of the national curriculum (Session 9: Aug 20)
Debashish Mondal
S V Raman
After this, we can leave them alone, to find themselves, and if they
wish, and if we can, guide them in their journey.
Rupali Sachdev
In her first presentation, she uses video clips from two films ‘Troy’
to introduce ISC students to the Homeric world of legend, alluded
to in W.H.Auden’s poem and ‘ All Quiet on the Western Front’ which
depicts the killing fields of modern warfare.
The second film presentation, ‘The Riceplate’ has been used to
explore the ideas of Prejudice which prevail in Indian society.
Mita Pramanik
The English and History group watched the last 20 minutes of the
film The Diary of Anne Frank. After an initial period of debating
whether to have two separate English and History lessons it was
decided to merge the two together, with two teachers co-teaching,
for the presentation. So it was planned that the lesson would begin
with the History teacher picking up from a previous discussion
about Hitler’s Jewish policy and the horror of the holocaust, which
ran parallel to the Second World War. After the class had watched
the film the teacher would ask questions to gauge whether the
students were able to comprehend and connect the Jewish “policy”
they had learnt about, with the actual and chilling incarceration of a
group of Jews and their fate after being discovered. Then the
importance of Anne Frank’s diary as an original/primary source of
history would be explained. From this point the English lesson
(presented by an English teacher) would take over with an exercise
on diary writing. Then there would be a creative thinking exercise
where the students would be asked to think about times they have
been in hiding, what were the possible things one could feel the
need to hide from, is it not true that everyone has something to
hide or is hiding from something. As an extension activity
connected with the themes of war and peace, hate and hope a
poem on peace would be read out by the teacher.
- Sunita Biswas
The clipping shown to the group was from the film “Beautiful
People” and the sequence was about animal life in semi arid regions
showing a glimpse of animal behaviour pertaining to an ostrich
family (the mating ritual, the care of the eggs, predators,
protective instinct, etc)
After viewing the clip, the group was asked to refer to the group
activity sheet and note down the following details:
• Which part of the clip could be used to excite a class?
• Which topics/themes (for class VI-X) came to mind when
they viewed the clip?
• Which class/level would this be most appropriate for?
• What other activities could be linked to this lesson?
I must confess that I left the group to their own devices soon after
as they seemed to be moving in the correct direction. (It seems the
biology group sat separately and planned their lesson as they felt
that the level/topics didn’t match their syllabus, something I was
told only the next day when it was too close to the presentation to
change things around.)
Given the limited time and communication within the group, the
presentation, though not an ideal lesson plan by any means, at
least showed that they had exploited the potential to develop a
lesson around a film clip, which was what they had set out to do.
An immediate exercise for us, the organizers, would be to generate
a list of useful films for all subjects, with their sources to enable
them to start experimenting with using films in their classrooms.
- Devika Kar
The group decided to take up both the films, A Sunny Day for the
preprimary and the Turtle’s Adventure for the upper primary , as
they found both of them interesting. To identify the objectives,
there was a random jotting down of concepts and skills , which
could be covered by the films. There were too many ideas coming
up. Some are given below:
A Sunny day –
Concepts:
• Colours
• Opposites- Night and day, light and shade, happy and sad etc
• Solar bodies- sun, rainbow, stars,etc
• Friendship- why do we need friends?
• Routine- What do we do in the morning? What do we do
before we go to bed?
• Different time of the day
Skills:
• Observation and inference
• Comprehension
• Expressing ideas
• Reproducing images seen through drawings or role plays
• Identifying colours
(See A Sunny Day)
A Turtle’s Adventure-
Concepts:
• Underwater life
• Land and water life
• Food web
• Responsibility, helping attitude
• Fear and how to overcome it
• Journey/Adventure
Skills:
• Observation and inference
• Comprehension
• Expressing ideas verbally and in writing/creative writing
• Reproducing images seen through drawings or role plays
• Categorising, Comparing
- Malini Mukherjee
The maths – science group was the smallest group of the workshop
consisting of 7 teachers from different boards – West Bengal Board,
ICSE as well as Central Board. Thus, even though the group was
small in size, it was hardly homogeneous. The heterogeneity was
compounded by the fact that the teachers taught at different levels.
Yet, it goes to the credit of the group that they could arrive at a
consensus about the presentation.
The teachers admitted that the idea of the golden rectangle was
new to them. It was definitely not a part of the syllabus and they
asked me in which part of the syllabus it could be contextualized. I
suggested to them that it could be incorporated either in the basic
geometry lesson on rectangles or in the lesson on ratio and
proportion. One of the teachers came up with the idea that the
students could be made to work in pairs and discover the golden
ratio in their body parts – say, the length from shoulder to elbow
and then from elbow to wrist. With these lengths they could draw
the rectangles and then further sub divide these rectangles into
smaller rectangles. Another teacher came up with the idea of using
India’s national flag to introduce the concept of rectangles of fixed
ratio of sides. Thus developed the lesson plan – first the flag to
introduce the concept of proportionate rectangles with a fixed ratio
of sides, then the film to introduce a very special rectangle, then a
classroom activity to draw the golden rectangles and the spiral
either on graph paper or with coloured papers, depending on the
class and finally, as an extended activity or a project after class,
identifying golden rectangles in nature and art and taking pictures
of these objects with a mobile phone camera and sharing them with
e - pals.
The teachers agreed that the idea of the golden rectangle could be
introduced in primary classes as well as higher classes – right upto
higher secondary classes where the concept of irrational numbers
are introduced. In each class the golden rectangle could be
explored to different depths. The time was too short for the
teachers to understand the concept fully and then adapt it to the
class lesson. They did not get an opportunity to view the film a
second time. Nor did they get time to try out certain activities
hands on. In spite of that, they managed to develop a workable
lesson plan and give a decent presentation.
