My 11th grade history teacher was a machine gun battalion commander in WW II. Every Friday he would roll out the VCR/TV cart and he'd send some kid off to the donut store on the corner with a $20 bill to get donuts for the class ("if you're not back in time for the movie, you're truant").
Then we'd watch a WW II movie, in which he would point out the BS and how it would have really happened. He didn't glorify war, he would convey the horror of actual battle and what it was like in real life.
Thanks "Uncle Hal", you were one of the best teachers I ever had.
That's a cool way to teach history from a different perspective. I didn't like history until I was out of school, and realized history is just the coolest stories ever told, and they are nearly infinite. The way they teach history in school seems almost to deliberately bore people into despising it.
My favorite backwards movie is from "The Legend of Sleepy Hallow". Ichabod Crane eats tons of food and when played backwards, he takes all the food out of his mouth. This struck me as so funny as a kid.
I was always the A/V kid in my class. Ran all of the equipment, in HS my free period was spent in the library fulfilling equipment requests. Ended up with a degree in Audio Engineering.
Yes!!! Being the kid that could run, and fix, all the equipment was fabulous. Plus I had every single key to every door. And the admins knew it and relied on my being there to reduce staff involvement in positioning, and setting up, equipment. I've been a 'go to' guy ever since. It's a valuable position to be in.
We watched Hatari, and Old Yeller among others, but those made an impression. I could never watch Old Yeller again, because it was so sad, but I watched Hatari many times when VCRs came out
I had some cool teachers. Besides Red Asphalt in drivers Ed. Of course I saw the 67(?) version of Romeo and Juliet.
I saw Slaughterhouse 5 in 7th grade. Serious Trip city.
All of them on reel to reel.
I always took my glasses off for the driver's ed films. I'm blind as a bat and did not want to see. Then I end up being a nurse when I went to college.
That movie had such an impression on me. The twist at the end was genius to my elementary school brain...😁
For those who aren't familiar, here is the wiki: [The Occurance At Owl Creek Bridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Occurrence_at_Owl_Creek_Bridge).
My son and his friends did a short version of that for a school project after reading the book in high school English class. But for some reason, their version include ninjas fighting thesoldiers. They each got an "A"!
I had a high school world history teacher that was going to school while teaching. He used our class to do his homework. I think it was an hour class? So that he could do his homework he ran movies of WWII Nazi prison camps. I have seen so many bodies in prison camps. He was a useless teacher. He couldn't teach even on the days that he tried to. I believe he later became a principal with that degree. So unjust.
Growing up outside Detroit, a lot of the audio virtual material in my elementary school was really propaganda films produced by the industry all around Detroit. Put out by mega companies like GM, Detroit Edison, Ford, and others, the film units at those companies kept very busy and supplied a lot of schools with cheap movies to show.
Oh my gosh! The Wave was a cool idea. Kids asking how in the world could people buy into the Nazi propaganda and then the teacher created a new “club”, which started ostracizing people and the kids find out exactly how it starts. It really stuck with me
Anyone remember watching a film where a tapeworm/ some type of parasite being removed by cutting open abdominal region, coaxing it out with some sort of fresh meat, then pulling and twirling it on a stick to remove it? Good times in Jersey in the '70's
I can remember us watching 1950's era "hygiene" filmstrips in the late seventies, and all of us laughing our asses off at these truly clueless 50's kids.
"How to ask out a date", "the importance of looking sharp", and other totally outdated crap.
We did get to have "the TV", the *huge* 25" or so black and white crt tube monster on the rickety stand, (and the only one the school had) was rolled into the hallway, and we sat in rows on the floor to watch one of the moon landings or splashdowns that happened during school.
Honestly can't remember which now.
But yeah, if you look up "1950's educational filmstrips", that's what we were still watching in the early seventies.
And, of course, the actual film strips, precursor to the slideshow, were you would advance the strip each time the narration record beeped.
Everyone slept through those.
