Since films have been played for school children, their teachers and librarians have struggled to find titles that are both engaging and informative. The transition from physical media to streaming hasn’t helped, transforming the challenge from finding anything worth using in the classroom to being paralyzed by the hundreds or thousands of titles at your fingertips and figuring out which are worthwhile. The challenge grows when you have to find titles for younger students, as most documentaries are made with adults in mind and history is filled with many intriguing but violent chapters. These are some resources I’ve used in classrooms in the past as well as some newer films which should keep kid’s attention while learning about important topics.
David Macaulay’s PBS Documentaries (YouTube)
David Macaulay directed a number of classic history documentaries, mostly centered around great buildings. Whether you’re looking at ancient, medieval, or early-modern history, there’s something He’s made you could use in the classroom. Skillfully threading together fantastic illustrations, creative animations, reenactments, and expert interviews, Macaulay’s documentaries have been public-school standbys for decades for a reason: They really hold the kids’ attention. You can find a few here, and there are even more across YouTube if you look.
Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer (Hulu)
Directed by Dawn Porter (a well-known documentarian in black history circles), featuring journalist DeNeen Brown, and backed by National Geographic, Rise Again is an autopsy of hate in the early 20th century. The central event to the documentary is the Tulsa Race Massacre, a two-day pogrom led by white supremacists against the burgeoning city’s bustling black neighborhood. DeNeen Brown uses her skills as an investigative journalist to scour archives, gather oral history, and search for rumored mass graves. What struck me about Rise Again was its ability to discuss such serious and violent topics with a grace and care that makes it more accessible to all audiences. If you need to discuss the Jim Crow era, Rise Again is a great choice for middle school classrooms.
Mercury 13 (Netflix)
Much like the biographic drama Hidden Figures, Mercury 13 seeks to elucidate viewers to the forgotten or overlooked history of American spaceflight. Unlike Hidden Figures, which focuses on the important mathematics that make spaceflight possible, this documentary looks at the first American women who passed the rigorous tests NASA puts pilots through. Mercury 13 would pair perfectly with other films like Hidden Figures or Sally that discuss similar topics and seek to inspire young girls to reach for the stars.
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (DVD, Blu-ray, or streaming on Philo)
Originally presented in 3D at Imax theaters and museums, Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a deep dive into the paintings found in the Chauvet Cave in France. Estimated to be as old as 32,000 years, these cave paintings are not only the best preserved examples found to date, but some of the most detailed, blending elements of stylization and photorealism, giving us a glimpse into the lives of those once called “cavemen” and the animals they relied on for survival. Written, directed, and narrated by Werner Herzog, you know what you’re in for: A fantastic and inspiring documentary. Children will be drawn in by the expert analysis of prehistory and the imaginative recreations of the illustrations on the cave walls with the help of CGI. This is a incredible choice for those teaching kids obsessed with archeology and art. You can get Cave of Forgotten Dreams on DVD here.
Paper Clips (DVD or streaming on Amazon)
“What is 6 million?” one student asked in a South Carolina classroom back in the early 2000s. In an attempt to answer the question and educate the students about the true toll of the Holocaust, teachers and staff began requesting people to send in paper clips. While they were expecting some response from the local community, they were suddenly inundated by shipments of paperclips from coast to cost sent by survivors, their families, and even celebrities and politicians. Follow the students as they try to construct a visual representation of the sheer scale of death wrought on Jewish, Roma, disabled, and queer people during Hitler’s state-sanctioned pogrom. If you’re touching on World War II, Anne Frank, or the Holocaust in general, Paper Clips will be a useful teaching tool. You can get Paper Clips on DVD here.
History Channel on YouTube
While you’ll have to do a little sifting through seasons of Pawn Stars and Ancient Aliens, there are hundreds of valuable History Channel documentaries available for free on YouTube. Titles like Modern Marvels and Histories Mysteries are a bit dated, but highly useful when discussing topics like the industrial revolution or the previous midcentury. They have newer titles available too, and many of them will be highly applicable to topics such as the real history of Thanksgiving or teaching the Civil War. Be sure to screen these titles beforehand, as especially some older materials may use unedited war footage unsuitable for children.
Absolute History on YouTube
More than 1,000 British history and archeology documentaries are at your fingertips on YouTube, and many will be just as engaging and appropriate for children as adults. Be sure to screen them first: British sensibilities are a bit different from typical American social concerns, so things like drinking and smoking may appear from episode to episode. Spanning the decades and including series about daily life in different periods and from different perspectives, Absolute History can be a great tool to give students an idea of what real life was like for people in the early 1900s or even Ancient Egypt.
PBS SoCal
Through the SoCal PBS online app, you can access hundreds of PBS titles with a free account. Ken Burn’s classic US History documentaries, biographies on countless American icons, series on engineering and science, and deep dives into uniquely American art forms like blues, jazz, gospel, and more await you for nothing more than making an account. For more recent titles and special series, librarians can pay a small fee. And you can feel good about spending that money too: It’s not just going into some CEO’s pocket, it’s funding what was until recently a public utility.
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