Why Every Teacher Should Show “Inside Out” in Class
On a Tuesday afternoon, I sat in the back of my fourth-grade classroom and watched the same scene I’d seen before: Bing Bong, the imaginary friend, waving goodbye to Joy on the rocket wagon. I’d watched it alone at home and thought it was sad. I wasn’t prepared for Marcus. He was the kid who spent recess doing pratfalls, always the first to laugh. He sat in the last row with his chin tucked into his hoodie, tears running down his face. I didn’t interrupt. Neither did anyone else. The credits rolled, the lights came on, and Marcus wiped his cheeks with his sleeve. Then he raised his hand and said, “I think Sadness is actually the strongest.”
I didn’t plan for that comment. We were watching the film because the internet was down and the schedule had shifted. But his comment turned into something I couldn’t have written in a lesson plan. Other kids started talking. Priya said, “But Joy was trying to keep her happy. Why did that make things worse?” Someone else said, “Because when you tell someone to stop being sad, it doesn’t work.” They were arguing about emotions as if they were characters on a playground. And in a way, that’s exactly what the film makes possible.
I’ve shown Inside Out every year since then. It isn’t in my official curriculum. I just find a spot—sometimes during a rainy week, sometimes after a class has been through a hard event, sometimes because a group of students seems extra guarded and quiet. The film isn’t a lesson. It’s a shared experience that lets children talk about something they don’t have words for yet. I teach fourth graders, but I’d argue every grade from second through high school should have the chance to watch it at least once.
What the film does that I can’t do as a teacher is give emotions faces, bodies, and clear intentions. When a child says “my Anger took over” or “Joy wasn’t listening,” they’re not using clinical language. They’re using story language. That’s more accessible, and it’s also more honest. A fourth grader can’t always tell you what they’re feeling. But they can point to a character and say, “I do that.”
The next morning, I put a blank piece of paper on each desk and asked my students to draw a “core memory.” I didn’t explain much. I just said to pick a memory that shaped them somehow and color it the way Riley’s memories were colored. A few kids laughed and drew pizza. A girl drew her grandmother’s kitchen, with yellow and orange swirls. A boy who rarely finished any task drew a hospital waiting room. He colored the whole page gray and purple. He didn’t write a caption, but he didn’t need to. When we taped the drawings to the classroom window, another child asked, “Why do some memories have two colors?” That was the moment I stopped worrying about whether I was doing it wrong.
I think the film works because it doesn’t tell children what to feel. It tells them that feelings are complicated and that’s normal. Sadness isn’t the villain. Fear isn’t weak. Disgust can be protective. Anger can be useful. The characters work together in an imperfect way, and the movie doesn’t pretend the system is fixed. I tell teachers who ask me about it to keep that in mind. Don’t turn it into a lesson about “managing emotions” with charts and goals. Just watch it with the children. Let whatever happens happen.
A few practical things have helped me. First, show the film in chunks if the class needs it. The first time I tried to cram it into one afternoon, a boy kept asking how much longer. The second time, I split it into three parts over three days. That gave children time to sit with Riley’s memories and come back with questions like, “Do parents have core memories too?” One girl asked why grown-ups’ islands are smaller. That led to a conversation about how adults aren’t less feeling, just more distracted.
Second, don’t hand out a worksheet right after the credits. If a child is still inside the story, the last thing they want is a writing prompt with a rubric. Give them time to sit in silence, or draw, or not do anything structured. I used to feel pressure to make everything educational. Now I know the educational part happens later, in the hallway, when a kid tells you something they’ve never told anyone. It happens in the lunchroom when someone says, “My Anger does that too.”
At home, parents can do the same thing. Watch it on a weekend, not during a lesson block. Don’t ask too many questions. If your daughter says she liked the funny boy, let it stay there. If she wants to talk, she will. The film works by being itself. You don’t need to guide it. You just need to be present.
I know some people see Pixar movies as just entertainment. I thought that too before I saw what Inside Out did to Marcus. He wasn’t a child who talked about his own feelings. He was the class clown. And yet, the day after the film, he wrote a short story about a kid who lost his dog and couldn’t tell anyone because he didn’t want to make his parents sad. He used words like “guilt” and “secret.” He didn’t mention the movie at all. I didn’t bring it up either.
Maybe the film didn’t cause that story. Maybe Marcus was already ready to write it and would have done it anyway. But I think it gave him permission. It showed him that sadness isn’t a problem to be solved. It’s a thing you can carry with you, and it doesn’t make you broken.
I still don’t have a perfect way to end the week after showing Inside Out. Some classes want to talk for an hour. Some want to move on. Some kids cry, and some crack jokes, and one year a student fell asleep during the sad part because she’d been up too late with her baby brother. All of that is fine. The film doesn’t need a neat ending. It’s just a door into a conversation, and the conversation continues in bits and pieces all year.
These days I show it without much fanfare. I close the blinds, press play, and sit in the back so I can see their faces. I’m not looking for a particular reaction. I’m just ready for whatever shows up. That’s what the film teaches me, too. You can’t control which memory matters most. But you can make room for it.
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