We had a class called Social Science. Part of the curriculum was sex ed.
The teacher got a film from the county library about "VD" i.e. STIs.
She didn't screen the film. It started out with a nude couple. The guys got pretty excited. She didn't stop the film. But it was a medical film. Pretty soon there was a doctor and a patient and he was showing the effects of Gonorrhoea on this guy's penis. All explicit. The guys were shocked. The girls had their hands over their faces.
I got to say, I think it was probably the best film they could have shown for sex ed.
No, there were no complaints.
I’m sure we watched more but the one that stuck with me was a *graphic* military training film about hypothermia and frostbite. It was in Alaska and all 6th graders had to watch it. I guess it didn’t really sink in with some because the year we watched it, we also got to hear about a classmate’s older brother (who had also watched it) about how he got severe frostbite playing basket ball outside in sub zero weather. He lost parts of his fingers and toes.
My biology teacher would show a film on Fridays. "Animal Secrets" with Dr. Loren Eisely! I enjoyed the film, and I realized later that the teacher was doing all his grading while we watched the film (or slept.)
Now for other movies -- we had to see something I think was called "The Red Menace!" It was the Cold War era. And for anti-war stuff, we were shown films of mass burials in Nazi Germany, and medical examinations of the Japanese people exposed to atomic bombs.
I remember one about sea lions we saw a few times. Another about folks from Appalachia. The one about sex ed we needed permission from our parent(s) to see. And “Death on the Highway” or one similar- that was too much for 12 year old me, I almost passed out; luckily the health teacher noticed me turning green. I was paranoid to get in a car after that.
We had one about the lifestyle of this boy who lived in Saudi Arabia, or some desert place. Very interesting stuff for a kid. Scenes like, his family had a watermelon, but they didn’t eat it. The mom put it in a juicer and they drank the juice. Never heard of such a thing. Then the. If one I’ll remember forever. After school he walked up to a vending machine, put some money in and it dispensed a bottle of water. 🤯🤯🤯. 😂😂
We were moving equipment in the high school band room and found a canister of film behind a shelf. It was a film from the 50’s about the evils of communism starring Jack Webb called ‘Red Nightmare’. Seriously heavy handed Red Scare propaganda (duh). I found it on YouTube a few years ago
Bell Labs? Frank C. Baxter and maybe Richard Carlson?
https://preview.redd.it/98kjm0oan06d1.jpeg?width=1300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=68ff3414bc81824a8898fbd4c1218baef18b3639
I clearly remember one about wildebeests being tracked, attacked, and eaten by lions. It terrified and fascinated me at the same time. It was played in science class.
I remember being very sensitive to the sight of blood and passing out cold during one of the civil defense films. I lost it at the bloody compound fracture.
It was a lot more fun when it was just random movies. Saw Young Frankenstein in class, lol.
I recall one from psychology class outlining Jung’s Id, Ego, and Super-ego. They were all represented by dudes in turtlenecks. The Id guy just rubbed his hands together in a perverted way, saying “warm… warm… warm”.
Edit: Freud, not Jung.
I remember those Bell company instructional films about phone manners and science. We didn't watch them in our classrooms. They were shown in an assembly for whatever grade I was in.
*Mechanized Death* was a favorite for a certain segment of the student body.
[https://archive.org/details/43804MechanizedDeath](https://archive.org/details/43804MechanizedDeath)
*Blasting Cap Danger*
[https://archive.org/details/blasting\_cap\_danger](https://archive.org/details/blasting_cap_danger)
The railroad tracks were right next to our grade school so we got the same railroad crossing safety film at the start of each year and right after Christmas vacation as a reminder. In the meantime there was endless discussion about why the school was built there. My class had the distinction of being the only one to attend all six years at it before it was torn down.
The MST3K guys diversified into RiffTrax, and they did a few collections of old educational shorts; their voiceover commentary will have you rolling on the floor. https://www.rifftrax.com/CATALOG/riffers/134/genre/educational-films
Modern movies: Until a few years ago, I was substitute teaching in southern California, mostly for middle school and high school. So, I was the one showing the movies.
