“Work Hard, Play Hard” or “All Work and No Play”

           In addition to strictly working on content all of the time I believe that there should be periods of when students should get a break from the normal routine of the classroom. I believe that many teachers share this sentiment as well. Where the ideas differ, however, is the amount of time these time periods should last. I’ve met teachers who are strictly against showing entire movies to their students and will only show clips at most. At the same time there are those teachers who do show entire films in their classrooms. The films are usually based on literature they’ve read and if not they’re directly related to themes that have been discussed. I say all this to explain a situation that my CT recently encountered that made me question whether or not showing films classified as ‘teaching’.

            During the reading of several stories, on which our primary focus was conflict, we read Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”. To those unfamiliar, the conflict in the story was character verses nature. In the story the main character was challenged by, and eventually succumbed to, the extraneous circumstances around him paired with his lack of knowledge when it came to survival. To both engage the students and further help them grasp this concept My CT played the first fifty minutes (which is the entire class period) of the movie The Day After Tomorrow. Coincidently, the one day that the students spent the entire period watching a film, two officials from the school district as well as the buildings head principals walked in to observe my CT’s teaching. The part of this that I found the most interesting is that she felt obligated to go to them and explain herself. It made me wonder, if there’s nothing wrong with this methodology of instruction why did it seem so bad when the district observed it.

            After class I stayed and talked to my CT about this incident and I really liked what she had to say. She told me that numerous times she’d suggested to the school principal that the teachers be required to submit weekly lesson plans. Not in-depth lesson plans like those we do at WSU, just very basic explanations of what the class will be doing on a day to day basis. These would essentially be similar to the overview many teachers write on the board to inform students of what they’ll be doing for the day (Ex. Monday- Vocab for “Harrison Burgeron”. Read 1^st half, Cornell notes). Had the principal had this information he could have provided the visitors from the district some background which would have reflected well on him as well.

            With all that being said I am brought back to my first concern. Should ‘movie days’ have to be explained, are they not thought of as being a sort of informal instruction? I think if they are used appropriately they should be used and perhaps even encouraged. Even as a college student, I can read something over and over, but nothing paints the picture like seeing it acted out. I also believe that showing movies, especially extensively, can be a bad thing as well and viewed as a result of laziness on the teacher’s behalf. What I’ve gathered from researching and asking the opinions of other English teachers is that there needs to be a balance. Movies can be showed when relevant. Many of the teachers suggested showing particular portions as opposed to entire films. I think this is a good idea also. Movies can and should be used to dive a point home.

 I don’t think there was anything wrong with showing the 1^st fifty minutes of The Day After Tomorrow because it is in this portion of the movie that nature begins to affect the characters similar to the main character in “To Build a Fire.” I don’t believe she played too much of the movie because I’ve been there and I knew her logic for this decision. For our guest, however, seeing this outside of the context of everything else did not seem pleased. . .