I was watching the evening news the other day and after the story I felt I was having a deja vu experience. I asked myself, “When was the last time the government took the action the news was reporting?” We’ve been here before and it didn’t turn out well then and it may not turn out favorably this time. It had me thinking—do we review the past to improve the future, or are we as a society, constantly changing and things will never be the same?

Can Sequels Help Us to Learn, Retain and Become Better?

I thought of my time as an educator, and it seemed like curriculum and strategies were always changing. Each year seemed like a sequel to the previous year. How can we help students learn, retain and become great citizens? Teachers are better prepared now then they were in the early 70s, so the sequel concept in education works.

I’m not quite sure why I used the word ‘sequel’ to discuss education. The word sequel usually refers to movies or books—Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, etc.

Since the grandkids only liked to do group reading when they were young, I’ve focused our sequels to watching movies with them. I’ve always liked watching movies with the grandkids. Whether it’s watching movies at our house or taking them to the movie theater, the time together has been precious. It has always been a fun time, but is much less frequent than when they were in elementary school.

Then, they were eager to be picked up and share a movie and lunch with grandma. I really believe they were more excited about getting away from their parents. I think they still enjoy our outings, however, those are few and far between. School, sports, travel and friends all compete for grandma time. TV movies are the next best thing to going to the theater, but even those occasions are less frequent. Sequels are fun to watch together. Reviewing the past movies and anticipating the future ones are great discussions.

When we do watch a TV sequel, it’s usually something they’ve heard of or have at least seen the first movie of the series. Spiderman, The Avengers, Star Wars are a couple which pop into my head. I thought of the sequels I watched growing up, such as the Rifleman and Gunsmoke. Those sequels were aired frequently and not very well done, but it was all we had. A line the grandkids always love hearing—not!

Do We Review the Past to Improve the Future?

When we have these very important discussions, the grandkids always respond politely. We all agreed you can’t judge a sequel by it’s first movie or even it’s last. Not all sequels, or all movies within a sequel, are similar in quality. Every one is unique, but with some similarities. We came to the conclusion most of the Star War movies were good and probably will continue to be good. Who knows how many more installments of Star Wars will be made. Characters like Chewbacca and R2D2 brought a strong connection to each movie. The first Jaws movie was the best of the later Jaws movies, but the sequel probably should have ended after the second movie. I mean, how many killer sharks are out there? Wait a minute—as global warming comes into play, we hear more and more about people being attacked by a shark, so maybe the sequel will continue.

It had me thinking about sequels in our family. We all have similarities, such as our background, values, upbringing, education and income. Our family’s sequels are similar, yet we are so distinctively different. It was an interesting discussion and really made us think about our lives—where we’ve been and where each of us is going.

When we talk about sequels or series, whether it’s movies or family members, do we review the past to improve the future? Do we learn from each other’s experiences? I would guess we all do so individually, but I know I don’t tell the grandkids what they should learn from my mistakes, I try to keep all my mistakes to myself. I’m also confident their parents will share all my sordid mistakes with them, ha.

Deep down, we are all originals and we are uniquely diverse. We have different story lines and different genres, but we are still interconnected. Although our family is not a ‘love story’ sequel, there is an abundance of love shared.