Student Doesn't Know How Movies Work
I posted this as a comment on another thread and thought you all would appreciate it as well.
We were watching the Leonardo DeCaprio adaptation of Romeo and Juliet in the English class that I teach. Before we started, I explained what an adaptation is and the whole activity was for them to compare and contrast the play (which we had just finished reading) with the film. On the second day of watching, one student sits up and blunts out:
"wait is that Leonardo DeCaprio?!"
I said yes.
I can see the gears trying to turn inside his head. Surprised smoke wasn't coming out of his ears. After a second of what can only be described as 'thinking' he said "How is that possible?"
I said, "What do you mean?"
He looked super confused and proclaimed, "I thought you said the play was written in the 1500s?"
I was flabbergasted. Not sure where to begin, I tried to explain.
When I said this movie was filmed in the 90s and is a modern adaptation of the play he said:
"But it was written in the 1500s, how is that possible?"
...
He was dead serious.
There is so much to unpack here. Turns out he had never considered how movies work. He was confused that it was Leonardo DeCaprio and not Romeo, and that Leo was still alive after being in the play in the 1500s. It wasn't the guns, cars, helicopters, and tvs that revealed this to him, although he confessed that was confusing him as well (but only after I pointed it out, he hadn't noticed before). He couldn't wrap his "mind" around how something could be written in the past, and then made into a movie hundreds of years later. He didn't know the play was fiction, and he thought the movie was the actual events being filmed.
When I tried to explain, I realized this kid was SO dumb there wasn't even a place to begin. Does he realize movies are fake? Does he think all movies are just real events? Does he know the middle ages didn't have electricity/cars/helicopters? How old does he think Leo is? Was this his first ever thought?
Edit: This kid is a 15 year old freshman in high school.
Yes, some kids can be dumb. Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade. That doesn't mean I am not doing everything in my power to help this kid learn to think and educate him. Just telling a story about a ridiculously dumb interaction I had with an anonymous student on an anonymous forum. No harm done.