An Inconvenient Truth has just gotten a bit more convenient for teachers this month with the announcement of 50.000 copies becoming free online to teachers starting yesterday December 18th.What a merry holiday season for teachers everywhere. The people over at moviesonline.com gave us this early Christmas present:
Laurie David, a producer of An Inconvenient Truth, announced today that 50,000 DVD’s of the acclaimed documentary will be donated on a first come, first serve basis to teachers across the country interested in using the film as a teaching tool in classrooms via www.participate.net.
A free downloadable curriculum guide to accompany An Inconvenient Truth is available for download at Participate.net courtesy of the film’s financier, Participant Productions. Developed by Topics Education for Participant Productions and Paramount Home Entertainment, the “AIT in the Classroom” curriculum is aligned with national curriculum standards and is designed for use in high school Earth Science, Environmental Science, Physics, and Chemistry classes. It can also be used in civics classes, middle school science classes, and offers Serving Learning opportunities for students.
Did I read correctly? Are teachers being given actual learning tools for inspiring and educating students? Wait! And there is actually a workbook to along with this movie to make things even more clearer to student and teacher? I’d like to hereby re-nominate Al Gore for presidency.
Seriously this is so encouraging to see, info-tainment (did the Simpsons actually make up that word?) is the best way to educate kids these days, very few teachers can get kids excited from a blackboard anymore, it’s just not current. But kids still love movies, it’s like a break from school. When they watch something that is not only getting them excited about geography, geology and politics but also shows them the hell on earth that we are so close to but can avoid if everyone starts to pitch in…..well then you’ve got a good classroom.
Will it work? I really don’t know. I worry for kids today, it’s the “whatever” generation, no one has the energy to get angry anymore. They’ve been programmed to be hedonists, to look for instant gratification. And I know I sound like an old man complaining to his roommate in a retirement home but really kids are programmed for convinience for themselves and their overworked parents.
So will a documentary about our world and how close it is to becoming uninhabitable really get them? I think there is hope. People want to have a cause, something worth fighting for, even the media and advertising fed little people growing up in schools today. Because really, they have so much more to be angry about then us, they have been programmed since birth to be consumerists, to numb their feelings with anything purchasable and meanwhile have had a whole lot of life, things that we take for granted taken away.
I’m hoping they realize it with this film.
