Two thumbs up for film issue’s happy ending

Teachers today have a difficult task.

Charged with stirring and educating the minds of adolescents, they

face tough odds and competition from all quarters.

Television, video games and the Internet are but a few

distractions that detour the average teen from minding his or her

studies and actually learning something useful.

To accomplish the mission, some teachers may resort to shock

value.

It’s hard to know what Corona del Mar High School teacher Dan

Granite was hoping to accomplish by showing the movie “Messenger: The

Story of Joan of Arc,” to his seventh-grade history class.

So far, he’s been silent on the matter.

What we do know is that Granite certainly shocked parents who

learned that an R-rated movie with graphic violence and rape scenes

had been shown to their children in class.

And he may have shocked Newport-Mesa Unified School District

officials as well.

As parents demanded to know why the teacher was able to show such

a movie to their children, district officials were caught off guard.

They say, up until last week, there was no district policy

governing the showing of R-rated movies.

While many may find that to be short-sighted, the good news is

there is a policy now.

District officials rightfully moved fast on the matter and

established a new interim policy that bans R-rated films from

classrooms and requires that all PG and PG-13 rated movies be shown

only with prior approval from site principals.

The policy will expire in June but will be reviewed after the

school year completes.

School officials should be applauded for moving quickly on the ban

and listening to the considerable concerns of parents and also for

not reacting too strongly by removing Granite, who appears to be a

popular teacher, altogether.

Newport-Mesa teachers are fortunate to work in an environment

where the parents take great interest in their children’s education.

Yet it can be a double-edged sword for teachers as those same parents

will demand accountability.

Those parents, too, need to be applauded.

Because no matter what lessons teacher Granite was trying to

accomplish, the parents need to have a say over the graphic images

their children may be exposed to while attending the local public

schools and their rights and decisions respected.

Do movies have a place in the classroom as a valuable teaching

tool for history, politics, the arts, even mathematics?

Of course they do.

And when the district formally takes up the policy after the

school year ends, we’re confident that school board leaders will

agree.

But we are also confident they will agree that when it comes to

teenagers, screening those very same movies for good taste just makes

common sense.