I’m for kids seeing, reading, doing all sorts of things as long as they are not dangerous or inappropriate. That said, I’ll answer your questions with a couple of others.

1) School is constrained by a finite amount of time and other resources. Why would “Two Million Minutes” be shown in any school? I can’t speak for the teacher in question here. I assume there was a curricular justification for showing the film.

2) I understand the importance of learning about reliability, validity, perspective, bias, etc.. when you consider any form of expression. However, THIS film in particular was funded by a political organization, ED in ’08. Was that disclosed to the students? Did they research or discuss the objectives of that organization or its benefactors?

You do not cheat a student by telling them about the “author” of a work. You cheat them by omitting that information from the discussion.

And rather than ‘tell’ the class they are watching a ‘propaganda film’, is it not better to acknowledge that every film in existence, every report, every article, every story, with a social, political or philosophical purpose is a propaganda piece and discuss, at whatever level is appropriate, the intent behind each of them as you come to them. That kind of political literacy is not something that can be ‘told’ to kids, or to anyone for that matter – it has to be developed over time.

You’ve asked a large open-ended question. My glib response is that we have to start creating what Alfie Kohn calls, “the schools our children deserve.”

That can start with actions as simple as withdrawing our own children from standardized testing and writing a note to teachers explaining that once my kid demonstrates understanding of a concept, I will sign her homework to indicate that she is finished without wasting the time necessary to solve hundreds of identical problems.

We can share books with alternative views with colleagues, friends and our children’s teachers. We can go to school board meetings and speak out.

We can teach our children to POLITELY question the educational practices to which they are subjected. “Why are you teaching me phonemes three years after I learned to read?” Seems a reasonable example of such questions.

We can advocate for universal public school choice where teachers and schools are organized around common educational philosophies. We can become more articulate advocates for our particular educational philosophies.

We can start new schools.

There are a million things we can do – some small and some large.

Good for the 7th grader!

Did you tell the class that “Two Million Minutes” is a propaganda film funded by a group advocating a particular political opinion?

While I struggle to understand why educators value films like this, I have a hard time understanding why it would be beneficial to show to 7th graders.

If a kid has no ability to change the system they are consigned to, what possible positive result could result from seeing that film?

I find the choice of pronoun you use interesting as well. And just who are “we”?

I would not advocate not requiring to do course-work simply because a student doesn’t want to do it, but I would certainly advocate a student not doing course-work that isn’t necessary. If a smart kid know he can pass an external test by skimming a classic novel – and he has no particular wish to read the whole novel – why should he? You are asking kids to be irrational – another word for dumb in Americanese!

And, yes, Will, we are blaming Gen Y for not living up to proper educational standards. At some point, students, especially college students, need to take responsibility for their own learning.