Anchoring Film Education in the School Curriculum

• Film
• WO
• HBO
• Studiejaar 1-4

Introduction

A Keynote for the Congres of Film Eduation in Taipei Taiwan

Hello everybody,

I am very excited to be here! I am Margreet Cornelius, And I am from The Netherlands, Holland.

I will give more of an introduction later. First we play!

To start of the morning and wake up evrybody: which Dutch film director do you actually know?

Get your phone and play with me! This keynote is done in LessonUp, a digital platform very popular in Dutch secondary education. Teachers share lessons and musea, publishers, filmfestivals, birdwatching organisations, etc etc can use it to send lessons into the classroom.

At the network of film education, we all use this app! So thats why you use it today as well!

Who is the famous Dutch film director known for movies like 'Basic Instinct' and 'Total Recall'?

1. Quentin Tarantino
2. Pedro Almodóvar
3. Michael Haneke
4. Paul Verhoeven

I hope we all got this right ; )

Lets show a very short Dutch film to understand a little what kind of films we use in the Netherlands when we talk about film education for secondary education.

We use film education in the arts subject, but even much and much more in the subjects of Dutch, Languages, History, Geography and Civics/Social Studies.

But I will get back to that later on!

Lets see this Dutch short film. 

What did you think of the film?

PLease rise if you liked it, please remain seated if you didn't.

The film is used by the Imagine Film Festival, a festival that features science fiction and horror films, and is very popular among young people. They have a contest for children age 12-15 to make a 1 minute horror. The winner is shown in a screening full of short films.

Imagine Film Festival is a proud memeber of th enetwork and shares their film reserach with us  for our film database. More about this later on!

This film was made possible by Cineville. A pass in the Netherlands that gives you free entry to all cinemas who are a member. 20 euro a month, unlimited films. Profits (some at least) go back to cinema culture. 

Young Ducth directors can make short clips for their portfolio to travel the film festivals.

Cineville also sponsors our students from teacher colleges connected to the network. More later!

So! Lets get started after this short introduction, dense with information!

What do you hope to hear this keynote?

A lot about Dutch films

What is film education? What can you learn from film education?

How do you anchor film education into the curriculum?

What is your strategy in achieving your mission?

How did you manage to get your money?

Like we said. This keynote is done in lessonup, so we are going to have quiz questions in between... get your phone! And scan the QR Code or go to LESSONUP.COM and type in the number

----

we have 1 hour and 15 minutes- till 10.30

Film education: 20 minutes/getting to know each other

How do you anchor: 20 minutes

Strategy: 20 minutes

Play time/ films/ expand/ reflect: 15 minutes

The most important part of this slide is 

We are a NETWORK!

We are a network of 500 members.

Film fanatics from film festivals, film theaters, film makers, but also teachers, teacher trainers, principals, professors etc 

And we are organised in 6 film education hubs: a different hub for a dfferent region

Who are you?

Teacher/ Educator

Film maker

Film Festival/ Theater

(Local) Gouvernement

Other

May be it would be nice if you also mention the region in Taiwan you work in... But I didnt prepare this ; ) 

__________

Thats interesting!

A little background on myself, I was a teacher from 2000-2010, after that a film festival and since 5 years the manaer of the network.

And would you like to start a network with each other?

And if so... WHY?

So when you start a network, you have to have a very clear and outspoken vision! And share very clearly that thats the reason you work together. Not only to gain a network, publicity, knowledge, but keep remembering WHY

This is our MISSION

Our WHY

Because we believe children who obtain skills and knowledge by film education will see the world in a richer, more critical and more diverse way

Our HOW

is working together, sharing knowledge and making very visible what we do

Our WHAT

are many activities, you will learn all about them this coming hour!

Anchoring will be explained later on

Our Mission, Why, How and What will also be explained later on

So one moment to stop again to talk shortly about our defintion of film, film education so we are all on the same page.

FILM is

moving images

with or without sound (of course prefferable with!!)

(now we are also doubting it a little because of podcasts and so on! Where do we put podcasts?)

Film education is ... next slide!

So... what do we as a network think you can learn from film?

When we started 5 years ago, we had to start here.

