Now I know elementary-school classes sometimes earn a "party" as a reward for some collective good deed. Special food treats and a movie are fine, but can we make the movies fun AND educational?
Instead of showing "Shrek," can we show one of Scholastic's "The Magic School Bus" entertaining but educational DVDs? In high school, if a substitute cannot be found with enough knowledge of a specialized subject to actually teach (choir, band, French, Spanish, etc.) can an instructional DVD be shown appropriate for the subject, vs. "Pirates of the Caribbean."? OK, maybe a sociology class can put the latter movie to educational purposes, but it doesn't seem that is usually happening.
I have wondered if there are thoughts that disadvantaged students do not get to see popular commercial movies, so this offers them exposure. But this would not be a convincing argument, if anyone made it. More likely it is a busy teacher just getting by. I want to add that I am sure many teachers do include educational movies in their lesson plans, and of course a theater arts class would have a good reason to view a commercial movie for educational purposes.
We need to take advantage of every educational hour available for our students. Do show movies, but please take a moment to ponder their educational value even if it is the last day of school or the day before a major break. Time is wasting.
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Unfortunately, some of the teachers at the high school feel that the substitutes that Lebanon attracts(most of them terrible) their only choice is to show a movie. I agree that the movie shown should be scholastic in nature and not a feature release. That is a problem that the administrators could solve if they had spines and controlled their academies.
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