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Schools remove movies from class instruction

Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2005

The school system has gone too far by pulling movies adapted from classic works of literature out of the classroom, some parents and teachers say.

Administrators say they have no immediate plans to change new rules that ban movies with PG-13 and R ratings.

Two weeks ago, Barbara Blum stood with a group of fellow teachers in the Quince Orchard High School and watched as the school’s media specialist pulled movies from their shelves.

Many films that are classics in their own right, including ‘‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” ‘‘Psycho” and ‘‘The Count of Monte Cristo,” are being removed from the collections available to teachers at schools around the county, under regulations set by the school system’s top administrators in September.

The regulations require a more stringent review of classroom materials, including using the Motion Picture Association of America’s ratings scale.

Movies rated ‘‘R” are out. Movies rated ‘‘PG-13” no longer can be shown in middle schools.

Teachers wonder if the regulations are going too far by banning films that have long had a place in their classes.

‘‘A lot of films we are used to showing are going to be pulled from the shelves,” said Blum, who heads the English department at Quince Orchard. ‘‘... [These are] films we’ve shown for years that met other regulations that were in effect.”

Administrators say the changes stem from a routine review of regulations by the school system’s leadership team, which meets every other week.

The team comprises the three deputy superintendents, five associate superintendents, six community superintendents, three union presidents and other senior staff members including the superintendent’s chief of staff and the director of the Public Information Office.

Policy on evaluating and selecting textbooks, library books, films and other instructional materials is set by the school board. The leadership team sets the rules that make up ‘‘the nuts and bolts” of the policy, explained Brian K. Edwards, county schools spokesman.

‘‘The leadership team did not feel that it was necessary to show R-rated movies as part of the instructional program,” he said.

The old regulations asked teachers to consider ‘‘grade appropriateness” in evaluating whether a film was appropriate for their students.

‘‘We’re not looking for any list of videos,” said Jody Leleck, associate superintendent for curriculum and instructional programs. ‘‘We’re just giving schools guidance.”

Leleck compared using videos to going on field trips.

‘‘I always, as a principal, questioned the use of videos,” she said. ‘‘What value is it adding to instruction? What’s the link to the curriculum?”

Ted Willard said he wants to know about the films being shown to his sixth-grade daughter at Shady Grove Middle School in Gaithersburg, but said the new regulations might go too far.

Some works of literature are ‘‘very unapproachable, particularly as text on a page,” he said.

The most frequently cited example: the works of William Shakespeare.

Students could benefit from seeing a Shakespeare adaptation such as ‘‘Romeo + Juliet,” Willard said. The 1996 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes takes a modern-day approach to the play while using the original dialogue.

But under the new regulations, the PG-13 film cannot be shown in middle schools where the play is taught.

‘‘That would seem to be a little bit of overkill,” said Willard, a Magruder cluster coordinator from Derwood and co-chairman of the curriculum committee for the county council of PTAs. ‘‘That’s an area of real serious loss in all of this.”

The school system’s curriculum office can recommend alternative titles for teachers to use, said Gail C. Bailey, director of school library and media programs.

But there is no alternative for some lessons, Blum said.

‘‘If you’re reading ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ what are you going to substitute for the film version of ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’?” she asked.

The new regulations require two professional evaluations, one of which may be from a professional journal review of the film. The old regulations required just one such evaluation.

Deborah Wilchek, an English teacher at Rockville High School, is the co-author of ‘‘Amy Tan in the Classroom: ‘The art of invisible strength,’” a guide published by the National Council of Teachers of English.

Among the issues examined in the book is how to use the R-rated film adaptation of Tan’s ‘‘The Joy Luck Club.”

‘‘I think you can use an R-rated film judiciously in the classroom by showing a scene that has no objectionable material,” Wilchek said.

Teachers cannot use clips of films that do not meet the new standards, regardless of whether the clips feature material that earned the film its rating.

Wilchek said she has always been ‘‘very, very, very careful about what films I showed.”

At the same time, she said, ‘‘I really feel that all too often teachers show films in the classroom without reviewing them carefully.”

What’s next?

That is what administrators are trying to avoid with the new regulations, Leleck said.

She recalled that when she was principal at Broad Acres Elementary in Silver Spring a substitute teacher pulled a video from her purse that she intended to show a class.

‘‘I’m not saying it was appropriate or inappropriate [to show],” Leleck said. ‘‘I’m just saying that scares me.”

The new rules retain a process for requesting a committee of administrators and teachers to reconsider whether a book or instructional material is appropriate.

Administrators said they would discuss possible exceptions to the rules. Teachers said they were left out of the original decision to make changes and want to be part of that discussion.

‘‘The purpose is to make sure we have standards that everyone upholds,” Leleck said.

Blum said she is concerned that the regulations amount to censorship that might be applied to books.

‘‘To think that I’m teaching here in Montgomery County where we have one of the highest rates of educated people in the country, and I feel like the clock is being turned back,” Blum said.

Administrators said they have no plans to change regulations affecting other materials, with the exception of materials used with the sex education unit, which administrators are reviewing.

Willard was philosophical.

‘‘We’ve cut down on the number of spices that teachers can use in their lessons,” he said. ‘‘At the same time I’m not ready to say this is the end of high-quality education.”