[r+lchick]

My OH tutors small children up to GCSE in all subjects and A-Level in maths (no this is not a advertisement).  He came home the other day and said that one of his tutees, 11 years old, is do "The Hitcher" for English.  Well, I knew the movie and I was astounded.  He didn't know it.  I bought the DVD and we watched it.  Apart from being rated 18, it is a very menacing movie.  Rutger Hauer plays the villain very well.  My question is, why are 11 year olds watching 18 movies.  There are more gory movies in the market these days and most is supposition. When the hitcher (Rutger Hauer part) looks and gives a smile, it is worse than watching someone's head being blown off.  Anyone else's little delicates watching such movies at school.  (Yes, they watched the movie at school!!!)  Ros

[little blue]

NOOOOOOOOO!!!
I work in a school.... we'd be in BIG trouble.  If 11 year olds are watching it, you should call OFSTED or CSCI, or even the local education authority/council and report it!

[CameronS]

Our teachers would be hanged if they allowed us to watch 18's in school, some teachers are even reluctant to show 15's. Are you sure it was in school he watched it? 

[MiriMaran]

I am absolutely gobsmacked!  If I remember right a man gets between the lorry and something else and then gets ripped in half as the lorry drives off.  Its the only bit of overtly gory violence, but the tension and inferred violence is far too much for an 11 year old.  Also surely schools must be honour bound to follow the age guidlines.

I know a friend of mine has had problems with the schools holiday club.  Her boys (7 and 8yrs) have Nintendo DSs, a hand held game consol.  Someone else at the holiday club was there with their DS and was playing an 18 rated very violent game, which of course her children are now desperate to have after having a turn on it.  But this is not in the same league as asking a class of boys to study The Hitcher.

I think its a disgrace and should be reported.

[Jackie]

Those poor kids, I bet they have nightmares. 

[Hilarysmum]

Bearing in mind the trial of those two monsters who had also been allowed to watch unsuitable dvd's I would want a discussion with both the teacher involved and the head.  Its well words fail me.

[Jackie]

This isi the Hitcher they are studying lmao. Just shows we shouldnt jump to comclusions!!!

Hitcher

 

I'd been tired, under

the weather, but the ansaphone kept screaming.

One more sick-note. mister, and you're finished. Fired.

I thumbed a lift to where the car was parked.

A Vauxhall Astra. It was hired.

 

I picked him up in Leeds.

He was following the sun to west from east

with just a toothbrush and the good earth for a bed. The truth,

he said, was blowin' in the wind,

or round the next bend.

 

I let him have it

on the top road out of Harrogate -once

with the head, then six times with the krooklok

in the face -and didn't even swerve.

I dropped it into third

 

and leant across

to let him out, and saw him in the mirror

bouncing off the kerb, then disappearing down the verge.

We were the same age, give or take a week.

He'd said he liked the breeze

 

to run its fingers

through his hair. It was twelve noon.

The outlook for the day was moderate to fair.

Stitch that, I remember thinking,

you can walk from there.

Simon Armitage

Not a poem I like but hey each to his own.
 

[Hilarysmum]

I absolutely would not like my under 15 year old reading that!!!

[Jackie]

But you would be ok with Hamlet by Shakespear?

That has several murders and a suicide. Macbeth is even worse, that has witchcraft, patricide and child murders, plus the odd one or two adult murders along the way.

[doganjo]

Yes, but it is patently obvious even to an 11 year old that Shakespeare was writing fictitiously.  That poem and the film are too near modern life and are way way out of order for kids of that age!

[Jackie]

Shakespear wrote about what was happening in his time and is a reflection of his times. Muder, child abuse, child murder were all more common then, but yes Hamlet is made up but then so was the poem.

That poem is, unfortunately, a modern classic that reflects a part of our time

 Not, I agree a very nice poem but then no classic is.

Simon Armitage (born 26 May 1963, Huddersfield) is a British poet, playwright, and novelist. Before finding success with his poetry he worked as a probation officer and a supermarket shelf stacker.[1] He has received numerous awards for his poetry, including The Sunday Times Author of the Year, a Forward Prize, a Lannan Award, and an Ivor Novello Award for his song lyrics in the Channel 4 film Feltham Sings. In 2000, he was made the UK's official Millennium Poet during which time he wrote his over 9,000 line poem "Killing Time" about news events of the previous year.[1] He was one of the judges for the 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize and in 2006 was one of the judges for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. His writing is characterised by a dry, native Yorkshire wit combined with "an accessible, realist style and critical seriousness." [1]

[CameronS]

That poem and the film are too near modern life and are way way out of order for kids of that age!

 
I, being a 15 year old, wouldn't enjoy studying that text.

[Rosemary]

I wouldn't read it for pleasure but as an academic text? that's different IMHO. I don't think it's any worse than Shakespeare or reading the news for that matter. What matters is the context - I hardly think that any teacher is going to be recommending the behaviour in the poem. And to learn right from wrong, do you not have to experience, albeit secondhand, wrong behaviour?

[sagehen]

I agree, Rosemary. There are many issues that could be discussed in class, besides the use of language within the poem. Morals are beginning to be greyer and not so black and white with eleven year olds, and it is the best time to discuss and maybe debate, for example, what constitutes lawlessness - is it a case of doing something because one doesn't believe they'd get caught, or is it an inherent belief that it is wrong to hurt another person, etc. Yes, the poem is dark and the subject matter is slightly morbid, but it is an excellent one, nonetheless, as a purely intellectual exercise in empathy, values, opportunistic crime, mental aberrations etc etc (I could go on..)

[LockerbiteReiver]

*Shrugs*

I studied "A Clockwork Orange" at school when I wasn't much older than 11.  Scenes of rape, murder, sadism, drug abuse, assault, and torture by the state.

It's also one of the best, and most important bits of literature of the past 50 years and deserves to be read and discussed by any readership who can understand and appreciate it's themes as part of their education.

I think this whole idea of people committing heinous acts due solely to the media they have been exposed to, be it movies, video games, literature or whatever is massivly, and unhelpfully, overstated.

As a friend of mine said after the Columbine Massacre (which at the time was blamed by some on their exposure to video games where shooting things was a theme) . . . "You have two psychopaths, a load of guns and a video game . . . and you take away the video game . . . what difference does that make?"

If you're in a situation where a movie, or a game, or a book, inspires the manner of someone going out to kill or maim fellow human beings I'd argue that individual was already deeply dangerous and a serious threat to the public before he got anywhere near his TV, Library or X-Box . . .