Thanks to an invitation from creative educator Shauna Pollock, author of the recent book Creating Classroom Magic: Using Lessons from the Life of Walt Disney to Create an Experimental Prototype Classroom of Tomorrow, I was able to speak about “Disney in the Classroom” at a recent EdcampMagic event at the Windermere Preparatory School on June 4, 2016.
Teachers from around the United States (but, for this particular event, mostly Florida) gathered to share their ideas and experiences in several informal break-out sessions. I hung out with Howie DiBlasi and Ryan Boeckman, who have their own website and host a podcast about Disney and education
I spent nearly two decades as a teacher at a public middle school, balancing innovative approaches to learning with the necessities of formal testing and grades, so I have an added perspective when talking about connecting Disney and education.
In many ways, Walt Disney had a fairly untraditional education by modern standards. His mother Flora was a certificated teacher who came from a family of teachers.
Flora homeschooled Walt for two years, because the family decided they should wait until his younger sister, Ruth, was also old enough for school, so Walt could take her there and bring her back because they couldn't spare anyone from the farm to do so.
Walt was almost 7 years old before he was enrolled in Park School, a two-story red brick building with 200 students ranging from grade school to high school. Later, when the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, Walt was enrolled in Benton Grammar School where he graduated on June 8, 1917.
Walt's first period class was English and he said he especially liked the stories by Sir Walter Scott (Ivanhoe), Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities) and Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island).
All of these selections were in the McGuffey Eclectic Readers. William Holmes McGuffey was the editor of this popular series of school books. The series consisted of stories, poems, essays and speeches. The Advanced Readers contained excerpts from the works of great writers like John Milton, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Walter Scott, Louisa Mae Alcott, and more.
Walt loved to read about everything and anything, and maintained large and varied libraries both at home and at work when he grew older. His staff considered him one of the most educated men in the world because of this exposure and Walt's curiosity to learn from everyone.
Walt also learned the rigidity of a traditional school curriculum. One of his assignments in an elementary school art class was to draw some flowers. Being Walt, he put faces on them and hands and arms instead of leaves. His teacher, Mrs. Olson, criticized him in front of the entire class that flowers do not have faces. In 1932, Walt's Silly Symphony with faces on flowers titled “Flowers and Trees” won the first Oscar for an animated cartoon.
As one of Disney's classmates, Nathan Bassin, later remembered, “We were supposed to be studying geography, but Walt was slouched in his chair, drawing cartoons behind our big geography book. Mr. Cottingham [the principal at Benton school] came walking down the aisle. He stood beside Walt's desk and said sternly, 'Young man, you'll never amount to anything if this is how you do your studies.'”
Walt was enrolled in McKinley High School in Chicago but did not even finish one year before he ran off to join the Red Cross Ambulance Corps in France at the age of 16. When he returned, he had gained so much practical experience of the world, that he didn't feel it was necessary to return to finish school, especially since during his entire time there, his grades were only average at best.
In the spring of 1965, California's Superintendent of Public Instruction, Dr. Max Rafferty, stirred up some controversy when we wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times newspaper stating that in his considered opinion Walt was “the greatest educator of this century”.
In 1938, the year the animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was in general release, Walt got an honorary Master of Science degree from USC on June 4, an honorary Master of Arts degree from Yale University on June 22, and an honorary of Master of Arts degree from Harvard University on June 23. Boston University had also approached Walt and offered him an honorary degree for their June 13 ceremonies, but Walt turned them down because he felt he had already accepted the other offers that same year.
Not bad for a kid who never graduated high school and was sometimes suspicious that college graduates might have had some exposure to theories, but little hands-on experience to the real world or other disciplines.
In 1937, Walt was involved with a teaching guide produced to be used in schools in connection with the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
In the early days of cinema, motion pictures were sometimes called “photoplays.” The term spawned a decades-long running celebrity gossip magazine simply called Photoplay that started in 1911 and ended in 1980.
Beginning in 1935, a company called Educational And Recreational Guides Inc. located in New York that was connected to the National Education Association (NEA) Department of Secondary Teachers began publishing booklets titled Photoplay Studies, designed for the teaching of specific films in American schools.
These 20-page booklets included writings by NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) members like William F. Bauer, Jeanette L. Livingston, and Sibyl Browne, and included classroom study guides to popular films. These guides were “recommended by the Motion-Picture Committee of the Department of Secondary Education of the National Education Association.”
