Despite the ubiquitous presence of film in children’s lives, film education remains somewhat on the sidelines within primary and secondary schools in Scotland. Film has, until relatively recently, found a somewhat uncomfortable fit with the more traditional notions of literacy within the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence.
Many teachers have told me that film has, until recently, been seen as something of an easy option: something to distract or entertain your class, rather than a complex medium of expression that can be explored with the same breadth and depth as a novel or a play.
And yet, one does not have to look far in Scotland to find a wealth of anecdotal evidence as to the power of using film in classroom settings. My colleague Michael Daly (@MrDaly_JPAEng on Twitter), who frequently uses film in his work as an English and media teacher at John Paul Academy in Glasgow, feels that film has an energy and value for young people that more traditional forms of literacy simply do not.
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Film is more readily a part of children’s lives and, as a result, Michael’s students frequently feel they are able to share more of their own experiences, interpretations and ideas when discussing and writing about a film than they would do with novels, a form that seems to them more distant and within the authoritative domain of the teacher. This is one of several reasons why Michael describes film as creating more of a “level playing field”, not only between different students - in removing some of the barriers to participation facing more traditional literacies - but also between students and their teachers.
In my own experience as a film education practitioner working in Scottish classrooms, I continue to witness remarkable transformations in certain students through their engagements with film. During my work with Scotland’s Understanding Cinema project (in which primary school students make their own short films), I worked with a P7 student who gained such an increased boost in confidence and self-efficacy that his teacher later described how his reading age had rocketed forward three years in three months. Again, here was a sense that, because cinema is a medium carrying both significance and relevance for young people, educational engagements with film in the classroom can transformative.
The Film Education Journal (which is launching a new set of resources for teachers this week) and this week’s Scottish International Film Education Conference are two new initiatives looking to explore how, as teachers and film education practitioners, we might be able to capitalise on the considerable potential for film in school settings, both in Scotland further afield.
There is so much potential for film in schools - let’s do more with it.
Jamie Chambers is the founding editor of the Film Education Journal (@filmeducationj on Twitter) and organiser of the Scottish International Film Education Conference 2020, which takes place for free online on Thursday 18 and Friday 19 June.