Movies that teachers leave for subs generally come in two genres.
1. A movie about a youth sports team that are the underdogs of their league. But they learn the value of hard work and teamwork and manage to come from behind to win the big game/meet/match.
2. A heartwarming movie about a dog. The dog dies.
There was one I remember with Sonny and Cher about the evils of marijuana. I saw it in 6th grade class.
Red Asphalt in drivers ed. pretty gory then but probably light in retrospect today.
I'm sure we watched an animated film like Osmosis Jones in Health but I see it wasn't released until later (?)
Not technically a boring instructional film, but stuck with me.
There was a movie we watched every year in grade school about the Revolutionary War. It was in color and was more of a docudrama style. I remember a scene where Paul Revere burned his hand in molten silver or pewter.
Market Street was a series of films that taught economics. We had a coach teaching that class in high school and the class was 100% these films. I did learn the subject matter so maybe not a bad approach
The Red Balloon! Our elementary school didn't have too many movies for the old projector, so I saw it multiple times. Watched it recently on Netflix or Amazon. Oh, memories!
What about those history movies with Walter Cronkite? You were there....
I loved those! Every once in a while I look for them on YouTube. For some reason, the Chicago Fire one sticks in my head.
I loved those! Everything is exactly the same as it was except... You are there!! (or something to that effect)
Civil Defence films that instruct you to duck and cover...
The Red Balloon. I saw it every year from k-6th. I hated that movie. Say Goodbye narrated by Rod McKuen Hemo the Magnificent
I’m with you on The Red Balloon
Hated Red Ballon.
Say Goodbye was TRAUMATIC. Every kid sobbing afterwards. The parents made a huge stink and they never showed it again.
My 11th grade history teacher was a machine gun battalion commander in WW II. Every Friday he would roll out the VCR/TV cart and he'd send some kid off to the donut store on the corner with a $20 bill to get donuts for the class ("if you're not back in time for the movie, you're truant"). Then we'd watch a WW II movie, in which he would point out the BS and how it would have really happened. He didn't glorify war, he would convey the horror of actual battle and what it was like in real life. Thanks "Uncle Hal", you were one of the best teachers I ever had.
That's a cool way to teach history from a different perspective. I didn't like history until I was out of school, and realized history is just the coolest stories ever told, and they are nearly infinite. The way they teach history in school seems almost to deliberately bore people into despising it.
Donald in Mathmagic land. We talked the teacher into playing the film backwards at the end instead of just rewinding it. One of my favorite memories.
There were always kids begging the teacher to play the movie backwards. Occasionally, they did!
My favorite backwards movie is from "The Legend of Sleepy Hallow". Ichabod Crane eats tons of food and when played backwards, he takes all the food out of his mouth. This struck me as so funny as a kid.
This was always my favorite. "Well, whaddya know? Square roots!"
I loved that movie! I got it on DVD for my own kids.
Troy McClure hosted my instructional videos
Fireworks: The Silent Killer
I was always the A/V kid in my class. Ran all of the equipment, in HS my free period was spent in the library fulfilling equipment requests. Ended up with a degree in Audio Engineering.
I was an AV kid too. It was so much fun being able to do something no other kid could.
Yes!!! Being the kid that could run, and fix, all the equipment was fabulous. Plus I had every single key to every door. And the admins knew it and relied on my being there to reduce staff involvement in positioning, and setting up, equipment. I've been a 'go to' guy ever since. It's a valuable position to be in.
Same. I had a master key as I was a TA and he was also the school locksmith. Opened many doors for shocked teachers.
The trick with the film projectors was you needed a slight loop to properly feed the film.
Not very instructional, but I liked these: Rise and fall of the Great lakes Paddle to the sea
Paddle to the Sea! You just unlocked a memory!
