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By Michael Schoonmaker, Author, Cameras in the Classroom Albert Einstein once said that music was a driving force behind his theory of relativity. His scientific discovery was a result, he explained of intuition driven by musical perception. What this implies is that the thought process transcends mere use and consideration of raw ideas. In Einstein’s case, music was a garden for the cultivation of creative thought.
In my K-12 videomaking experiences, I have found that video seems to have a transcendent effect not unlike music on people who watch it, and this can be used to the advantage of learning. Moving image stories trigger imagination in a similar way as music—they create an expanded arena of perception that can stimulate ideas and foster intellectual growth. This was evident throughout the creation and viewing phases of the kindergarten movie called Once Upon a Coldheart.
Kindergarten teacher Barbara Brighton and I started out by talking with the children about what they wanted a movie to be about. The children leaned heavily toward some sort of fantasy or make-believe story with a scary character in it. There was no doubt, these kids wanted to play with imagination. We were, in effect, playing with the children in a playground of imagination. Many times when I was working with them, I felt like they were taking me on a figurative tour of their “Neverland.” This was a place where there were no rules, no barriers, and no adult structures in place. It was a place where they could play out all kinds of scenarios that real life did not always provide for them. But like the toys in their classroom, this playground was not all play. There was always a learning task lurking nearby that could be attached to play activities if teachers wanted to bring it in.
As the children and Mrs. Brighton and I were developing the movie story for Once Upon a Coldheart, it was Kindergarten student Rachel Thompson who brought in an idea from a story she had read with her mother called Miss Nelson is Missing. In the story a teacher has some problems with her students’ disruptive behavior and decides to teach them a lesson. She comes to school disguised as a very mean substitute teacher and ultimately makes her students appreciate how good they had it with her. Once they learn their lesson, Miss Nelson returns to the class and they behave exceptionally well. They know the evil substitute could always return if they were to act otherwise.
After a lot of discussion, we outlined a story that was somewhat similar in terms of its “Golden Rule” underpinning but very different in terms of its plot. Instead of an entire class misbehaving, we decided, for the sake of order, to focus on one child misbehaving. Rachel was chosen to play this character partly because she was naturally outgoing, and it was reasonable to assume she would be comfortable acting in front of the camera. In real life she also happened to be the opposite of the character she would play. Having a well-behaved child acting out misbehavior would not encourage excessive celebration of such behavior.
Instead of a scary mask, the teacher in our story would have, with the aid of video tricks, an evil twin. We had done a video twins exercise some years before so this was not a new trick, at least to Mrs. Brighton, Teaching Assistant Mrs. DeBella and me. In the end the trick became the highlight of the movie.
We shot everything but the evil twin sequences first: Rachel’s antics, the obedient class reciting the alphabet, close-up shots of the children reacting in fear to the evil Ms. Coldheart (even though she wasn’t there at that time) and all of Mrs. Brighton’s lines.
The acting and pretending aspects of what we did seemed to serve two functions. First, they introduced the concept of stories as manufactured narratives. We talked about what we wanted to happen in our story and then we acted it out. The acting was, for all intents and purposes, an exercise in “faking it.” The children were asked to pretend they were scared at a time and in a place where there was nothing to be scared of. The pictures would then be used to “trick” viewers into thinking they were actually scared. They delighted in this trickery.
The other thing that acting for the screen seemed to do was to give children an alternative space to act out things they might not be able to in everyday life. Rachel’s antics, for instance, allowed for the disruption of a class activity. Students involved in the scene had the opportunity to experience something their normal lives would not allow to happen without harsh reprimand. In a sense, the acting allowed for behavioral catharsis without penalty.
The exercise introduced and solidified the notion that narratives are purposeful illusions of reality. This could be a helpful experience in making them healthy skeptics of stories manufactured by other storytellers.
However, as we were doing it, it did raise the question: “Are five-year-old children better off knowing the truth about film and television stories, or is it better to leave the illusions under wraps for a later, more developmentally appropriate time in life? Based on our movie-making experiences with past Kindergartners, there was no compelling reason not to give it a try. After all, we would be building a foundation of media education based upon truth.
There was much anticipation when it came time to shoot the evil twin scene. Mrs. Brighton changed into the Coldheart costume behind closed doors. When she returned in costume, it was very difficult for her to perform as the mean character without laughing. Several of the kids were actually coaching her into the evil role. Most of the children seemed genuinely energized by the make-believe antics and, overall, naturally comfortable in their role as young filmmakers and actors behind the visual conspiracy.
This media lesson was clearly paying off. The children were engaged in the videoplay which was anchored to their imaginations and they were “playing” at abandon. They were also thinking, interpreting and solving problems while they were playing.
For instance, when we decided not to have everyone in the class misbehave, and it would be just the character of Rachel, we discussed the “inappropriate behavior” she should engage in as co-conspirators. This was putting them in the position of evaluating their own behavioral limits. In the end they were very careful not to make Rachel be “too bad” or disrespectful. They did this on their own.
They seemed delighted in the fantasy of it all, being architects of an imaginative world of make believe. They were very interested in “playing with” ideas they knew they should not directly experience, like bad behavior, evil Kindergarten teachers and sharing someone else’s nightmare. They placed themselves squarely on the line between real and make-believe and were very comfortable there.
The reassuring part of the “scary” Coldheart story was that the experience was occurring in the supportive and nurturing environment of a kindergarten classroom. When given the opportunity, the children were facing their fears by coming up with a list of things the evil substitute teacher could take away from their positive classroom environment—snack, playtime, etc. They also wanted the story to be truly and believably scary to those who watched it. In fact it seemed the most engaging part of the creative exercise was in developing the evil character. This seemed to be at the center of their creative efforts and the strongest motive behind their storytelling process: they almost seemed to want to scare themselves. In the end, they actually did!
Find out how, next month!…
Michael Schoonmaker is Chairman of the Television-Radio-Film Department at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications, and author of the book, Cameras in the Classroom: Education the Post-TV Generation. . He began his production career with MTV, then joined NBC’s Olympic production unit. He has taught television and filmmaking courses at the University for twenty years, and worked with K-12 teachers and students for the past fourteen. |
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Videoplay: Tapping into the K-12 Imagination |
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August, 2008 |