Movie Clip Monday

by Ryan Krzykowski

“Look up, Brock.  You’re in the end zone.”  I’ll be using that line with students often over the next few months, as last week we watched the “Death Crawl” scene from the 2006 film Facing the Giants.  In an effort to help increase student buy-in and engagement, I recently decided to begin my math classes each Monday with a short movie clip.  Sometimes these will be tear-jerking and inspirational.  Sometimes they’ll just be pure fun.  It will depend on what I believe the students need at a particular point in time.  But regardless, the idea of using movie clips to improve morale while communicating something important has been fairly easy to implement.

I want to be a great coach/educator, and any great coach is always interested in honing his/her craft.  This latest idea is hardly a new one — I’m certainly not the first person to use movie clips to try and convey a message.  But as we travel this journey together, the students are seeing that I am invested in them as people and not simply as math students, and also that I’m willing to go at least a little beyond what they perceive as the norm when it comes to teaching.

Any coach with access to a meeting room can do the same.  If you’re wondering where to get something like this started, the Death Crawl scene isn’t a bad place to begin.  And a quick Google search turned up this page and several more like it.  Maybe you don’t think showing movie clips isn’t your thing, but why not give it a shot?