A Teachable Moment – 2 Movies

What can two movies teach us about the environment and the benefits of community? A bunch of stuff, actually. In an article in The Atlantic Hollywood’s Scariest New Villain: Random, Floating Junk, writer Noah Gittel does a “compare and contrast” analysis of two popular released movies: Gravity and All is Lost. Every kid has to write a compare and contrast assignment anyway and this article is a great example.

The two movies are both set in what are the two last remaining frontiers for humanity: space and the ocean. (You could even compare these two frontiers with the real wild-west frontier). In both films, the danger comes from careless acts of humans – pollution. Gittel puts it like this:

Something about these films feels post-apocalyptic. These characters are not actually the last people on Earth, but they might as well be; they are lost in vast, uninhabitable environments with no one to rely on for help, and this scenario speaks to deep, collective anxieties about the state of the planet.

He goes on to discuss both films as metaphors for our fear of a post-apocalyptic Earth. And yet, Gittel says, the message from both movies could be that we stand a better chance as a community, not as loners.

I’m not saying you should use this particular article. These films may not be appropriate for younger kids and metaphor and comparison both are higher level thinking skills. But you can find other teachable moments if you know to look for them. You can use these moments as an example of a difficult concept, or as a jumping off place for just plain intellectual conversation (yes, you really can have one with your child). When your kid tells you that they don’t know why they should have to learn algebra because they will never, ever use it in real life, find a teachable moment and go for it – show them that using their knowledge is fun.