The preface stated: “The guides are a series of aids to the critical appreciation of photoplays for use in teaching new curriculum units to be found in William Lewin's monograph on Photoplay Appreciation in American High Schools (D.Appleton-Century 1933).” Lewin was the managing editor of the series.
Individual copies were $0.15, but orders for multiple copies dropped the price significantly. Eleven to 99 copies were only a $0.05 apiece and orders for more than 100 copies were only $0.03 each. A set of 20 copies of 8-by-10 publicity photos for each film could be had for $2.50.
In 1937, 19 pamphlets were released, including ones for films like The Good Earth, Captains Courageous, Damsel in Distress, Heidi, Emile Zola, Wells Fargo, and more.
A Guide to the Appreciation of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Volume III, No. 10 was released as the last publication of 1937.
In the foreword, Bauer wrote:
“With the Disney masterpiece, the screen enacts the role of leader, bard, gleeman, minstrel, and player. To glimpse, in microscopic retrospect, primitive man crouched before his fire, intent upon a narrative of legendary prowess, and then to catch the enthusiasm of a modern audience equally intent upon the Technicolor beauty of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is to span the ages in a flash of a foot of film.
“The film story of the young princess and her seven dwarfs is an accomplishment of unusual artistic and sociological import. Here is a new medium whereby every appeal possible in folk lore – be it light or serious, entertaining or didactic — is made with superlative effect. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is, at once, delightful entertainment and archive; it is both stirring folk drama and document. Walt Disney's unique photoplay makes a happy contribution not only to the art of the screen but also to the art of gracious, kindly living.”
There were sections devoted to a synopsis of the film, background on the Brothers Grimm, the appeal of simple folk tales, multiple pictures from the film to provide captions for, the difference between Disney's previous shorts and the structure to a feature film, a discussion of the artwork (“When the great Mexican artist Diego Rivera was painting in the United States, he said that the two features of this country that he admired extremely as being altogether American were the rhythm of the machine and the originality of Walt Disney's films.”), and several pages of discussion questions.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs inspired an educational program in the classroom.
In Part Three, Walt Disney himself contributed a personal insight into the film not offered in other publications and to the best of my knowledge, never reprinted.
He wrote:
“There are several reasons, one sentimental and the rest practical, why I decided on the folk tale, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as the basis of our studio's first feature-length animated picture.
“In the first place, I can remember seeing Snow White as a play when I was a small boy. I saved some of the money I made from my newspaper route to go and see it, and I was so impressed that I could have seen it over and over again.
“But to get down to practical reasons, here they are: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is known and beloved in practically every country in the world. The seven dwarfs, we knew, were 'naturals' for the medium of our animated pictures. In them, we could instill humor, not only as to their physical appearances, but also in their mannerisms, individual personalities, voices, and actions.
“In addition, with most of the action taking place in and around the dwarfs' cottage in the woods, we realized that there were great opportunities for introducing appealing little birds and animals of the type with which we have had success in the past. The human characters, too, were fanciful enough to allow us a great deal of leeway in our treatment of them.
“As far as I can say, the whole idea of making this feature crystallized in 1933, although I can't tell how long the seed of the idea had been in my mind. It wasn't long, however, before the thing was on its way. In fact, 1934 found us with a rather complete adaptation of the Grimm brothers' story, and thousands of sketches, gags, backgrounds, and character models had been worked out.
“By 1935, the voices for the characters were decided upon, and the detailed preparation of the story was in full swing. Every detail of each character, both as to appearance and personality, was set. Experimental animation of the characters could now begin. The animators had to draw, discard, and redraw until they had a definite feeling for what actions were right for their characters. Background artists had to experiment until the right effects were reached.
“Actual animation began in 1936, with the most expert of our artists. The picture is now complete. We believe that our audiences will take Snow White to their hearts and welcome our new black-haired heroine and her seven dwarf friends with all the enthusiasm that they accorded Mickey, Minnie and Donald.”
From Part Six, here is an excerpt to give a sample of how detailed this booklet was in trying to spark some thoughtful evaluation of the film:
“Walt Disney is an incisive storyteller. Even in the smallest detail his humor and imagination are directed to an end, the illuminating and enriching of the story. Did you, for instance, when reading the fairy tale, gain as you do from the film, an idea of the different characters of the several dwarfs? When Grimm noted that Snow White's bearded companions made a bed for her, could you have imagined that it was built and carved from saplings still with roots below and leaves overhead? How consistent is this and the use of a tree trunk for a tool chest!
“Snow White does not find in the forest merely a small house; it is a house that is drawn so that only century-old dwarfs could inhabit it. The artist has carved the corbels and door frames in medieval fashion, but not as pious copies; he has thickened bedsteads and doors in order to make the dwarfs deserve the name, Little People.
“Do you not enjoy the gentle trusting natures of [Disney's] animals? Clod-hopper that they are, the dwarfs too are creatures of the forest; they show their kinship with their animal neighbors in the four-fingered hands, more like soft paws than human appendages.
“With all their exaggeration, each of these creatures is still convincing, not merely queer. Mr. Disney has retained for each its characteristic form and movement. Deer remain the shy and delicate animals we know. A squirrel winds up a ball of cobweb with the charm he would display in clasping a nut to his furry bosom. The deer gripped about the neck by its rider gasps for breath and dashes forward with those movements that are essentially characteristic of four-footed creatures.
“Throughout there is such power of drawing that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs charms and makes us feel that the impossible is plausible.”
Here is a sampling of questions asked at the end of the booklet:
- Can you name other authors, poets and dramatists who used the work of earlier writers as source material? Compare the original Grimm fairy tale with the Walt Disney version. Which do you prefer and why?
- What qualities of plot and characterization are common to many of the folk tales that you have read? What explains the universality and popularity of this type of story?
- Which of the mythical characters that you recall from folk tales seemed to make the strongest impression on you as a child and why?
- Which of the characters in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs do you like best? Do you think that your preferences may be traced to Walt Disney's treatment or to the basic qualities of the characters?
- If you were to write a folk tale, what important ingredients would you use?
- In what other Grimm tales did Walt Disney find incidents that he incorporated with the current Snow White? Do you remember the story of The Sleeping Beauty? How did it end?
- Do you think the photoplay would have been better without the animals in it? What do they bring to the story?
- Why do you think it took so long to produce this film? Do you think the story of Bambi that Walt Disney is starting to produce next will be as interesting as this photoplay?
- Which characters do you think Mr. Disney felt most keenly? Do you think, for instance, that he enjoyed doing the queen as much as he did the squirrels?
- In what instances did Disney deliberately simplify the forms in order to make his exaggerations more telling?
- Did you enjoy the “Digging Song” of the dwarfs as they worked in their diamond mine? Did you like the blending of musical rhythm with pictorial rhythm in this sequence? Mention other examples of the skillful blending of audio-visual rhythms. To what extent should sound and motion harmonize in a photoplay of this kind?
- How did music serve to describe variations in character?
- The words of the songs in Snow White have been translated into French, Spanish, German, Italian and the Scandinavian languages in connection with foreign versions of the production. Try your hand at translating the words of your own original song that you write inspired by this film into a foreign language.
I think those are all pretty tough questions and it would be challenging for me to answer many of them. To the best of my knowledge, no other similar booklets were produced for other Disney animated feature film productions.
As Walt once said, “Having spent most of my life creating material for children and observing their potential, I feel convinced that a full-time education for our youth is our best investment in the future.”
In 1951, Walt and Roy created what is now known as The Walt Disney Company Foundation to support education with not only grants to external educational institutions but also providing college scholarships to children of Disney cast members.
Walt had several final dreams that he was unable to complete during his lifetime from the Epcot project and the Mineral King skiing resort to an inclusive educational institution.
The California Institute of the Arts, often just referred to as Cal Arts, is a private university located in Valencia. The institute was conceived by Walt Disney, who was inspired by memories of the making of his film Fantasia (1940), where animators, dancers, composers, and artists all collaborated and learned from each other, as well as Walt Disney Imagineering where engineers, computer programmers, electricians, and others with technological expertise mixed with different artists.
“There is an urgent need for a professional school which will not only give its students thorough training in a specific field, but will also allow the widest possible range of artistic growth and expression,” Walt said. “I like the workshop idea, with students being able to drop in and learn all kinds of different things. A school should offer a kind of cross-pollination that would develop the best in its students.”
Cal Arts, following Walt's concept, became a lauded approach to interdisciplinary education and one of the most prestigious art colleges in the world. Many of the imaginative thinkers of Pixar Animation got their start at Cal Arts and their films all include a hidden reference to A113, the classroom where they all started, as a tribute to an untraditional approach to material.
To me, it was fascinating to find this previously unknown appreciation guide that was used in American high schools and to realize how high in esteem Walt's first animated feature film was to educators. I hope you enjoyed taking a glimpse into the past, as well.
