Learning on ScreenThe Film Space
A new resource aims to encourage and build an understanding and appreciation of moving images, in all forms, for those in full-time education. Its co-founder, Ian Wall, fills in the blanks.
Putting film at the heart of the curriculum
In June 2013, Film Education, the main deliverer of teaching materials and teacher training on film in the UK, closed its doors after serving both teachers as well as the film industry for twenty-six years. Despite lack of funds, Ian Wall – who established Film Education in 1986, serving as Director of Education until it close – and James Lennox, previously Managing Director of Film Education, decided that the organisation’s important work needed to be continued. To this end we founded THE FILM SPACE, seeking to encourage and build an understanding and appreciation of moving images, in all forms, among young people in full-time education.
THE FILM SPACE recognises the key role that teachers play in introducing children and young people to a wide variety of moving images; both as an art form, and as a way of exploring other curriculum areas. The resources that had been available to teachers on the Film Education website initially disappeared and our first task was to ensure the reinstatement of the site, which we managed to achieve with the support of the Film Distributors Association. We then proceeded, via the FILM SPACE website (www.thefilmspace.org/) to make available a raft of resources which had previously been unavailable to teachers – downloadable interactive resources, guidance papers on a range of subjects relating to the critical and creative use of film and approaches to studying film as film. Slowly but surely we are adding to this collection, ensuring that teachers have access to some of the best classroom materials available.
We believe that the study of film in its own right is vitally important. In England, advocates of film education frequently place the emphasis not on the study of film itself but instead look to it as delivering a wide range of other education outcomes. Typical outcomes often include the following:
- Film is about active learning. The best film education includes discussion, presentation, critical thinking, team working and filmmaking, as well as watching.
- Film engages young people in learning. Film stretches the most gifted and engages the hardest to reach.
- Film can be used across the entire curriculum. Many teachers find that film can help to raise the profile of their subject within their schools.
- Film teaches young people many skills. The most valuable film education activities enhance critical, cultural and creative abilities.
- Film education extends young people’s cultural knowledge. Film teaches them about diverse cultures, in Britain and beyond.
- Film education provides young people with skills employers want. These benefits justify continued public investment.
- Film can help government achieve its educational objectives.
While these outcomes will be beneficial, we feel that any other subject in the curriculum could be substituted for the word ‘film’ and the outcomes would be just the same. All too often film educators promise teachers and informal providers that film education is worthwhile because it will help with literacy or with attendance figures. Whilst this is a useful way into the curriculum, it can marginalise the study of film as film, suggesting that it can only enter the learning space as a ‘stimulus’ or ‘support’ to something more important or higher on the educational agenda. We suggest that the case should be argued both ways: that film education is essential on its own account, and that it helps with other learning too.
