5 Films To Reflect On Education

The cinema is popularly considered as a form of entertainment. But we must not forget that cinema is also the seventh art and, equally, a powerful educational and communication tool. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, so we can use  films to reflect on education, as pedagogical tools and as ways to improve education.

The didactic value of cinema is enriched from the union of image, sound, good actors and excellent scripts that allow us to develop more empathy and, many times, also learn. The drawer that contains all the films that are a source of transmission of values ​​of various kinds, both cultural and social, as well as educational and emotional values, is large.

Dead poets society

This film takes place at the prestigious Welton University, the best private school in the United Kingdom, whose education is based on four fundamental pillars: tradition, honor, discipline and greatness. The story begins in 1959, with the welcoming ceremony of the new school year.

The beginning of this course is characterized by the entry of a new teacher, Mr. Keating, who has a way of acting and teaching very different from that of other teachers. Mr. Keating’s classes are dynamic and fun, with the slogan Carpe diem  meaning ‘seize the moment’.

A group of students, through the investigation of the professor’s history, discover the club of dead poets. Mr. Keating explains the history of the club and the students decide to continue with him. In the club of dead poets the teacher helps the students to discover their own paths, breaking with some guidelines of the traditional school.

A film in which the relationship between teachers and students becomes a search motivated by convergent interests. Teaching students to think and exercise critical reflection is a goal that we frequently mention as inherent in the teaching function. However, many times this sentence does not end up materializing.

Forbidden education

The Forbidden Education is a documentary film that sets out to question the logic of modern schooling and the way of understanding education, making visible different educational experiences. Unconventional forms that pose the need for a new educational paradigm.

The school has been in existence for more than 200 years and is considered the main form of access to education. Today, its role, and in general that of education, is a concept discussed in academic forums, public policies, educational institutions, the media and spaces of civil society.

Since its inception, the school institution has been characterized by structures and practices that today most of us consider obsolete and anachronistic, which do not follow the needs of the 21st century. Its main error lies in its low power of adaptation: it does not consider the nature of learning, freedom of choice or the importance of love and human bonds in development.

From these critical reflections, proposals and practices have emerged over the years that thought and think about education in a different way. This is one of those films to reflect on education since it proposes to recover many of them, explore their ideas and make visible those experiences that have dared to change the structures of the educational model of the traditional school.

The choir boys

The film The Choir Boys takes place in the boarding school “El Fondo del Pond”, in 1949, after the world war, in a France full of social conflicts and poverty, in which many children were war orphans, and others from families of precarious economy. Where Clement Mathieu, a music teacher, starts working in this juvenile re-education boarding school.

The boarding director’s authoritarian education system fails to maintain discipline over difficult students. Mathieu feels an intimate rebellion against the director’s methods and tries to help the boys by bringing a ray of light, an illusion to their complicated lives. In this way, the teacher decides to form a music choir, inspiring them and giving them the hope that they lacked.

Professor Mathieu’s teaching method manages to create a strong bond with the students, which greatly improves the behavior of the inmates. With time and the exceptional voice of Pierre Morhange, one of the most troubled students, the choir managed to be a complete success.

The main motto of this movie is: the magic of music can change people. An emotional story and one of the best films to reflect on education.

Wave

This film tells the story of a German teacher who designs a strategy so that his students understand that in the reproduction of conflicts and confrontations, circumstances have a very important weight.

He begins his class as if it were a game, in which his students have to do everything he says. Little by little, the mentality of the students is changing; the class is becoming more aggressive and authoritarian.

In reality, Rainer Wenger, the teacher, was eager to lead an educational project around anarchy; but another teacher is ahead of him and he must settle for addressing autocracy in his class. Relating it to the emergence of dictatorships, fascism and Nazism,

Wenger articulates some very practical sessions, in which he presents the elements that explain their attractiveness: group spirit, common ideals, mutual help, uniforms – and in general, the power of those objects or habits that become identifiable to the group.

This is the starting point of an experiment that will end with tragic results. In just a few days, what begins with a gentle inoculation of different ideas, such as discipline and a sense of community, becomes a real movement. When the conflict finally gives way to violence, the teacher decides not to continue the experiment. What happens from here, it is better if the film itself tells you!

The tongue of butterflies

The language of the butterflies is one of those films to reflect on education. This Spanish film tells us the story of an eight-year-old boy, Galician and asthmatic, Moncho. After the winter of 1936, our protagonist joined the “Rosalía de Castro” school with a certain fear towards the teacher and towards the environment, itself, that he was going to meet.

Here he will meet his teacher, Don Gregorio, with whom he will initiate a very special bond starting with him, and his friend, Roque, their learning of knowledge and life. Don Gregorio is a teacher concerned that his students acquire knowledge and values, and everything is happening in an atmosphere of balance and harmony.

However, this peace will be truncated in July 1936, when the Civil War broke out in Spain. With the arrival of fascism, the censorship and persecution of those people who thought differently began; among them, Don Gregorio. The underlying message of The Language of the Butterflies is that of the power that education has to transmit or defend values, such as honesty, or rights, such as freedom .

There are many more films to reflect on education. This is only the starting point of an interesting path. If you know more, share them with us in a comment!