Dear Movie Teacher,
We were supposed to start the movie last night, but then 8:00 p.m. happened, which every teacher knows might as well be 9:00 because three minutes after 9:00 is basically 10:00. And no self-respecting teacher is going to choose a God-awful hour like 10:00 p.m. to start a movie with her family on a school night.
So, she doesn’t. Start the movie.
Instead, she lies to her children and tells them they will watch Peanut Butter Falcon tomorrow night, and here it is tomorrow with the clock openly mocking them again.
Different day. Same vicious cycle. Sound familiar?
Teachers can’t watch movies at school either because they’ll get the stink eye from people who think viewing a movie in class is grounds for a “permanent mark” in a teacher’s file.
As a reminder for teachers who have forgotten, you taught in a global pandemic with masks for nine months. You wiped down every desk, every dadgum day, you took temperatures, and you planned lessons for remote, quarantined, and semi-quaran/remote/COVID-ish kids.
And now here it is June, and you’re still stuck in school trying to motivate kids who stopped caring a long, long time ago. For the record, school in June should be a crime against humanity.
All of this to say, if you want to show the movie, show the dang movie.
Because I can tell you, from experience, you won’t watch one tonight with your family either.
You’ll be too tired, or there will be other duties competing for your attention, or you’ll scroll through 500 Netflix choices bemoaning the fact that they don’t make good movies anymore.
With theaters being germ pits and homes being places teachers go to collapse, the only hope a teacher has of ever seeing a movie is in class, a class that should already be finished, mind you.
Not that anyone is asking me, but if they were, I would say, “Pop some popcorn, fire up Remember the Titans, tell your students you love them, and dub the next few days cinema therapy/ testing detox.”
They need it. You do too.
Also, it sounded legitimate, so I did some research. Cinema therapy is a real thing.
Who knew?
-CDB