Every Year Since 2020 Ive Held A Month Long Movie Marathon Every October (a Halloween Film Frightstival,

Every year since 2020 I’ve held a month long movie marathon every October (a Halloween Film Frightstival, if you will)

I try to watch 31 Halloween, horror, or thriller movies, one each day (and/or double up on the weekends if I was too busy or got sucked into a nonstop Child’s Play mood). Ideally I watch mostly films I haven’t seen before with some favorites mixed in for funsies

The first year I did it, it was more of a Hallo-weenie marathon (Clue, Hocus Pocus, ParaNorman, Sweeney Todd, you get the gist) because I used to hate horror movies (I’m a little bitch when it comes to jumpscares)

I then started slowly ramping up. I liked Carrie when I watched it for a high school film class, so I tried older, pre 1990 style movies. Fewer jumpscares, more tension, some that toed the line at horror vs thriller vs something else

I learned what I like and don’t like. I fucking love a good slasher (Halloween, Scream, Friday the 13th, anything that has anything to do with my beloved Chucky), I like weird obscure shit no one’s ever heard of not because it’s necessarily good but because I like amused bewilderment (like a New Zealand movie about were-sheep that I forced my mother to watch and we both regretted our lives (me that my mom doesn’t like horror movies and her that she let me live with her), I don’t fuck much with ghosty demony shit (The Babadook I would probably consider the movie that stuck with me the most as scary (love the metaphor but why’d they gotta hurt the puppy?)

By 2022 I was like ‘okay, I’m ready for the big guns, bring it on’ and watched The Exorcist (on Halloween night in the dark I might add, give my balls of steel some credit). When it was over I was like ‘that was it? that was the scariest movie of all time?’ Because like yeah it was fine but it didn’t make me piss myself nor did it make me chef’s kiss and add it to the top of my favorite films list

Now horror movies are one of my favorite genres and this year I’m kind of wondering if I should put on my big boy pants and finally watch some of the movies I’ve purposely been avoiding because the trailers alone scare me, chiefly The Conjuring universe, Paranormal Activity, The Grudge, The Ring, etc

Welcome to my 31 Day Film Frightstival, I’ll probably post what movie I watch each day and maybe some thoughts about it? 🤷‍♂️

If I don’t post a day you can assume I didn’t watch a movie and have brought dishonor upon my whole family and upon my cow.

If you have any movie suggestions for me, feel free to share them! I have a tentative list but I’ll always take more ideas!

A Twitter Thread from David Bowles:

[Text transcript at the end of the screenshots]

I'll let you in on a secret. I have a doctorate in education, but the field’s basically just a 100 years old. We don’t really know what we’re doing. Our scholarly understanding of how learning happens is like astronomy 2000 years ago.

Most classroom practice is astrology.

Before the late 19th century, no human society had ever attempted to formally educate the entire populace. It was either aristocracy, meritocracy, or a blend. And always male.

We’re still smack-dab in the middle of the largest experiment on children ever done.

Most teachers perpetuate the “banking” model (Freire) used on them by their teachers, who likewise inherited it from theirs, etc.

Thus the elite “Lyceum” style of instruction continues even though it’s ineffectual with most kids.

What’s worse, the key strategies we’ve discovered, driven by cognitive science & child psychology, are quite regularly dismissed by pencil-pushing, test-driven administrators. Much like Trump ignores science, the majority of principals & superintendents I’ve known flout research.

Some definitions:

Banking model --> kids are like piggy banks: empty till you fill them with knowledge that you're the expert in.

Lyceum --> originally Aristotle's school, where the sons of land-owning citizens learned through lectures and research.

Things we (scholars) DO know:

-Homework doesn't really help, especially younger kids.

-Students don't learn a thing from testing. Most teachers don't either (it's supposed to help them tweak instruction, but that rarely happens).

-Spending too much time on weak subjects HURTS.

Do you want kids to learn? Here's something we've discovered: kids learn things that matter to them, either because the knowledge and skills are "cool," or because .... they give the kids tools to liberate themselves and their communities.

Maintaining the status quo? Nope.

Kids are acutely aware of injustice and by nature rebellious against the systems of authority that keep autonomy away from them.

If you're perpetuating those systems, teachers, you've already freaking lost.

They won't be learning much from you. Except what not to become. Sure, you can wear them down. That's what happened to most of you, isn't it? You saw the hideous flaw in the world and wanted to heal it. But year after numbing year, they made you learn their dogma by rote.

And now many of you are breaking the souls of children, too.

For what?

It's all smoke and mirrors. All the carefully crafted objectives, units and exams.

WE. DON'T. KNOW. HOW. PEOPLE. LEARN.

We barely understand the physical mechanisms behind MEMORY. But we DO know kids aren't empty piggy banks. They are BRIMMING with thought.

The last and most disgusting reality? The thing I hear in classroom after freaking classroom?

Education is all about capitalism.

"You need to learn these skills to get a good job." To be a good laborer. To help the wealthy generate more wealth, while you get scraps.

THAT is why modern education is a failure.

Its basic premise is monstrous.

"Why should I learn to read, Dr. Bowles?"

Because reading is magical. It makes life worth living. And being able to read, you can decode the strategies of your oppressors & stop them w/ their own words.

I am not a straight people.

Reblog if you are also not a straight people.

Longing for the days when you could hop a Greyhound to a new city, adopt a new identity, and become an unsolved missing persons case

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.”

- Kurt Vonnegut