Wednesday, June 14, 2006

after the grades are in

You may disagree, and your comments are certainly welcome, when I say that the toughest challenge to a teacher is "holding the class" after the final grades of the year have been handed in.

In the school where I teach, the kids are totally aware of when we have to get those grades into the office. It's not that they are attuned to our minds via ESP or have spies in the office. The reason is much simpler. The secretarial staff decorates every surface the teachers may see with "reminders." Of course, I'm not one of those teachers who need the colorful and clever signs. I'm usually one of the very first to calculate the marks and hand them into the office. Would you expect anything else?

Wonderful, except that as difficult as it was pre-G Day, it's even harder to get those kids to behave once there's nothing I can threaten or bribe them with. So that's when we open the EFL Cinema Festival! My challenge is finding clean movies that will keep the little darlings riveted and silent. So far, this year we've shown Robin Williams's Flubber and The Rock with Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage (yes, the fast-foward came in handy.) And I need more suggestions!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I highly recommend "Fried Green Tomatoes" and "Jumanji"!! (Of course, there's always those classic Disney's, esp if you can get them un-dubbed (or better yet without sub-titles).

Batya said...

Thanks for the ideas, but as I remember, Fried Green Tomatoes (Jon Avnet and his wife were in my hs class) isn't for teenage boys.

What's the other movie?

They loved the ones we showed. Can't show the same ones every year.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the movie ideas, Batya. I am also looking for clean movies, especially as I will be in the U.S. in the summer and want to order them from Amazon (I prefer no subtitles for my students). But I too would like more suggestions!