Cruel and unusual punishment??

[J Perk]

It's been a while since I have last posted, teaching is a lot more work than I expected, but now I'm on vacation and decided to stop back in.  But i digress to my issue.  I am wondering does this situation count as cruel abnd unusual punishment

For a christmas treat I let my students watch movies in Algebra class last Friday.  however I put in Manos as the first movie to watch.  The first clas lasted 5 minutes before begging me to put something else in, the second class lasted even less and wanted to watch Santa conquers  the Martians, then they gave up on that and watched The Ref.  Next class begged for SleepStalker after 3 minutes of MANOS. and my last class just watched the ref after 2 minutes of Manos.  

However my fourth class had bad behaviour the day before so as a punishment they had to watch MANOS, there was no choice.  At first they were wild and loud, however by the end of the car driving scene they were quiet and attentive (read asleep).  Then one student started makign fun of it and then they all joined in.  I was proud.  I can't teach them to add fractions, but I can teach them to survive a terrible movie.

So should I feel guilty for putting my students through the ordeal or should I feel good for teaching them a lesson on the horros of the world.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Awesome stuff J Perk.  None of my HS teachers were cool enough to let us watch films of that nature.  We were usually subjected to the normal "season" dreck.  

I am curious though, how exactly did you get away with showing The Ref?  It's one of the best holiday flicks out there, but if I remember correctly, it has some normal Leary languange throughout.  Hell, back in my HS years, you would get fired for showing something like that to the students.  Not that I'm condeming you though, more like commending.

Good to see you back at the board.

[Scott]

You did the right thing J Perk.

[daveblackeye15]

Aw f**k that's awesome man! It's cool that you're back for the moment. Hell no that wasn't the wrong thing. The first frew classes were made of friggin wimps that when they were put in a "sink or swim" situation they sunk! But be proud of those kids that didn't give up they fought back! Oh yeah! fight against Manos!

[Master Blaster]

You should feel guilty. You should reach into the abyss of your dead soul and find the shred of humanity that is left in you that can repent for such a horrid act of sadism. To subject mere children to the horrific boredom of Manos. What kind of a monster can do such a thing?

[BeyondTheGrave]

I got say J Perk I wish I had more teachers like you in high school. You taught them a lesson and that what teachers do.

"I know I know ive been exposed permeant psychoses..
at least the colors are nice"- Aeon Flux

[dean]

That kinda reminds me of my year 10 media teacher who showed the class Ninja Scroll and Pulp Fiction. Needless to say, his services weren't required the next year, sadly.  He was a black belt in kendo funnily enough, and one time during the lunch break, a bunch of students from a different school came down to ours to beat up some poor kid for hitting on somebody's girlfriend or something.  They had bats of numerous description, and one of the students went at him with a baseball bat, got it taken off him quick as a flash, and now the school had a new, quite expensive bat for the baseball team to use!

Lots of fun all round actually.


Yes showing those films is cruel and unusual punishment, but these kids need to learn important life lessons and bad-movies are one of them.

[peter johnson]

That's a scream -- but problem:  Where do you go from there?  After Manos, won't Robot Monster or Plan 9 play like Hamlet?
If you do do a repeat, what would you follow up with?  I suggest the 2 I name, but still . . .
peter johnson/denny crane

[Perk]

NOt sure on where to go from there.  I mean Manos is pretty much the summit but mayube I'll find something bad enough for them to not like, or maybe a good movie.  :>

As for the Ref, my room is secluded and I have no windows.  Luckily, they didn't get too bad into the language part before class was over (O but it did get bad).  Besides I tied it in with math so that I can say it was an assignment.  My friend got reprimanded for showing Elf though, so thats kind of funny.

On a more hilarious note one of my students won Sleepstalker in a raffle and after watching the first ten minutes of it (where he's walking through a desert) she gave it away to someone else.  This same student asked me if we were ever going to watch "Ichi the Killer" ion class.  The Ref would be like Rudolph the red nosed reindeer compared to that  is what I told her.

[Sugar_Nads]

Good for you Mr. Perk... That'll teach them darn teenagers... ; )

[Mr_Vindictive]

Ichi The Killer in class.......

I can't possibly fathom the amount of trouble you would get in for showing that one.  Everything from semen, to rape, to boiling grease in that one.  

Could always do it as a study of the effects of hypnosis on a person.  :o)


Oh well.

[dean]

Maybe something still bad but more mainstream like Death Race 2000.  It's always entertaining watching popular actors in things before they became famous [like Courtney Cox in Masters of the Universe] and plus it has the added benefit of encouraging bad driving skills.

[DARKWOLF]

This makes me remember back in my high school days as a freshmen in history class. My teacher in class showed us Stephen King's Silver Bullet the class only saw the first part and a little in the middle because some stupid girl got really scare and told her mommy and daddy about it and my teacher got in trouble for it. That was pretty cool that day no history and no homework just watching a movie.

[Vermin Boy]

Heh, reminds me of when I was a junior in high school, and I convinced my teacher to let us watch The Big Lebowski in class. It did tie in with the cirriculum-- it was a class on "Politics, Protest, and the Arts," and we did a unit on buddy films to put Thelma & Louise in context-- and it went over well, but it was hilarious watching my teacher dash across the room to turn down the volume, and mutter "I am so getting fired!"

[Yaddo 42]

We got to see ""Dirty Dancing" and "The Lost Boys" in a history class when we got ahead of the schedule once and when the teacher didn't want to pay for a sub when he had to go out of town and left his teacher's aides in charge.

I got to see "Aninals are Beautiful People" in a biology class when the teacher was trying to kill time before exams. I'm surprised the teacher didn't get in trouble for all the laughter, most of the class had never seen it before.

As for b-movies, we also saw "Firewalker" in class when the science club went on a field trip and the teachers combined several of their classes to pass time since too many people were gone to teach new material without having to go over it again. They also did this another time and showed some dull movie with Linda Blair and a young Michael Wincott that had something to do with wild horses.

Every semester during exam time people used to try to hang out in the library if they didn't have an exam or had exempted a class but couldn't leave. The librarian hated when we tried this and used to play "Sounder" over and over again all day long on a TV in one corner, and required you to sit and watch it in complete silence if you wanted to stay there. He could clear out 90% of the people every time.

In one of my English classes after we took the test for a required reading book, the teacher would let us watch the film if there was one as a treat. We watched "Billy Budd", "The Red Badge of Courage" (both of which we liked), "The Grapes of Wrath" (which we hated because they changed so much from the book, but had to), and an awful TV version of "Huck Finn" starring Ron Howard that we just laughed at.