In school, students look forward to that one glorious day (which usually occurs when one has a substitute teacher) when they get to watch a movie in class. To some, this is a time of much deserved “rest” where one can enjoy learning in a different, but entertaining way. For others it means the dreaded packet of papers, involving many fill-in-the-blank questions but even so, the movie is much welcomed. Movies are a great way to learn new information or to reinforce what one has already learned. Even “noneducational” movies can be used to teach lessons. Movies offer a break from the monotony of lectures and notes, which honestly get quite boring in bulk. Despite what first comes to mind when one hears the word educational, these movies are good. Educational movies show examples of concepts that cannot be illustrated in the classroom. After all, it would be kind of hard for an astronomy teacher to recreate a black hole in the classroom.
Movies are a great resource and can be produced by reliable sources such as Discovery Channel, History Channel, and Public Broadcasting System (PBS). After all, who does not want to see a reenactment of the Civil War? What about seeing some cool marine life that thrives in the depths of the sea? You can study a foreign language as much as a teacher wants, but it is an entirely new experience to hear it spoken by native people in everyday conversations that one can find in movies. One does not truly appreciate another country’s language or culture until he or she sees it as the natives do.
As for noneducational movies, sometimes those are the best kind of movies to learn from. Noneducational movies can show what life was like back in a certain time period. Directors, actors and everyone else involved in a movie’s production spend plenty of time on research to make a movie as historically accurate as possible. Noneducational movies can also be a test of one’s knowledge. Sometimes movie production teams slip up and have anachronisms (items placed out of chronological order- like the clock ringing in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar) in them.
Not to say that movies should take the place of classroom materials. One should not only watch movies based on novels read in English class. One should take the time to read the novel itself. Watching a movie and reading the novel allows one to compare and contrast. One should ask why did the director choose to leave out certain details or edit the story the way he or she did. As long as a movie is not replacing lectures, notes, and other classroom activities, it should be shown.