Where learning happens

I liked the movie,  "Big Hero 6" but then, I am a sucker for sob stories. The children though... they had a different perspective. Coming out the movie, all the way home in the car and on into the morning, the litany went something like this:

"Seriously, can you believe the mistakes they made?"

" Yeah -- where were the Electro-Magnets? I remember reading about them in that book on Tesla." 

I interject: "Well, but there were those little boxes on the wheels?"

"Those little boxes were just there for show, they weren't electro-magnets and there was no source of electricity anywhere on the bike!"

"And what metal was she using?"

"What about Wasabi's laser hands?"

"I know, Lasers use heat to cut through things. There is NO WAY that he could've been cutting through those micro-bots effectively."

"What I want to know is how come, if the 'Silent Sparrow' gate was open and so powerful, didn't everything just get sucked in BEFORE the heroes got out?"

"And why the name?"

"It looked like something out of 'MockingJay'..." Snickers fill the car.

I threw back - "Maybe that was the point?"

"Bad point." was the response.

"Why?" I ask.

"Because 'Mockingjay' is cliché"

and off they go again...

Now, I don't know about you but when I was a 10 year old I didn't analyze movies based on the quality of their science and their literary merit. Yet that is exactly what happens when my homeschooled children watch movies. In their world, EVERYTHING is grist for the mill. Movies, it turns out, are the jumping off point for all sorts of explorations.

                In the case of 'Big Hero 6", my youngest has taken off on an exploration of Electro-magnets and lasers. He was already fascinated by the topic -- has been since he first encountered the story of Nicolai Tesla and his displacement in history by Thomas Alva Edison.  Something about Tesla's story and ideas sparked the creative spirit in my child and he immediately began 'creating' his own inventions.  Luckily for him (and for me!), Xander's father is a real Scientist and is able to help him 'think through' the scientific process.  Learning to follow the scientific process has been the hardest piece for my imaginative child yet because he has the focused attention of an adult mentor and his own interest, he is willing to learn it.

My eldest," The Theorist", is looking at the more literary aspects of the film.  Both he and his friend, James, have already torn the 'Hunger Games' book apart in order to create a 'Hunger Games' Minecraft map.*  (Ah ha! Using Minecraft for the purpose of homeschooling! The secret to that, however, is not imposing your own ideas on the child but allowing the child to create the assignment... which is not always an easy thing to do. There is an overwhelming temptation 'give'  the child a project. That never works.) It never occurred to me that the idea of creating a game would be the impetus of the reading and analysis of a book yet that is precisely what happened. And the analysis of the book was breathtakingly complete (and savage).   They analyzed it not only on the level necessary for the creation of a 3D game world but also in terms of the characters and the relationships that the author had created, something entirely unrelated to the game. And they then followed the book analysis up with watching and analyzing the film.

And we are back to the movies.

Once upon a time, I taught history at the University level . Every year, one of my most popular assignments was one related to the movies. I would have the students pick a modern film that was based on an historic event or legend. After they had watched the film (Ex. Kevin Costner's Robinhood),  I helped the students find high quality historical books on their topic (J.C. Holt's 'Robin Hood').  They read up on the topic then went back and re-watched the film. And having done this, they wrote papers about their experiences. What they saw, what they thought, what they learned.  Without exception, the students all agreed that they became 'aware' of film as fiction in a way they had not been before. Suddenly they were more analytical, more skeptical about what they were watching. Instead of being passive consumers of visual material, they were actively engaged, questioning what they were watching, sometimes to the frustration of their comrades . (Laugh). They also became aware of the ways in which history was used to shape people's opinions and ideas. 

History came alive for them.

Without meaning to do so, it seems I have passed on to my children the need to be actively engaged with film.  They do not just watch and accept what they see. They question, they challenge, and when they don't know the answers, or when something seems odd to them, they research. They have also learned that movies are NOT the same as the book -- something that I considered a critical piece of information. (Too many times I had University students who assumed that having seen a movie 'based' on a book they didn't need to read the book, a serious mistake.) 

As homeschoolers, we recognize that every experience is a learning experience. Watching movies offers the opportunity to discuss science, math, history, literature and philosophy. One can learn foreign languages through movies and use movies as guideposts for the creation of maps, both computer and physical. (Try creating a salt dough map of some world shown in a movie, for example.) Even television, which we rarely watch, can offer learning opportunities. (Mythbusters is a favorite since  brings their father into the equation. He has serious issues with the way the experiments are done. Jamie and Adam are FX men, not scientists. They do not necessarily apply rigorous scientific methodology. And the boys love having the chance to watch the show and then discussing it with their father.) 

Learning happens everywhere all the time. 

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*I should note that the map is James's baby. Jason was helping James work on it. Jason had already read the 'Hunger Games' books because he was curious about the hoopla over the book. When James decided to make the map, he had not read the book. Jason suggested that James read the book so that he would have a better sense of the story, then Jason went back and re-read the book so that he could help with the creation and analysis of the map.