Never Travel With Tom Hanks

As a teacher…

Probably some of my least favorite words. They come off as snobby or holier than thou. Like I know how to raise your child better than you. This time I’m running with it though.

As a teacher, it concerns me how many students cannot sit through a full movie. We have 45 minutes in a period so it’s not even the full movie at once. Yet many of them struggle with it.

The last couple of years I have played The Martian before Thanksgiving break. It’s hard to teach anything substantial on a Monday and Tuesday like that. So I have now watched Mark Watney grow potatoes about 30 times. This year I don’t believe I will.

I like the movie because it fits our science and engineering themes. We see a fairly realistic situation of a person stranded that must use some science knowledge to survive. Every time I show it, I either include an assignment to maintain their attention or they start drifting off to side conversations.

Many cannot make it through Hank Green explaining something in 12 minutes.

We had a bit of a nostalgic night recently. Cherokee and I have mentioned Castaway to the kids several times over the years (probably). We settled in on watching Tom Hanks for our movie night before school resumed.

The kids were taken with it quickly. There was confusion about Russians and watching a movie about FedEx at first. Before long, it’s criticism over Chuck’s survival.

“I would have kept everything from the pilot. He doesn’t need it anymore.”

“I could build a fire faster than that.”

“Why didn’t he open that package. I would’ve opened all of those packages a long time ago.”

If anyone is looking for my children, they’ll be stranded on an island proving they could have done it better.

They gradually ceased their taunting of Chuck Noland and watched intently. It was a rewarding moment as a parent and teacher to realize my kids can actually sit and watch a movie like we did in the last century.

Also, my children seem to have no sympathy for Wilson.

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