A Perfect Day: A Provocative Film about School Violence

Gr 7 Up—Over the course of one morning, this short film shows an upper-middle-class family at home as the parents leave for work and a tennis match and as Max, their son, prepares to perpetrate an extreme act of school violence. It briefly examines the dysfunction in Max's relationship with his parents and girlfriend and his drug use, and shows Max as he loads his backpack with an arsenal of handguns, a larger gun, pipe bombs, and ammunition. As he attempts to leave on his motorbike, he is confronted by a mail carrier who has a package for which Max needs to sign. When the mail carrier sees the barrel of a weapon protruding from his backpack, he grabs the keys to the motorbike, provoking Max to point a gun at him. Over the next several minutes, the postal worker helps Max to see that violence is not the answer, and that he doesn't understand everything going on in his family. While somewhat unrealistic, the film will be compelling for middle and high school students and spark discussion. The teacher's resource guide has information on performance indicators of the National Health Education Standards, four activities for students, fact sheets, and a list of Web resources.—Ann Brownson, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston