Film at Eleven

"I would say, with all due respect, you have some teachers in your schools that have children spending more time watching movies than taking tests," the governor [Bill Owens] said in his first-ever speech to the group. Many of the 800-plus administrators in the audience responded with a gasp.*

This is some of the worst of the worst assumptions about what teachers are doing in the classroom. But it is a complex issue underneath the simple surface of "showing movies". After all, where do most adult Americans get their history? From television or film?! If Oliver Stone's version of JFK is the only one someone has experienced, how do they know what is historical and what is fiction?

Like readers of good literature, adults should have the literacy skills to analyze, criticize, and be skeptical of history as presented in the media. And if we don't practice that in the classroom, with of course, relevant film, where and when do we practice it? The movie theatre is too late. And for more than half of all Americans still believing the fiction that Sadaam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11, we have a problem. I haven't heard complaints about all the time spent in English class with all that "literature" that students are spending time with, instead of taking tests. How many adults get their history from David McCullough's 1776, versus Mel Gibson in The Patriot?

The image of teachers showing Snow White and Shrek in class to entertain kids and avoid teaching is a damaging stereotype similar to the all cops eat donuts, and ambulance chasing lawyers. But that stereotype has an unfortunate impact.

I now have paperwork to fill out before showing a film in class and have to justify its educational value. Ok. I can do that. But does that mean a supervisor decides whether or not I show the film? Bottom line: distrust of my (teacher's) professional judgment; cya for parent complaints and lawsuits; responding to public pressure to a problem that isn't actually there.

And for me, instead of spending time coming up with good questions for discussion, analysis, and evaluation about the film, I'm filling out paperwork. Or? Just forget it.