My Honest Reaction When Teachers Tell Me to Focus on Studies Instead of Movies
I was fifteen and sitting in the back of English class. The teacher was explaining something about comma splices, and I was writing out a scene from the film I’d snuck out to see the night before. Not analyzing it. Just copying the dialogue because I liked how it sounded. She noticed. She closed the notebook and said, “You need to focus on your studies, not movies.” I nodded, but inside I thought, “Why not both?”
That moment has stayed with me. Now, years later, I sit on the other side of the room. I’m the one who sees students scribbling film plots in margins instead of taking notes. And I hear myself almost repeating that same line. But I know the honest reaction from the student side: it doesn’t feel like advice. It feels like being told that the thing you love is a waste of time.
For me, movies were never just entertainment. They were the only place I felt things I couldn’t name in real life. School was fill in the blank and match word A to definition B. Movies were messy, loud, sad, weird, and true. When a teacher said “focus on studies,” what I heard was “your world doesn’t matter.” I didn’t stop watching movies. I just stopped talking about them.
That’s the first thing I want parents and teachers to know. A kid who “goons” to movies—who disappears into a screen or a cinema for three hours—is not necessarily avoiding responsibility. They’re looking for something. Maybe it’s a story that makes sense when their own life doesn’t. Maybe it’s a character who is going through the same thing they are. Maybe it’s just a quiet room with air conditioning and no one asking them why they look tired.
I’m not saying every movie trip is deep. Sometimes it’s just popcorn and a lazy afternoon. But even that has a function. It’s a break. And a lot of students I know don’t know how to take a break without feeling guilty. They scroll on their phones, feel bad, put the phone down, pick it up again. At least with a movie, there’s a beginning, middle, and end. You can finish something.
So when I get asked about this as a teacher, my honest reaction is not “stop going to movies.” It’s “tell me about the movie.” Because the moment I ask that, the student talks with more energy and detail than they ever do about prepositional phrases. I can work with that.
For example, I had a student last year who was failing history. But he could name every director of every Marvel movie in order. I didn’t tell him to stop caring about Marvel. I gave him a one-page assignment: compare the historical accuracy of any war movie to the textbook chapter we were covering. He picked “Dunkirk.” He still didn’t love the textbook, but he read it because he needed to check something. That’s not a miracle. It’s just using what’s already there.
There’s a practical version of this for parents, too. You don’t need to become a film critic. Just try saying things like:
“What did you watch this weekend? What was the main character trying to get?”
“If you were the director, what would you change about the ending?”
“Would you rather go to the cinema or stay home and watch something? Why?”
These questions don’t take a lot of time. They don’t feel like a lecture. They tell the kid that their mind is being used, even when they’re not in school. And after the conversation, you can slip in something like, “Okay, so if we watched that in class, what do you think we’d need to research to understand it?” That connects their interest to school without shaming it.
At home, the environment matters more than the talk. If a child is always sneaking off to movies because homework feels impossible, look at where they’re studying. Is it the kitchen table with siblings running around? Is it the bedroom with a TV in front of them and a phone buzzing? I’ve seen parents put a strict “no movie until homework is done” rule and then the kid just sits in the living room, staring at a book, too tired to move. Instead, try setting a timer for twenty minutes of study, followed by one short episode or a movie on the weekend. Low pressure. Clear reward. The movie is not an enemy. It’s the finish line.
Another thing I’ve learned: teachers need to be careful with how we phrase things. “Focus on studies instead of movies” makes it sound like studies and movies are opposites. But most of what we teach in school came from human beings who cared about something deeply. Math was built by people who were obsessed with patterns. Science was built by people who stared at things until they understood them. Art and music are literally feelings turned into form. If a student can obsess over a two-hour film, they already have the focus. It’s just attached to something we didn’t assign.
The honest reaction I had as a student was a shrug. I pretended to listen. I put the notebook away. But I didn’t put the movies away. I just learned that adults weren’t interested in the part of me that loved stories. So I kept that part quiet. And that was the real loss—not the lost study time.
Now, when I see a student sneak a movie review onto their homework, I try to leave a comment. “Good eye. So if that character had made the other choice, how would the plot change?” It’s small. It doesn’t fix everything. But it says that the thing they love has thinking inside it. And that’s the same thinking they need for school.
I still watch movies. I still grade essays. And I still don’t have a perfect system for getting teenagers to care about things they didn’t choose. But I’ve stopped acting like their choices are distractions from learning. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they’re the doorway to it. The best I can do is stand in the doorway with them for a moment before asking them to walk into the classroom.
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