If you had the attention of a thousand students and two minutes, what short film would you select to show and why?
In our writing class, I occasionally use short videos to inspire writing, practice a writing skill, or illustrate a literary concept. For example, a couple weeks ago, I showed Disney’s Paperman and asked students to put words to the story as an exercise in point of view.
In our school-wide morning announcements, sometimes the studio shows funny clips, book trailers, or even spoken word performances.
Last week, one of the “funny” clips aired. It was in the spirit of Halloween. You may have seen Jimmy Kimmel’s “I Told My Kids I Ate All Their Candy” prank. It is a series of clips featuring kids’ reactions to the news that, well, their parents ate all their Halloween candy. The kids’ reactions in the video range from whimpers to sobbing to screaming to all out tantrums and even to hitting their parents in disgust.
And my seventh grade students’ reactions to witnessing this spectacle was also mixed. Some of my students laughed. Some cringed. Some looked away. Some looked at me — they were looking at me for my reaction. I was near tears.
Why tears? Children were traumatized for a prank that was recorded and shared nationwide without their consent for the purpose of getting a laugh. I felt that trauma. I felt compassion for the kids in the video. My reaction was visceral.
Of course, I don’t think the intention of the people who recommended this video to be aired was to elicit tears of compassion. I think it was to elicit laughter, and, indeed, many seventh graders did laugh at the children who were crying in the clip.
Post-viewing, we had the opportunity to talk about the ethics of the clip and even look at the consumerism of Halloween, but, again, I don’t think that is why our school showed that clip to a captive audience of some thousand people. I think the purpose was to infuse some laughter in the day, which, to be honest, everyone could have used. So to be fair, I get the intention behind showing this video to our school.
Now I am not opposed to laughter or joy, but I am opposed to exploiting children and showing scenes that look a lot like the bullying I see in the hallways at school. I am concerned about a school that entertains its young people by showing its students clips of little kids crying when teachers are working hard to cultivate compassion within and beyond the classroom. To be fair, I have not seen a clip like this shown at our school, as far as I can recall.
It was just a few minutes, but those images still resonate with me. Kimmel’s prank got me thinking about how sometimes our mission — the big picture of what we are doing in schools — can get lost when we do not take every word, image, and message seriously, when we do not consider the ethical implications of our choices and how our choices can either nourish or inhibit our values as a school, as a society.
I want us to ask at all times when selecting texts, images, videos, apps: What ideas, ways of being, ways of relating are we propagating? What are the ethical implications of our choices?
I would have preferred this short film on Dia de los Muertos because many of our students are Latino, and it is an opportunity to educate our school on a cultural practice to remember and celebrate our loved ones who have died. I did not, however, submit this video to our studio as an option, which I should have, I guess. (I used it to inspire writing.)
In fact, I have only suggested a few spoken word pieces to our studio in the past. I tend to go for the more social justice or artistic clips like Daniel Beaty’s “Knock, Knock.”
Other teachers have also recommended powerful clips to share with our school like Shane Koyczan’s “To This Day”:
Our studio also showed the movie trailer to Trash, based on our latest book club selection where over 300 students get their own copy of the book, meet at lunch to talk about the story, and have the opportunity to see the film:
Essentially, I think what our students see, read, and experience should not be decided by any one person. I think I am known as sort of the “no-fun” teacher. I don’t imagine my school would want me to be the only person choosing clips and images for our school for that reason. But I am all for joy and laughter and recognize that some teachers are better at that than I am. I just want what we see and experience to have some mission or driving force behind it. I am sure there are beautiful film shorts that elicit laughter without making a spectacle of people’s pain, without embarrassing others.
I’d like to put together a list of favorite film shorts (2-3 minutes) to share with students along with a brief rationale for why. Please share your ideas.
- What video would you show to a captive audience of students and teachers if you had the power to make that decision?
- What questions do you ask yourself when selecting texts, images, videos, apps?