Let me tell you a little story about a high school job I had once had in my home town of Bigfork, Montana. I worked in a very popular restaurant and, of course, I started at the bottom like everyone always does in those jobs — washing dishes. We had a chef, who was in charge of the kitchen, and a hostess who was in charge of all the waitresses, but was also the owner’s wife. The chef would tell me to make salads a certain way, and she would come and demand them a different way. There was a procedure for cleaning the silverware established by the chef, the hostess would come and tell me to not follow the procedure. In this situation, I blame both of them, because if they disagree with each other, they should sort out the problem, not put me in the middle of it. Of course, being adults, they weren’t able to solve or confront their problem, so it continued to be my problem as well until I finally left that job to work at a pizza place as a delivery driver. How much money, time, and energy had been lost on having to train another worker? Who knows! But those are the type of expenses companies should avoid. The moral of the story is the commandment itself — help people more, hassle people less.

Especially in education I see a lot of hassling people needlessly. One example of this I discussed in a previous post about not making rules or policies for the sake of making rules and policies. Schools are horrible about this activity. One student, or even a small group of students, makes a mistake and then we punish all with a new policy instead of educating the few about proper usage. In 1:1 schools this tendency must be avoided at all costs; otherwise you will find yourself working at a 1:1 school with no websites available for access to students or faculty and no computer programs that can be used other than Word or Pages. Recently another ADE asked about blocking Facebook, I informed her that Korea International School doesn’t block it, because we feel it is more important for students to learn correct usage of the Internet and computer than to make a rule about it. Our computer use policy states that the teacher has the right to decide if the website is appropriate for class or not; after all they are professionals and can decide best how to use the tool, why take it from them for no reason? Facebook, and any other social network site for that matter, is a part of life; students need to know how to manage their time and use of these tools; they won’t learn it from their friends or parents, trust me on that one. It is our job to provide guidance, not to simply outlaw it. Help people more, hassle people less!

Also, we have a Youtube channel now up and running. We will be adding some content in the next few days. I was busy, busy, busy dealing with wave of student discipline last week as well as collecting samples of students’ digital work to display during the parent-teacher conference going on this week. The whole thing almost killed me, because I also came down with a cold in the process, but it is finished. The parents and students are enjoying watching the short movies I put together with iMovie about different things that have happened in the middle school this year. After the conferences I will upload the movies to the Youtube channel. The idea for making a school channel came from a colleague in Shanghai — thanks Amanda!

So, “What is this post about?” You ask yourself. It is about movies. Independent movies to be exact. When I was at the Asia ADE Conference back in December, one of the best activities we engaged in was a field trip to Sinema Old School. A small independent movie theater in the heart of Singapore. Sinema Old School features independently produced movies from Asia and the one we watched that wonderful evening was called 18 Grams of Love. After the movie the ADE’s had the chance to talk with the director about movie making and film. This is Han Yew Kwang’s second movie in a trilogy of movies he wrote about communication. 18 Grams of Love is about written letters and the powerful messages that the written word conveys told in the form of a romantic comedy with deep under currents of how couples communicate and miscommunicate with each other in every day life. The movie was clever, emotional, and humorous and had none of the typical Hollywood plot line that fills normal theater screens. I encourage you to check out 18 Grams of Love if you get the chance.

On the topic of independent films, the official launch of Korea International School’s Phoenix Film Festival has come and gone. Many of the students around school are talking about it and many of the teachers are providing assignments that will nicely fit into the festival. Please feel free to encourage the students in your life to pick up a camera and enter the contest, because it is open worldwide. Final submission date is April 6th and the awards ceremony will be April 30th on the KIS campus in the lovely suburb of Bundang.