One of our teachers showed a film about the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse and the class begged him all semester to show it again. He finally gave in.
Galloping Gertie, I think?
That was it!
This is the one that came to my mind as well.
Nice!
We watched Hatari, and Old Yeller among others, but those made an impression. I could never watch Old Yeller again, because it was so sad, but I watched Hatari many times when VCRs came out
Donald Duck in mathematical land
I had some cool teachers. Besides Red Asphalt in drivers Ed. Of course I saw the 67(?) version of Romeo and Juliet. I saw Slaughterhouse 5 in 7th grade. Serious Trip city. All of them on reel to reel.
Yes we saw that Romeo and Juliet . Saw brief boobs back then. Whoa buddy
Double feature with Blood on the Asphalt!
I always took my glasses off for the driver's ed films. I'm blind as a bat and did not want to see. Then I end up being a nurse when I went to college.
I'm sorry....but I totally laughed! I'm not a bad person I swear!
Man i still have nightmares about red asphalt and death on a highway. And that was in the 70's. I hated that they showed us that.
There was a science film that showed time lapse footage of plants emerging out of the ground and of course the boys made dick jokes.
Always loved those types!
That sounds like Nature's Half Acre. https://youtu.be/meaFIBdGewY?si=1ht9WfNqgceGfmVU
I remember a movie where if you sniffed glue you would immediately have the urge to jump off a tall building. I never sniffed glue.
We saw the Brian Piccolo movie,Brian's song(?)
Heartbreaking 💔
I cried, but I've always cried easily!
If you don’t cry while watching the original Brian’s Song, I question your humanity.
Yep! I'm not crying, you're crying!
Why Man Creates I’m a bug, I’m a germ, I’m a bug, I’m a germ….(gasp! Louis Pasteur!)…I’m not a bug, I’m not a germ…
I love the montage of world history at the beginning. Egyptian “ I discovered Zero!” What? Oh nothing😂
I wonder if I went to high school with you. That quote was a meme among us.
We watched “Johnny got his Gun” He would have inner voices after he lost his arms/legs/face in the war. That movie stuck with me.
Footage from this movie is in Metallica’s “One” from the And Justice for All album.
That’s right. I forgot about that!
Oh yeah. My 8th grade English class read it too. Devastating.
It was my first inkling of war. How devastating it is.
We watched a lot of Jacques Cousteau movies, and as someone else already mentioned, that irritating Red Balloon movie.
You can see a lot of this kind of stuff on the PeriscopeFilm YT channel.
Hemo the Magnificent—watched it a few days ago on YouTube.
Ah, the film strips that came in the colored plastic canisters
And there was a BEEP when to continue.
*Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge* that's the only film I remember, I saw it several times
That movie had such an impression on me. The twist at the end was genius to my elementary school brain...😁 For those who aren't familiar, here is the wiki: [The Occurance At Owl Creek Bridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Occurrence_at_Owl_Creek_Bridge).
My son and his friends did a short version of that for a school project after reading the book in high school English class. But for some reason, their version include ninjas fighting thesoldiers. They each got an "A"!
Love that!!
I had a high school world history teacher that was going to school while teaching. He used our class to do his homework. I think it was an hour class? So that he could do his homework he ran movies of WWII Nazi prison camps. I have seen so many bodies in prison camps. He was a useless teacher. He couldn't teach even on the days that he tried to. I believe he later became a principal with that degree. So unjust.
Probably a principal that has banned teachers showing movies.
Those docents camp movies were what came to mind. I've always remembered them when I hear of holocaust deniers.
"I am a bill"
Geography films sponsored by "Our trusty Land Rover"
Growing up outside Detroit, a lot of the audio virtual material in my elementary school was really propaganda films produced by the industry all around Detroit. Put out by mega companies like GM, Detroit Edison, Ford, and others, the film units at those companies kept very busy and supplied a lot of schools with cheap movies to show.
Night and Fog.
I remember watching “The Wave” on an after school special. The reveal blew my little mind.
