That my dd’s school show them cert 15 films at 13/14?

[Geraniumpink]

As the title says. Is this usual at other schools? She’s about to watch ‘Dead Man Walking’ as part of her English class. They’ve already seen ‘The Pianist’ last term in History.

Everything they’ve done this year in English has been about violence. I just don’t think it’s particularly healthy.
Lots of literature is (in differing amounts) about love, sex, heartbreak, conflict, violence, death and every other topic linked in some way to human suffering.

Spiderman and crime and punishment sounds like a tenuous link and not a good teaching decision to me, but I think you'll need to chill out a bit on the whole.

We watched Schindlers List in English

mean, sure, tell the kids there’s a film of the book if they want to watch it but why make it part of the actual

Most in my English class hated Shakespeare. They found it boring. I think showing the film will get some of the less interested kids interested. Sure, a play will get some of them, but a lot of students do not watch plays and would never go to a theatre. What is wrong with trying to make the material in some way accessible to the ones who shun Shakespeare/theatre?

My DD’s love the Baz Lurman version
Totally agree it’s to watch not to READ. It’s a play...
So they would have learnt about it anyway but as an additional bonus they also got to see a very dramatic, exciting version of R&J which is one of their favourite films. All performed in Shakespearean language. What is not to like about that?

On another note neither want to go see The Sign of Four at the local theatre

But DD1 did eventually get into Inspector Calls. With effort. They played Sherlock to them and she really liked that

My English teacher showed us Roman Polanski's Macbeth when we were 13/14. Everybody just laughed at the nudie bits. Looking back, she was always a bit subversive, but as far as I am aware no one was scarred for life. It was a bit of a rough school right enough. I don't think it is majorly inappropriate if it does have some educational value.

@GoodbyeBlueMonday our English teacher did the same (on an old Betamax iirc). We thought it was hilarious, I particularly remember the viewpoint of the severed head as a highlight of the film. DS is doing Macbeth for GCSE - wonder if I should track down a copy?

They weren’t studying a book. They were looking at various serial killers. I think it was a non- fiction unit. They are moving on to poetry about the homeless after half-term.

No non-fiction books to look at then?

Sorry, but this sounds like nonsense. English as a subject is about the written language. Study films in Film Studies. If anyone’s ever actually needs to study Spider-Man, which I doubt.

In that case OP the film choice is totally inappropriate.

There are many justifiable reasons to use film. That's not it though.

Poetry about homelessness sounds like another vague and pointless unit with almost no good texts. In fact, I can probably predict what film they'll shoehorn into that topic too.

I'll be honest, that extra bit of information makes me think that's a department not making good decisions.

They will have heard it all before.

Or read it on MN!