History VIA movies...

[Mary Ann]

^ My son in primary school has no textbooks whatsoever (my kids in secondary school do, but that may be because they attend an independent school). The teacher teaches the lesson and then hands out photocopied sheets for the children to do. It's not unusual for these sheets to be lost or destroyed before the kids reach home, and these sheets often have few or no instructions on them. A huge bugbear of mine was when my kids would ask me how to work something out in math, and I didn't know the method they were using. If they had a textbook I could have looked it up.

Online and home study learning is fine for adults, but I reckon kids still need to learn to do research both online and with books, and to have the classroom experiences of group work and discussions and debates. If kids really want to learn through movies they should study the proper history, watch a related movie and then point out the movie's historical flaws. I still recommend Horrible Histories, though.

 

[RobertScorpio]

^^, I agree. I am not in favor of ONLINE education for kids. But sky rocketing budgets will be the reason why. In 30 years, even less, I bet 70 % of the kids in this country will not attend schools "five days a week". It will all be computer/internet driven because its clear our society is moving that direction with everything. You can buy everything on the internet, so why not an education??? (plus, none of those pesky teachers do deal with...especially those horny milfish ones)

Rob

 

[Gaith]

There will never be an educational substitute for reading, whether it's in the fields of history, literature, psychology or just about any of the humanities. Reading is essential.

That said, as a History Major, I love me some good and reasonably accurate historical movies. Here's my list of solid such works:

... And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself
Band of Brothers (series)
Bobby
Flags of Our Fathers
The Gathering Storm and Into the Storm
Good Night, and Good Luck.
John Adams (series)
Land and Freedom
The Madness of King George
Milk
Mrs. Brown
Nixon
Recount
Rome (series)
Thirteen Days
Warm Springs
The Wind that Shakes the Barley
Valkyrie
W.
Zodiac


As for historical movies' inaccuracies, the best anitdote, imo, is a detailed and well-researched section on their historicity via Wikipedia.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

But just like a parent should not use a TV as a babysitter, teachers can not use films as a substitute.

I had a couple teachers who did just that. My high school government/economics class was taught by an unqualified football coach who only ever showed movies. At first, they at least tied into the government theme, like All the President's Men & The Candidate. But when we got to Remember the Titans, it was clear he had given up.

Freshman year chemistry was even worse. Our normal teacher was on maternity leave and her replacement was a biology major. After a week of attempting to teach the class, he resorted to such gloriously scientifically accurate films as Fiend without a Face, It!, Them!, & Creature from the Black Lagoon.

 

[Gaith]

^^

 

[Greg Cox]

Freshman year chemistry was even worse. Our normal teacher was on maternity leave and her replacement was a biology major. After a week of attempting to teach the class, he resorted to such gloriously scientifically accurate films as Fiend without a Face, It!, Them!, & Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Dare I admit that I first learned about Freud from FORBIDDEN PLANET?

"Dad, what's a monster from the id?"

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

"" is right. I've had some bizarre teachers over the years. Fate seems especially determined to ensure that I never learn anything about economics. First, I had the high school football coach show us Remember the Titans for some reason. Then in college, I had a dimly lit, overcrowded class taught by a couple of racist Welshmen. Seriously, they incorporated their racism into their class examples. Like when explaining the efficiency of labor & exchange: Chinese people are smart, so they make computer chips but they're short, so they have to import their lumber. Meanwhile, Canadians are big, so they can export all the lumber they want, but they're too dumb to make their own computer chips, so they have to import them from China.