Classified Materials CHOOSING APPROPRIATE CLASSROOM CONTENT
Watching visual media in the classroom has long been a running joke in representations of education: the hungover teacher popping a video on to keep the class quiet while hiding at the back of the room with their head in the rubbish ; an -history documentary droning background while kids carve their initials into their desks and play games on their computers. Films in the classroom were the fallback of substitute teachers, end-of-career snoozers and student-teachers who had been out drinking the night before. Videos were seen as babysitters between the hours of nine and three for people who could not, or would not, do their jobs properly.
As teachers in today’s classrooms, however, we know that the reality of using films as texts is very different from this outdated perception. Screen texts provide rich, cultural substance that can open our students to new ways of thinking, introducing them to the exciting possibilities that arise when narrative and technology intertwine to create something beautiful. Film can open students up to worlds beyond their existing knowledge and leave them forever changed.
If you are planning lessons and activities using film and media texts that are not dictated by the curriculum, then you are making a choice to widen the scope of the content that your students are exposed to. You are making a choice to go in a different direction, one that might connect with those in your class who would have potentially slipped through had you stuck with the prescribed text. Having the autonomy to shape your lessons to capture the imagination of your students is