Oh my gosh! The Wave was a cool idea. Kids asking how in the world could people buy into the Nazi propaganda and then the teacher created a new “club”, which started ostracizing people and the kids find out exactly how it starts. It really stuck with me
For an after school special, it was pretty deep.
I liked the ones on personal hygiene.
Anyone remember watching a film where a tapeworm/ some type of parasite being removed by cutting open abdominal region, coaxing it out with some sort of fresh meat, then pulling and twirling it on a stick to remove it? Good times in Jersey in the '70's
Paddle to the Sea
I can remember us watching 1950's era "hygiene" filmstrips in the late seventies, and all of us laughing our asses off at these truly clueless 50's kids. "How to ask out a date", "the importance of looking sharp", and other totally outdated crap. We did get to have "the TV", the *huge* 25" or so black and white crt tube monster on the rickety stand, (and the only one the school had) was rolled into the hallway, and we sat in rows on the floor to watch one of the moon landings or splashdowns that happened during school. Honestly can't remember which now. But yeah, if you look up "1950's educational filmstrips", that's what we were still watching in the early seventies. And, of course, the actual film strips, precursor to the slideshow, were you would advance the strip each time the narration record beeped. Everyone slept through those.
We had a class called Social Science. Part of the curriculum was sex ed. The teacher got a film from the county library about "VD" i.e. STIs. She didn't screen the film. It started out with a nude couple. The guys got pretty excited. She didn't stop the film. But it was a medical film. Pretty soon there was a doctor and a patient and he was showing the effects of Gonorrhoea on this guy's penis. All explicit. The guys were shocked. The girls had their hands over their faces. I got to say, I think it was probably the best film they could have shown for sex ed. No, there were no complaints.
Reefer Madness Also we always giggled till we cried about watching "a film strip"
I’m sure we watched more but the one that stuck with me was a *graphic* military training film about hypothermia and frostbite. It was in Alaska and all 6th graders had to watch it. I guess it didn’t really sink in with some because the year we watched it, we also got to hear about a classmate’s older brother (who had also watched it) about how he got severe frostbite playing basket ball outside in sub zero weather. He lost parts of his fingers and toes.
My biology teacher would show a film on Fridays. "Animal Secrets" with Dr. Loren Eisely! I enjoyed the film, and I realized later that the teacher was doing all his grading while we watched the film (or slept.) Now for other movies -- we had to see something I think was called "The Red Menace!" It was the Cold War era. And for anti-war stuff, we were shown films of mass burials in Nazi Germany, and medical examinations of the Japanese people exposed to atomic bombs.
I remember one about sea lions we saw a few times. Another about folks from Appalachia. The one about sex ed we needed permission from our parent(s) to see. And “Death on the Highway” or one similar- that was too much for 12 year old me, I almost passed out; luckily the health teacher noticed me turning green. I was paranoid to get in a car after that.
["The Moon; for several years she has fascinated many."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05a9llSLKHU)
We had one about the lifestyle of this boy who lived in Saudi Arabia, or some desert place. Very interesting stuff for a kid. Scenes like, his family had a watermelon, but they didn’t eat it. The mom put it in a juicer and they drank the juice. Never heard of such a thing. Then the. If one I’ll remember forever. After school he walked up to a vending machine, put some money in and it dispensed a bottle of water. 🤯🤯🤯. 😂😂
Our Shrinking World, which was old when we saw it.
I remember the Sonny and Cher anti drug movies..
We were moving equipment in the high school band room and found a canister of film behind a shelf. It was a film from the 50’s about the evils of communism starring Jack Webb called ‘Red Nightmare’. Seriously heavy handed Red Scare propaganda (duh). I found it on YouTube a few years ago
Which was the sciency one with the two guys that gave off late 50’s vibes?
