Friday, June 21, 2019

Movie Friday


"Friday! It's movie day!"

Last block of the day. Second semester eleventh grade English.

Mr. G had been out Thursday as well. The reason was mysterious--confusing texts to the summer school principal.

Sudden absence. No plans...

Movie day? I'm down with that, provided that they're not lying. (If we watched a movie every time a kiddo claimed the teacher had promised them a movie, all I would do all day every day is watch movies. Seriously. At least one student every day claims this.)

But, even if I had wanted to, I could not do a movie. I did not have a computer to hook up to the projector.

(Once upon a time, every classroom had a TV and VCR. Then a DVD player. A couple years ago, all of them were removed. Now every classroom has a projector installed with speakers in the ceiling. One can hook up a DVD player to the projector--I've done this a couple times--but most of the time teachers just hook up a computer and stream something.)


I do not carry a computer with me to work. The student computer cart was locked. There was an old desktop computer in the room that might have worked, but only if I could hook it up to the projector.

However, we had HDMI cables (which don't fit in older computers) and they wouldn't reach anyway...

Let's just suffice it to say I know how to hook up the equipment, but it would have been more trouble than it was worth, even if I had had what I needed.

But teens...

When I said I could not hook up a computer, one boy said, "I know how. I can do it."

I probably should have let him tinker with it until he figured out I wasn't lying, but I wasn't in the mood.

Another student offered his phone. Alas, I have yet to find a cable that'll allow this to work. (One can play music over the classroom speakers via a phone, but that cable was not in the room.)

In the end, I told them to tell Mr. G he owed them a make up movie day. And then I told them to get to work. (Which they didn't do. They decided it was watch-your-own-movie day and streamed something on their phones. Which wasn't any different than what they did on Thursday...)

I wasn't too disappointed at the technology fail, though. If I could get it all to work, what movie would I show them? Deciding that would open a whole new can of worms.

18 comments:

  1. Grapes of Wrath would have been a good movie. I can't remember so forgive me if you mentioned this. Is summer school to catch up because they failed or to pull ahead if they want to graduate early? Years ago when I attended summer school it was for both and some people graduated in 3 years instead of 4 if they went to summer school all the summers.

    betty

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  2. Summer school being so compressed, I wouldn’t think they’d be watching a movie unless it tied in to the curriculum

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    1. It's possible. I have shown videos in summer school before.

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  3. The school makes it really difficult to use the equipment, doesn't it?

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  4. I would be a lease trying to pull out my hair.
    Coffee is on

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  5. Well, then they don't get their makeup movie day. Of course, I'm sure they were lying about that.

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  6. In junior high school (dating myself, naturally) we would actually have an assembly for the one movie of the year we could watch. It was mandatory. It was "The Time Machine" (HG Wells). I have absolutely no idea why we had that annual watching of this movie.

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    1. That is a weird movie for a school assembly. I wonder who picked it out.

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  7. When one of my Barbarians was in year 8 he read a book series for English that had a tied in vlog to go with it. The story featured a boy and girl as leads and the boy told the story through his written diary (the books) and the girl through her vlog. School is so different now to what it used to be.

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  8. Hi Liz - it's funny the school doesn't have projects set up for days like this ... emergency movies ... educative films (short ones) ... but not the best use of time. Wonder what's happened to Mr G - suspenseful! Cheers and enjoy the weekend - Hilary

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  9. Phone for high school students will be the downfall of most teens.

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  10. A Real Glimpse Of Middle School Life. Do All The Students Have Cell Phones?

    Cheers

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    Replies
    1. High school. They're high schoolers. And yes, most do.

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  11. That would be a tuff choice since some parents are more lenient bout what their kids can watch. And it depends on the kid, too. I had to keep a light on at night forever after I saw The Exorcist. My son saw Aliens at age 10 and was unfazed.

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  12. 11th grade English? A movie based on a book? I feel like 11th grade was the Hamlet year in Shakespeare... Surely there's a good version of that out there.

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    Replies
    1. I thought Hamlet was 12th grade, but I'm not sure. But showing them a Shakespeare movie? Nah. They'd stone me for that ;)

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