Movies in the classroom Options

[impala454]

A couple of recent happenings spurred this topic. Curious what you guys think.

#1- http://www.khou.com/news/local/galveston/s...y.6f97d768.html
A teacher in a Clear Creek ISD high school showed Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" to her class. I heard this on the radio and one of the parents had called in, she said it was explained to her that the relevance of the movie to the ALGEBRA class it was shown in was the "charts & graphs" depicted in the movie. Pretty friggin pathetic if you ask me. There's no excuse for this kind of crap, and nothing to gain by it.

#2- http://www.kentucky.com/476/story/68870.html
A substitute teacher showed Brokeback Mountain to an 8th grade class.

The substitute asked a student to shut the classroom door at the West Side school, saying: "What happens in Ms. Buford's class stays in Ms. Buford's class," according to the lawsuit.

All I got to say is.. WTF

[RitalinJunkie]

IMO...I have no problem with films being shown in the class IF THERE IS A STRONG CONNECTION TO THE TOPIC AT HAND. For instance, I think in a science class, when talking about the atmosphere and mans effect on the earth, National Geographic has a LOT of really good films. If you wanted to actually use film as a teaching tool, you could also use things such as environmental activist films (Incovenient truth) and contrast it to something a bit more..... scientific. Counterbalance things to show multiple viewpoints. The recent Romeo and Juliet was also brought up. I think that it would not be a terrible idea to show it to an english class to show a more modern styling of what happened (my English teacher used West side story), or even better, have them write an assignment that shows what they think would happen now instead of having them waste a whole class being uncreative.

However, I think if a film is going to be shown in class the teacher should fill out a request form in advance, with specific topics that the film is intended to cover, and the purpose of the activity filled out in a lesson plan format, complete with objectives, additional activities, TEKS requirments, the whole shibang. I also feel that the teacher (for his or her own protection) should get it cleared thru the school first and recieve a copy of SOMETHING saying that they have gotten it approved IN WRITING.

I know this seems like a lot....but for Christ's sake, filling out lesson plans and requests are not that hard, and its for both the teachers protection AND (more importantly) the students protection.


anyway...thats my spiel on it.,