Movies and Music in the Classroom

Yesterday in class, we had a presentation by John Finch, the Coordinator for Manitoba Education. We heard from him last year about issues of copyright and other important things about technology use, but it was really good this time to reinforce some of those issues and to delve deeper into what it means for us as future teachers.

One thing I had not realized is the copyright issue with music. Of course I am aware of copyright issues when it comes to downloading music, but what I had not thought of before is the issues surrounding music performance; playing music for my students.

Teachers have the right to use music for educational purposes, that is, if it connects with the curriculum that is being taught. Teachers do not, however, have the right to play music publicly for enjoyment. In other words, I do not have the performance rights to the music on the radio, or even the music on the album I purchased, so I cannot play it for my students while they are working on homework unless I have purchased the rights through SOCAN. That is something I would have never thought of!

The same goes for movies - if the movie directly links to the curriculum or is being used for educational purposes, then I can show it to my students. Otherwise, I do not have the right to publicly show a movie, even if I bought the DVD - it is for private use only. The same goes for Netflix - private use only.

It seems that the more accessible data becomes, the more rules have to be made surrounding use of the data. I totally understand the reasoning - the artists need to be recognized for their work, and they are the ones who own the rights to it, but it just seems crazy that I can buy something and there are rules about who can listen to or watch it. I don't own it, even though I bought it.

This being said, I am so glad that teachers have the right to use media for educational purposes. One of the six Language Arts in the ELA curriculum is viewing, and I've found during or after reading a novel, it is extremely helpful to view the movie and see how someone else interpreted the characters and storyline.

During my last teaching placement, I read Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner" with my grade 12's, and we watched the movie after. I had my students write a reflection on what the most important scene was in the movie, as well as what missing scene they felt should have been included. I found it really helpful to see how well they understood the importance of little details in the story, and most of them were able to see how much character development has to be left out when a book is made into a 120 minute movie.

Film and music are so important in education, as they can reinforce something that has been learned, or even help students learn something new and make new connections. I intend to use both in my teaching, and I believe it is important for teachers to understand how to properly use them without infringing on copyright laws.