What do we think you can learn from film? How do you make a curriculum on film for primary and secondary education?

We put together professors of film literacy of universities, art teachers, educators of film theaters and festivals and we tried to write down in the form a BIG IDEAS what you could learn from wtaching films or making films.

Developing a curriculum around big ideas can be an effective approach for providing coherence and depth to the subject matter. 

They are the key concepts that students should understand deeply and be able to apply in various contexts. Here’s how you might approach using big ideas to develop a curriculum:

Identify the Big Ideas: 

Start by identifying the essential concepts or principles that define your subject area. These are the ideas that are fundamental to understanding the subject and provide a framework for organizing the curriculum.

Organize Around Themes or Concepts: Group related big ideas into themes or units that form the structure of your curriculum. Each theme should represent a coherent set of concepts that build upon each other and contribute to a deeper understanding of the subject.

Establish Learning Objectives: 

Develop clear learning objectives that articulate what students should know and be able to do as a result of engaging with each big idea. These objectives should be specific, measurable, and aligned with the big ideas and overarching goals of the curriculum.

Design Learning Experiences: 

Create a variety of learning experiences that engage students with the big ideas in meaningful ways. This may include hands-on activities, discussions, projects, simulations, and real-world applications that allow students to explore the concepts in depth and make connections between different ideas.

Assessment and Evaluation: 

Develop assessments that measure students’ understanding of the big ideas and their ability to apply them in different contexts. Assessment should be ongoing and varied, including formative assessments to provide feedback and summative assessments to evaluate student learning.

Iterate and Refine: 

Continuously evaluate and refine the curriculum based on feedback from students, teachers, and other stakeholders. Pay attention to how well the curriculum is helping students grasp the big ideas and make adjustments as needed to improve learning outcomes.

By centering the curriculum around big ideas, you provide students with a conceptual framework that enables them to make sense of the subject matter and develop a deeper understanding that goes beyond memorization of facts. This approach encourages critical thinking, problem-solving, and the ability to transfer knowledge to new situations, preparing students for success in an ever-changing world.

So these are the big ideas we labeled? We are still in the process of evaluation, so please, come to me these coming two days if you miss an essential part of film eductaion. These Big Ideas were developed for the subject ART. We believe every subject needs a different approach for film education.

We also made different big ideas, or are in the process of making big ideas about Dutch, History and more will follow.

Lets take these ideas in and practice with a Taiwanese film I saw, and I think you saw as well!

I wish I would have done better research on Taiwanese shorts, please come to me with tips and tricks to find the best Taiwanese short films!

How?

Big Ideas

• Personal experience/ taste
• Technology
• A construct of moving images and sound
• Cultural heritage
• A form of expression
• Impact

Coo Coo 043

Who would use this film as a film for film education?

Coo Coo 043

Experience

Opening Taipei Golden Horse Festival or laptop at home?

Give Words

Tell your experience WITHOUT opinions!

Research

Research the film (look at the big ideas)

Reflect

Has the research changed your opinion onthe film or what did you learn, etc

Create

We always think the best way to reflect and retain information is by creating. P.e. make a picture of something cultural in your society thats disappearing.

Creating a film of course is a whole new topic, you need many other skills (planning, technical skills, vision, etc)

So... now we kow what we are talking about, what we, as a network, consider film education...

Back to our MISSION! Anchoring film education in the curriculum

But HOW?

Let me first begin with a little history....

We already exist for many many years....! BUT we had a huge change 5 years ago.

What was the network before?

We were a bunch of hard working people who worked at film festivals or did workshopsat school with film.

I was part of the network as the Movies that Matter Festival, a human rights film network.

I saw you have many festivals as well... Are you connected? Do you work as a network?

So we had fun together and we shared a lot of knowledge, it was great! But we didnt really make the BIG LEAP towards film in the Dutch school curriculum.

Why not?

We had no money to do more than the educational activities for our festivals.

(but we now have 600.000 a year,

the filmhubs each 320.000 per year (x6), is almost 21 million taiwanase dollars for the network and each filmhub 11 million taiwanse dollars- I will name the regional filmhubs after this!))

As i said before, we were all in the bigger region of Amsterdam-Rotterdam, not at all in the coutry side.

