A Teacher in the US has been sacked for showing his English class the movie Elizabeth.
Although the more sensible UK have the movie rated at a mere 15, the US have it classed as an R rated movie. That means the movie should have been shown to his class in the presence of an adult…ermmm…what was the 62 year old English teacher with 37 years at the school? According to the Guardian:
An American high school teacher who screened the Oscar-winning film Elizabeth for his students lost his job following complaints from parents. Ed Youngblood, 62, had taught at South Gwinnett High School in Atlanta, Georgia, for 37 years before screening the film to his advanced British literature class earlier this month. He says that he was given the choice of quitting or being fired after being informed that an official investigation was under way.
Oh, I like that too. He was told quit or be fired while the investigation was ongoing? Now that’s justice, and all over the screening of an historical English drama to his advanced English class…Surely there’s nothing wrong with that?
I’m not sure where Stuart’s friend got their information, but it is definately not illegal to show a film to a class. It’s only illegal if you charge admission for viewing the film. That’s when you have to get rights to view it and pay a fee. Otherwise, it would be illegal to have friends over your house to watch a film that you rented for yourself.
I think it is crazy that a teacher with such history and no previous problems got fired due to watching the movie ELIZABETH. Then again, that is American censorship for you at its finest. Obviously, the teacher made a mistake, with all of his experience he should know the rules by now about getting previous approval. Does that mistake deserve to cost him his job? I don’t think so. He showed a British movie to a British Literature class, he probably just had the intention for having them experience the history, which is a lot easier to students and allows us to relate better. I mean and honestly, those students have seen movies that are a lot worse than that, they have probably watched AMERICAN PIE with members of their family. It’s 2005, change with the times!
Who says movies have no place in school. For my english GCSE (a qualification in the UK) we watched Baz Lurman’s Romeo and Juliet. And had to write a piece of coursework on it. Obviously it’s not illegal to do this kind of thing since it was accepted and I passed…
In the US however I don’t know what the rules are.
That’s so stupid. Like they said, he should have been given some kind of warning or week without pay. That seems a little severe. I mean high school kids are not like little kids; they can handle it. And that is dumb how they said either quit or be fired. You’re being forced to quit which is basically the same as being fired.
A warning would have been appropriate, but not sack the poor thing.
Yeah, but the point is, copyright and content aside, generally in the US there seems to be a mandated permission system in many school governing showing of movies that the UK doesn’t have (well didn’t up till I left in 1997). I dunno how it works in the US exactly but sure, over here in the UK we watched movies all the time. Even in our religious studies class we were shown Boorman’s The Emerald Forest one day. There was bare boobage in abundance and nobody batted an eyelid and certainly nobody lost their job.
Maybe it’s just the certain US sensibility to that kind of thing but I don’t wanna generalise too much. But it smacks to me of one kid in class from an ultra-conservative family going home and whining to their mommy to me. I mean you’re not telling me that even if there’s 16 year olds in that Senior Lit class, that half of them weren’t going to see Saw II a couple of weeks back anyway.
Though I do remember once in Primary 5 or 6 getting to watching Batteries Not Included as an end of term treat. That was until the punk hoodlum character uttered one of only about 4 mild cuss words that the PG-rated movie contained. The movie was shut off and we were ushered back to class by a horrified teacher. :(
Stuart – HUGE difference between Elizabeth and Jumanji or Herbie!
At school we watched quite a lot of films, shorts, documentaries, historical dramas.
Here’s an interesting thought though, when the teachers talk about beheadings and sex as part of History lessons, are they suppposed to refrain from tgoing too far? What do they teach about genocides? Concentration Camps?
Is it the actual seeing of a fake beheading that would be the issue? Particularly as young adults can’t discern between the two.
Maybe we should start adding ratings to sections of history for teachers to know what to teach their kids?
Here’s an interesting quote from an english teacher I know
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Teacher’s aren’t supposed to show movies. Every school has a policy on it. In fact, it violates copyright protection to show an entire movie to a class. you can show clips of movies and be ok. For example, social studies teachers show “short” clips of Patriot. Obviously some of the tamer scenes. But there isn’t a thing about showing a movie that equals teaching. I should know. Now I showed the first 45 minutes of Jumanji the other week but then I stopped it and made the kids write their own ending. That’s at least TRYING to make it educational. But if I showed Jumanji for two days and then did nothing with it, I could hardly claim to be teaching them anything.
Our school always shows a movie in the afternoon before Thanksgiving. Today we got to see Herbie Fully Loaded. YAY. We have to show G-rated films.
Anyways, we have to pay 300-400 for the right to show it.
I agree with both sides to a degree; that what he did was silly and the case has been overblown. He should’ve been admonished for it, sure, for violating school policy, but not given a walk or be pushed ultimatum.
I agree, this is completely unjustified — the man lost his job!
Although it’s not entirely out of the realm of reason, if you think about it. (Not that he was fired, that he can show his students the movie.) Sure, in this case it was just the movie “Elizabeth”, but it IS an R-rated movie, and as such it requires a student’s guardian/parent’s permission to see. Remember that a lot of horror movies with people getting their heads chopped off are R, too. And a lot of movies with a ton of sex in it ala “Basic Instincts”. An “R” in the U.S. means a guardian has to be present; a teacher who your kids see one hour every day for 5 days a week doesn’t exactly qualify as someone who knows what’s good or bad for the student in question.
Again, I think it’s unjustified that the guy lost his job, but the phrase, “The slippery road to hell…” (or some such) kind of pops into my head when I read this story. From what I’ve read, the fellow meant no harm, so firing him was kind of a knee-jerk reaction. I hope he gets his job back, but I also hope that, one day when I have kids, some stranger who my kid sees for 5 hours a week doesn’t think it’s pefectly okay for him to show my teen (high school students are between 14-17) “Basic Instincts”, etc…
Sometimes they go way over the top! There isn’t enough good teachers out there. And one that has been teaching for 37 years should have gotten at lest a week with out pay and a pink slip in his file.
Unless he was showing the XXX version.;) He just got his sex ed mixed up with his history class. I’ve made that mistake a time or two.
Donna A.
I thought the R rating on ‘Elizabeth’ was a bit harsh, but I think it had to do with a nude scene and the end where heads were taken off. That said, I think an edited version could have been seen.
But man, have times changed. In my high school, back in the late 80’s, me and my classmates were subjected to a miniseries from PBS which first aired in 1976 that included a little bit of violence and some moon shots. Nobody got in trouble, because it was…”I, Claudius”, which many appauded as being historically accurate.