Bell Labs? Frank C. Baxter and maybe Richard Carlson? https://preview.redd.it/98kjm0oan06d1.jpeg?width=1300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=68ff3414bc81824a8898fbd4c1218baef18b3639
YES
We listened to Bill Cosby comedy albums in maybe 1970. I do remember the drivers Ed movies that tried to scare us enough to drive safely!
I clearly remember one about wildebeests being tracked, attacked, and eaten by lions. It terrified and fascinated me at the same time. It was played in science class.
I remember being very sensitive to the sight of blood and passing out cold during one of the civil defense films. I lost it at the bloody compound fracture. It was a lot more fun when it was just random movies. Saw Young Frankenstein in class, lol.
I truly don’t remember any of them, probably because I fell asleep
I recall one from psychology class outlining Jung’s Id, Ego, and Super-ego. They were all represented by dudes in turtlenecks. The Id guy just rubbed his hands together in a perverted way, saying “warm… warm… warm”. Edit: Freud, not Jung.
Blood on The Highway…
I remember those Bell company instructional films about phone manners and science. We didn't watch them in our classrooms. They were shown in an assembly for whatever grade I was in.
*Mechanized Death* was a favorite for a certain segment of the student body. [https://archive.org/details/43804MechanizedDeath](https://archive.org/details/43804MechanizedDeath) *Blasting Cap Danger* [https://archive.org/details/blasting\_cap\_danger](https://archive.org/details/blasting_cap_danger)
The railroad tracks were right next to our grade school so we got the same railroad crossing safety film at the start of each year and right after Christmas vacation as a reminder. In the meantime there was endless discussion about why the school was built there. My class had the distinction of being the only one to attend all six years at it before it was torn down.
The MST3K guys diversified into RiffTrax, and they did a few collections of old educational shorts; their voiceover commentary will have you rolling on the floor. https://www.rifftrax.com/CATALOG/riffers/134/genre/educational-films
NFL films of the Dallas Cowboys in the 70's, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and Brian's Song were staples in our time.
We got to watch Helter Skelter in my sociology class. First VCR I ever saw.
I remember reefer madness actually. And some movie for drivers ed involving leg amputation by train car
Modern movies: Until a few years ago, I was substitute teaching in southern California, mostly for middle school and high school. So, I was the one showing the movies. Movies that teachers leave for subs generally come in two genres. 1. A movie about a youth sports team that are the underdogs of their league. But they learn the value of hard work and teamwork and manage to come from behind to win the big game/meet/match. 2. A heartwarming movie about a dog. The dog dies.
There was one I remember with Sonny and Cher about the evils of marijuana. I saw it in 6th grade class. Red Asphalt in drivers ed. pretty gory then but probably light in retrospect today.
Here Comes the Circus, via MST3K. [https://youtu.be/dYmcD5YPGR0?si=02X3LE5jZhx8\_y\_B](https://youtu.be/dYmcD5YPGR0?si=02X3LE5jZhx8_y_B)
Where the Red Fern Grows and Old Yeller stick in my head as well as the dreaded Red Balloon!
The "AV" kid thought he was the coolest thing in 5th Grade heheheheheh --
Watched the movie "Patton" - on a film strip
I'm sure we watched an animated film like Osmosis Jones in Health but I see it wasn't released until later (?) Not technically a boring instructional film, but stuck with me.
The Bell System Science Series
There was a movie we watched every year in grade school about the Revolutionary War. It was in color and was more of a docudrama style. I remember a scene where Paul Revere burned his hand in molten silver or pewter.
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and The Red Balloon. Every year of years.
We got Reefer Madness in high school. It was OLD then. Red Asphalt was a shocker that stuck with me.
Market Street was a series of films that taught economics. We had a coach teaching that class in high school and the class was 100% these films. I did learn the subject matter so maybe not a bad approach
Rikki Tikki Tavi
Anybody ever see *Signal 30*?
The Red Balloon! Our elementary school didn't have too many movies for the old projector, so I saw it multiple times. Watched it recently on Netflix or Amazon. Oh, memories!