The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life

In a West African village, a newborn boy named Kirikou speaks, walks and sets out to save his people from Karaba, the sorceress who has dried up their spring. The question he keeps asking is why she is so cruel. The answer changes how the story ends. It is based on West African folktales and runs about 70 minutes.

Why it’s here: The film turns a fairy tale about a tiny hero into a story about asking why the villain does what she does. What's punk is that Kirikou wins by understanding, not by force. What's pedagogical is the question itself, which is one a kid can carry out of the theatre. A good pick for a family watch. Note: the film is sometimes critiqued for its stereotyped portrayal of West Africa, written by a French director, and it includes non-sexual nudity.

In 1987 El Paso, two Mexican-American teenage loners strike up a friendship that cracks open everything one of them has spent years keeping carefully closed off — including who he is. Adapted from Benjamin Alire Sáenz's novel.

Why it’s here: Punk in its tenderness rather than its edge — a bilingual, bicultural, queer coming-of-age story that doesn't need trauma to justify its own gentleness. Pedagogical in showing how friendship can crack open a kid who's spent years protecting himself by staying closed.