It's hard to know what will rile them up.
Last Friday I covered an 8th grade US history class. The assignment was to start watching a movie.
Gideon's Trumpet. "Old" but in color. They had questions to answer. Good classes, so I only had occasional bursts of chatter.
(Looking for links for this post, I stumbled across the whole movie posted to YouTube. So, in case you're curious and have an hour and 45 minutes to spare...)
But what's interesting about showing a video is what the kids react to. Every period had the strongest reaction to one scene. (It starts at about 28:48 in the video.)
It's night. Some prisoner wants to arm wrestle for "smokes". He's shirtless. And the students all reacted to the man's hairy chest. Strongly.
I'm not sure if they were shocked or disgusted. They reacted like it was the strangest thing that they had ever seen. It took some minutes before they'd settle back down again.
Then in subsequent scenes with shirtless and sweaty men, they reacted again. I pointed out that the movie takes place in Florida. It was probably hot.
We only got 49 minutes into it. I wonder what other shocks they'll encounter in the second hour. (Not that I'll ever know...)
Friday, November 23, 2012
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What a weird thing to react to. Maybe it's because these days almost everyone on television has no body hair. I wonder how the boys will react in ten years when they realize most male actors wax.
ReplyDeleteThese days all the people are into smooth hairless men.
ReplyDelete