As you look around the almost pitch black classroom, half the students have their heads on desks, one quarter is texting, and the rest are doing homework for other classes. The movie is projected onto the screen at the front of the room, but no one know what’s happening. The teacher will get up in twenty minutes to turn it off and ask the class what happened. There will most certainly be people who grumble as the lights turn on and they wake up.
So what is the point of this? Most teachers say that videos are a good way to connect the material, but what I have mostly seen is heads connecting to desks.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think movies in school are all bad. They are certainly helpful in language classes for example, among others. However, I do feel for the most part that the movies I have seen in my high school career haven’t been that beneficial.
Watching movies in school has turned into a joke, with students getting excited only because they know they will have an easy day. What teachers intend as an educational experience is something that quickly turns into chaos as students brains seemingly turn off.
“If the movie is boring, I’ll sleep or be on my phone or iPod. If they don’t want us to sleep, they should find movies that pertain more to today’s world because all of our movies are from the 80s. They should pertain to us,” said Junior Carlie O’Malley
When a movie really does connect it’s great, but most of the time what we see is a boring documentary filmed 30 years ago that has no relevance to us currently. What we need is educational videos that are entertaining, but still hold value.
The faculty handbook does have guidelines for video use, stating; “G, PG, or PG-13 may be used and must be related to source content. Videos may be used for instruction purposes only. They must not be used solely for entertainment, reward, motivation or ‘fillers.’”
According to the handbook, teachers are not allowed to use videos as time fillers, but then why do we see this happen so much? Half the time it seems like teachers put a movie in only so they can catch up with their work, yet we aren’t allowed to work during this time.
“The teachers need to watch the movie if they’re going to make us watch and they usually sit there and grade papers, but then get mad at us for not paying attention when they aren’t either,” said O’Malley.
When a movie has true educational value, oftentimes it is because the teacher has found a way to connect it to the class. Oftentimes these are not movies made specifically for the class, but something an astute teacher has seen and brought with them as something to add to the class.
On the other hand, when a teacher makes movies part of the class, students nod off. If a teacher is not excited about a movie, neither is the student, and teachers know when they are filling time with one. What we need is more short video clips or movies that pertain to our material in a way that help us understand it from a new angle, not movies that force feed us information through a charmingly corny host.
