Picture this: your six-year-old comes home, changes and sits down to finish his homework. Surprised why he didn’t head out to play with his gang? His sudden change in behaviour may be attributed to a subject he’s being taught in school. Now learning can be fun and educative with School Cinema.
A film-based learning module developed by EduMedia, it aims to instill values and influence young minds to make better choices.
Syed Sultan Ahmed, managing director, School Cinema, says, “You need to talk to children in a language they can understand. Audio-visual medium always has a lasting impact and cinema as story telling helps them inculcate values and emotions better.”
Present in over 100 schools in India, School Cinema comes as part of the curriculum, with a set of films packaged with worksheets. For instance, some short films in their modules such as Military Mom, The Gift and Jay V/S Jay teach parent-child communication, importance of respect and anger management respectively. After watching these films, kids can write down their interpretation on the worksheets provided. There are films for teachers and parents as well.
Ahmed, who’s made about 48 films, says, “Our focus is on education, not on creative filmmaking. Our research is based on kids’ psychosocial development, which we then send to the directors.” So do kids get to learn about filmmaking too? “No, but if they come up with nice stories, we take them up,” he informs.
{{/usCountry}}Ahmed, who’s made about 48 films, says, “Our focus is on education, not on creative filmmaking. Our research is based on kids’ psychosocial development, which we then send to the directors.” So do kids get to learn about filmmaking too? “No, but if they come up with nice stories, we take them up,” he informs.
{{/usCountry}}But EduMedia doesn’t sell the films; it only gives out the license to schools to include them in the curriculum. “We wish to approach government schools for free of cost screenings. We’d be happy to do a Marathi module in Mumbai. We’re present in St Andrew’s, Campion and RN Podar School and plan to reach out to more,” Ahmed says.