The Revisionaries

The Revisionaries (official website here) is about Don McLeroy, who chaired the Texas Board of Education. He, along with some of his colleagues were working on teaching standards for the science and social sciences curriculum and actively tried to introduce anti-evolutionary thinking. Or, ummm, promote a creationist approach.
I don't want to get into a discussion about religion, and although much of the movie seemed shocking to me (and the audience) based on my (our) own ideology/ies (clearly, with the gasps and laughs), what it did make me consider was the effect that policy makes have on so many people. In this case, not just a State, but also on a nation. You see, Texas and California are so big that standards in either of these States will affect the entire country. Textbook companies would rather not make multiple versions of textbooks (for different States), thus whatever goes in Texas and/or California often goes for the rest of the country. Crazy.
I think of myself as a pretty neutral member of society. I don't follow a particular religion. I don't subscribe to a particular political party. And I'm naive about a lot of these things, so it's kind of funny for me to see how 'extreme' things can get. Of course, I realize that certain decisions have huge repercussions, but seeing this particular example on the big screen was particularly shocking. I wonder if things like this happen in Canada? I guess so, but with different specifics.
During the Q&A with Scott Thurman, we learned that Americans react the same way to the film as we Canadians do, although they take it a little bit more personally. Of course, the types of people attending film festivals are probably more on 'one-side' than the other (even he said it) and would see the film from one angle, I guess I was also reminded that everyone looks at the world through their own particular lens. This lens is based on personal experiences and beliefs and skews how we interpret everything that we see and do. Apparently Don McLeroy watched the film and loved it. Clearly he didn't see it in the way that many of the audience members do.
Anyway, lately I've been going through a little bit of a crisis (actually, not a crisis at all, as I tend to blow things out of proportion) and wonder if I should know more about different educational perspectives. There's a group in my field that looks at things through a particular lens that I don't naturally see. Once they explain it to me, I understand what they mean, but I never see it as such myself. But the thing is, I wonder if learning more would actually help me. I'm sure that I will always see the world through a particular (rose coloured) lens no matter how much I know about different lenses. Although, I wonder if I could be convinced to change my stance? I guess it would take a pretty significant event. For now, though, I like how I look at things.
This was the first film that I saw which was partially funded through Kickstarter. I thought that was pretty cool. I have seen a couple different cool projects on Kickstarter so to see a final product was pretty special.

- picture courtesy of www.hotdocs.ca