So film selection was based on population in the big cities. Big cities and coutry side are more and more divided by politics.

We had a lot of fun together and shared knowledge but we did not really work together, we did not have ONE goal we were all aiming for.

And very important... we were a network without teachers. 

Some festivals involved teachers with making programms, but they were not officially part of our network.

So these were the first four thing we had to change: 

• we needed money
• we needed to be a nation wide network
• we needed to work as a team
• we needed teachers as a part of our network

Which movie features teachers as heroes?

1. Bad Teacher
2. School of Rock
3. Superbad
4. Freedom Writers

Lets have a little break, and use the playfullness of LesosnUp!

Talking about teachers and films....

And, thinking of teachers as hereos.... We do a quick quiz of three film trivia questions

Which film portrays teachers as heroes?

1. Election
2. Fast Times at Ridgemont High
3. Dangerous Minds
4. Stand and Deliver

In which of these films are the teachers heroes?

1. Dead Poets Society
2. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
3. Mean Girls
4. The Breakfast Club

We saw our WHY and MISSION before

Work Together

Share Knowledge

Make Film Education Visible

This is HOW we do it

All our activities are now developed to obtain these goals 

VISION

EXPERTISE

PROGRAMME

FILM

DATABASE

MINORS IN TEACHER COLLEGES

POST ACADEMIC TRAINING

FILM IN ALL SUBJECTS

ALL MEMBERS USE LESSONUP

FILM TEACHER OF THE YEAR

SCHOOL FILM OF THE MONTH

Lets practice with these goals and our activities.

Naming all our activities is too much for this hour, so I thought we play with them, and we can research them more in depth later on.

Can you put our activities (on your left) in the right box (on your right)?

COLLAB- ORATION FILM EXPERTS

CONNECT WITH STUDENT

FILM FESTIVALS JURY

VISTING THEATERS 

WORK SHOP AT SCHOOL

ALWAYS REVIEW YOUR FILMS

STUDENT FILM FESTIVALS

So these activities you saw, were the activities of the nation wide network. They are stepping stones for the film eductaion hubs

A filmhub is much closer to the schools and teachers, and to the cultural field in their region. So they create regional hubs.

Campaigns

As I said before, a big part of our HOW is making all the film education activities very VISIBLE.

Because we want teachers to be inspired, by each other, by film, etc. 

But also in order to lobby for money, but more importantly: a place in the curriculum.

So what was our first campaign?

Film teacher of the year.

This is our 5th winner!

Another big step was gettin a spot on the most used platform teachers use. Because we do not think teachers should find US, we will find them! They already have a lot of places where they are meeting each other and getting their information from.

So this is the place where they will find the best short Dutch films for their class, cateorized by year (this is high school, we also do this for elementary school).

So this is not our filmdatabase, but this is the promotion of films at School Television. The biggest platform for teachers to look for video content in the classroom.

To have some fun, if we have time, a short film I think we could use brilliantly on this platform. I am curious what you think.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?

1. The teacher is nasty to the child the next day
2. The teacher kills the woman
3. The teacher shouts her thoughts to the woman
4. The teacher collaps and start crying

WHAT DO YOU FIND OUR BIGGEST ACCOMPLISHMENT?

THE CREATED CURRICULUM OF FILM

MINORS IN SEVERAL TEACHERS COLLEES

FILM IN SEVERAL SUBJECTS

A FILMDATABSE AND MORE THAN 500 LESSONS

AN EXTREME INCREASE OF FILM LOVERS AND TEACHERS

I think before we will see the end of the film, a short evaluation of our activities and of the keynote!

BIGGEST FAILURE

What do you think our bigest failure was?

APPROACHING FILM ONLY AS AN ART FORM AT FIRST

Tadaaaaaa!

Although this is my opinion...

Write down 2 things you learned in this keynote

Have students enter three things they learned in this lesson. With this they can indicate their own learning efficiency of this lesson.

Ask 1 question about something you haven't quite understood yet.

The students indicate here (in question form) with which part of the material they still have difficulty. For the teacher, this not only provides insight into the extent to which the students understand/master the material, but also a good starting point for the next lesson.

Thank you!