I spent most of the past two days venting my ire to anyone who would listen over a decision that was mandated to all teachers. As a "reward", the students watched a movie during the last two periods of the day today. Errrrmmm... What?!?!? Ooookay. What movie? The Amazing Spider-Man (2012). Errrrmmm... WHAT?!?!? When I questioned this decision, I was told that as we wouldn't get any work out of our students anyway [this being the last day before February break], we might as well show them a movie. Errrrmmm... WHAT?!?!? Are we a school or aren't we? Are we supposed to be holding our students to high standards or aren't we? I must say I was really ticked off over this!
Okay, fine! If you want to give the students a "reward" for whatever reason, at least make it an academic/educational movie. The Amazing Spider-Man? WTF!! As a full 50% of my students are currently failing because they have decided not to do any work, I don't think they actually deserve a "reward". Besides that, do you think the highest ranked schools in Massachusetts (i.e., Belmont, Boston Latin, Hopkinton, Sturgis, Wellesley, etc.) are showing their students a blockbuster movie the day before the students leave for winter break? Are those top schools showing their students ANY movie...ever!?
When I asked a decision maker about the movie choice, he said that it was decided that they wanted a recent movie release. Then when I said, "why didn't we show some sort of academic based movie?" The response I got was: "Like what?" [Gah! I was ostensibly talking to an educator!] My response: "Oh, how about Bully, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Diary of Anne Frank..." I continued to list about 10 different academic movies to which he responded: "Well why didn't you suggest them?" Ummm, because no one asked any teacher for their input. Personally, I would have said that we should hold our students to higher standards and MAKE them do actual work instead of "rewarding" them. But perhaps that's just me. After all, why should we be teaching our students when movies are just so much easier? <head exploding - brains everywhere!> Yeah, it has been a craptacular week!
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