The Power of Movies

I had to add Matt Damon for Google to find it.

I've never been a big movie person. I saw Jaws for the first time two years ago. I don't think I've ever seen National Lampoon's anything and I hated Citizen Kane. That war movie with Nathan Fillion is what I call (...goes to Google it...) Saving Private Ryan. It's not because I think it's a terrible movie. It actually tells a wonderful, albeit tragic story. It just illustrates how much of a movie person I am not. Yet, what I love most about my job is making movies. We're not talking blockbuster Hollywood anything. I make morning announcements. I make movies about having an incredible bagel dog for lunch. At least that was my gateway drug.

Our story begins when our school started universal breakfast a couple years ago. Universal breakfast means every kid in the whole school (we have almost 900) gets breakfast or at least the option of having breakfast at school. That also meant we had to make the most of our time in the morning. The librarian, ECS, and I set out to change the format of morning ceremony in order to save some time. Little did I know what it would become.

courtesy of CCSD Food Services

It started out basic. We mentioned the color day (we run on a six day schedule red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple), the date, said the pledge, and had the moment of silence. Soon, a student suggested we add the weather, so we did. Then the PE teacher asked if I'd create an advertisement for rec center. Pretty soon morning announcements were nearly 10 minutes long and included nuggets of information from random facts about fruit to events coming up on the school calendar. This got me to thinking, "It's like the morning news." LIGHT BULB! What if the kids became reporters and created their own news segments? So I set out to create a curriculum around that idea for 4th grade.

In the meantime, word had gotten out about these commercials and I started making them for all kinds of things. We made one for smencils, Harvest Festival, Showcase Night, Reading Week, secret valentines, running club, and the Black & White Dance. It didn't stop there though. We made Good Idea/Bad Idea a regular segment to reinforce good behavior and procedures throughout the school. The crowning achievement of movie glory was the CRT pep rally. Third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers all made videos to get the kids pumped up for the CRT pep rally. By the end of the 2012-13 school year all I wanted to do full time was make movies.

This is really what happens when I get an idea.

Over the summer I went to the Apple Distinguished Educator Institute which you read a little about in my post, Passport to AWESOME. We were asked on the second day to write down what we were passionate about. I wrote down and erased a few things before I remembered what I said over and over at the close of the school year, "I wish I could just make movies." So I found myself in a group with other people who liked to make movies. Some of them had made real big screen movies and that was a little intimidating, but it was also an opportunity I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere else. Some of our group liked the storytelling aspect of movies and some like the production aspect. Another ADE, Mr. Don Goble, has a hashtag #powerofvideo on Twitter that leads to wonderful stories and resources on the topic. I learned a ton while I was there, but one project in particular stuck out to me. It was Mr. Josh Mika and his video about ChooseKind. You might want tissues for that one. It moved me.

So here I am now, getting ready to go back to school and I'm thinking about how my students can use video to give voice to their stories, their learning, and their ideas. I will probably still call it "the war movie with Nathan Fillion," but this experience has made me realize just what a powerful medium movies and video can be. It can give voice to kids who don't have it and inspire kids who just needed an outlet. Most of all, it gives kids power and invests them in their own learning in a way few other forms of media can.

Passport to AWESOME

People I met in the passport office,
on the scavenger hunt, & two other places.

I went to "sleep" around 5 this morning. I actually slept for an hour and 45 minutes before I woke up again. My brain is rejecting the reality that I have to leave this wonderful place (not the AT&T Executive Education & Conference Center - although, it's lovely as you see). My brain and heart aren't done being surrounded by these amazing people. I know this blog was going to be SOLELY about teaching strategies and if you're an ADE you might be thinking, "Well, yes AND..." This has some strategy embedded in it AND so much of that is about this experience.


Last Sunday I received a passport upon arrival at the Apple Distinguished Educator Conference and the sticker collecting began. I decided to make a circle map from my stickers and it turned out to be one of the best things I did.

I wrote where I met people, significant things about them for example Kristen (@MrsWideen) and Kyle (@MathletePearce) are from Windsor and hilarious people. Kurt from Portland is in transition to move right now. I grouped who I sat with at meals and who was in my scavenger hunt group. I wrote email addresses and twitter handles and even collected all three Newfoundlanders. I had enough Canada pins for someone to start a conversation with, "Where in Canada are you from?"

Darrin in action

I met Clay from Green Bay who wrote a fantastic post about his experience on his blog, iPaddiction. Kris spent his lunch upleveling my limited skills in Motion that began with Darrin and Kerry late the night before. John and Tony literally taught me everything I know in Final Cut Pro X. I met my official buddy, Sean. Stephen was the only Aussie sticker I could collect and I had a wonderful dinner talking with Stephen, Dean, and Erin. Awesome conversations were had with my group, pro film production which included Jason, Daniel, Anthony, Peter, Kerry, and Logan. Warren, Logan, Peter, and Anthony helped me figure out what to do about sound recording in my classroom at lunch one day. April was the only other woman in my group and she has the same job I do which, up until this week, I didn't think was possible. I felt alone. I felt like no one else did what I did and no one else wanted to go where I wanted to go. I felt I was both pushing boundaries too much and way behind the rest of the "real" world. Jon and Steven introduced me to "geek chic." Carl (with a C - not to be confused with Karl with a K) took a bunch of us to experience really good Texas BBQ at Rudy's one day and he was a fabulous host showing people around the city.

The pages of my passport are not just filled with stickers, they are filled with people and memories. I am glad I decided to do what I did with my passport so that I can remember those people who are going where I want to go. I hope I see these wonderful people more than once per year.

These people are cool. Like so cool.

As far as the take home lesson goes, for your classroom, lessons and techniques are great things. Cultivate them. Grow a collection of resources for yourself. Just don't forget to fly over yourself as an educator and remember why you're really in this. Don't forget that even more important that cultivating those things is to cultivate a network of people who will support you, who you can turn to for help, who you can cry to in your most frustrating times, who will provide that much needed feedback. Like Clay from Green Bay, I wish every teacher could come here and be a rock star for a week. You can (as long as you do your video, submit your materials, and get selected)! If you want something now though, don't wait for someone else to create the experience. Connect with others. This post has the most links of any other post I've ever posted because of the connections I made this week to the people, not just the information.