With more time, the potential of the film could have been explored
further.
- Debasish Mandal
A SUNNY DAY
This film had been chosen as a lesson for the Pre-primary children.
The plan is as follows:
ENGLISH
1. Comprehension
2. Creative writing – a day in the Sun’s life, a day at a sea beach,
a day when the sun overslept
3. Concepts of day & night, before & after, hot & cold, sad &
happy, seasons, friends
4. Sequencing
5. naming words, doing words
EVS
1. punctuality & routine
2. colours in the sky, beach, rainbow
3. categorization – observation skill
4. co-ordination – motor skills development
5. drawing
Lesson Plan
(activities for a week)
For language
While doing Collective Nouns(school of whales, shoal of fish , flock
of birds) I will go back and connect it to migration.
Creative writing- You were under water throughout the film. In
reality you are always above water. What is the difference in
experience?
Value Education
How would you feel when you are in danger. Imagine travelling to a
new place.
How would you help someone in danger? We saw the turtle help
another turtle caught in a net.
How would you feel if your mummy and daddy returned home late
one day?
They can make posters, slogans and write poems – to save turtles
Regards,
Jeenu George
Loreto Dharamtala.
Starter Activity:
The class begins with a game in which all students participate. The
teacher asks the students to form a circle by joining hands. She /
he asks a volunteer to step out of the circle. This ‘outsider’ is then
asked to try to make his / her way into the circle. The ‘insiders’
defend their space while the ‘outsider’ fights to make a place
among them. The volunteer is then called back into the circle and a
new volunteer is asked for. This may be repeated twice/thrice. It is
interesting to note the behavior of the ‘insiders’ towards the
‘outsider’ and vice versa (before and after the latter is reinstated)
as well as that of the first ‘outsider’ (once he/she has been
reinstated in the circle) towards the next.
Once the game is over the students take their seats. Any follow-up
discussion is avoided at this stage. They are simply asked to hold
on to what they felt while the game was in progress.
After the viewing the students are given a few minutes for quiet
reflection to think about what they have just seen –the characters
and their lives, the incidents and twists the story takes and the
dominant feelings and attitudes which emerge from the various
interactions in the film.
Group work or collaboration:
The class is then divided into groups of 5/6 students and asked to
respond to a number of questions. These may either be put up on a
board or handed out in the form of questionnaires. Each group is
asked to select a group leader who records the responses of the
group members. These responses are collected from the groups by
the teacher after completion. Questions for this part of the lesson
may be selected from the following:
• What feelings emerge from the following relationships- Batar
and Orgil, Batar, Orgil and the bullies, Batar and his parents,
Orgil and his parents.
• Why is Orgil referred to as ‘stupid’ or ‘foolish’ by Batar’s
parents and the other boys? Is his behavior more foolish than
that of the other characters?
• Do you think Batar should have obeyed his father and not
befriended Orgil? Why or why not?
• What do you think Orgil and Batar felt at the following points-
their first meeting, their first and second encounter with the
bullies, after hurting the child and finally while Orgil is being
taken away by the police.
• Which characters, according to you, did the right thing and
who were wrong? Why?
• Was crime and punishment evenly balanced in the film- for
Orgil and the little boy whom he assaulted?
• Did you like the ending? Could the film have ended differently?
How would you have liked it to end?
• For your desired ending which characters should have behaved
differently? What should they have done?
• What would you have done if you were in Batar and Orgil’s
place?
• What would you have done if the cigarette was offered to you?
• Which characters need to change in the story and how?
• What do you think will happen to the characters after this?
• What did you enjoy in this film? Suggest a title for it.
• Relate this to any real life or fictional friendship between two
apparently unlike people you may have experienced,
witnessed or read about.
Opinions
T
he Three-Day-Workshop on Use of Films in learning lesson at
School level at BITM from 19th.- 21st. August,2010 has
opened a new dimension specially to the teachers of the Bengali
Medium Government Aided Institutions. Being the Principal of a
Higher (Senior) Secondary School,stepping into 125th. Year, I think
if the class-room teaching is imparted with the clippings of popular
films it will have an overwhelming impact on the mind of young
learners. The use of movies in the class-room can substitute the
board-work and repeated lecture, make the abstract tangible and
manifest the unspeakable with different point of view on different
subjects. If this system is introduced in Bengali Medium School
undoubtedly learners can learn their lesson with much enthusiasm
and interest forgetting the monotony of the traditional class-room
situation and enjoy the lesson as it becomes less and less like
lesson and more like entertainment. – Dr. D Bera (Principal, Behala
High School)
I
t is an effective and emerging mode of teaching learning
process.Now a days media plays a important role in our society.
So using films in classroom situation is necessary to create interest
in teaching learning process. It is quite tough to implement this
process in our system due to lack of computers in schools. But
through this process we can easily generate joy and fun among the
pupils and the pupils learn the subject joyfully. - Dr. Swapan Kr
Sarkar (David Hare Training College)
T
eachers cannot follow the same pedagogical methods year
after year. The teaching learning methods should evolve and
improve through research. This method of using films in the
classroom, demonstrated in the workshop, is a very interesting one
and can get the student interested in the subject. We have started
applying this method in our school. – Dr. Manoj Bhattacharya
(Principal, The Oriental Seminary School)
A
fter Taare Zameen Par, it has become so much easier to
explain to our students what learning disability means. 3 Idiots
has beautifully illustrated the advantage of learning by
understanding over rote learning. In Bengali films you will find
teachers with varied personalities. Thus our popular films can be
very effectively tapped as resource material – not only for B.Ed
classes, but for all subjects. – Dr. Subir Nag (Principal, Satyapriya
Roy College of Education)
Our team
Arijit (BITM)
Subhash (BITM)