Movie Review: The Children of Life

           The Children of Life is a documentary about a fourth grade teacher from Tokyo who teaches his students about the importance of life. The students document their true inner feelings through writing a letter, which is then read aloud in front of the class. By sharing their lives, the children begin to realize the importance of caring for their classmates. Mr. Kanamori states that good teaching should relate to student lives. One of the students wrote about losing her father, which was something she thought she would never be able to do. Writing about her father and reading it aloud gave her a different perspective on life, which allowed her to become more comfortable with expressing her feelings. Taking the feelings that were once bottled up inside and talking about it has made her become more content with her life. The next week or so, the student brought in the last piece of artwork that her father drew before his passing, which was difficult for her family to look at. There was another student whose father had passed away and Mr. Kanamori instructed that the students welcome him and make him as comfortable as possible when he returns to school. When the student returned to school, he was gratefulfor his classmates as they welcomed him. The students also wanted to write to the student's deceased father to explain to him that his son is in good care. Mr. Kanamori definitely made an impact on his students and they cried as the last day of fourth grade came to an end.
            Watching this documentary made me think of think of the impact that I would like to make on my students. I truly believe that students learn more if things are applied to their everyday lives.  I observed a teacher at Valley High School who does a phenomenal job with relating content to student lives. I noticed that the students are always attentive and also engaged during class. Through the program, we were taught to relate content in such a way in which students are relating concepts through text to text, text to self and text to world. For the class that I am currently teaching, I am working on relating concepts to student lives. The more meaningful a concept becomes to a student, the more that they learn.