When school first closed in March 2020, many students flocked to streaming services to binge movies and television shows in order to pass time. People were able to enjoy the content that they had heard about for a long time, but had never gotten around to watching themselves.

That is why I, Varun Suraj, am announcing the creation of the Varun Suraj Academy of Entertainment for School (VSAES), for students that are absolutely sick of conventional school and want to learn the easy way: by watching entertaining movies and TV shows. At the VSAES, we offer a flexible course catalog for our students to partake in. No student is bound to any specific schedule of movies and TV shows; rather, students can choose what sources of entertainment they plan on learning from. This education experience will be absolutely identical in content to what is taught in school; the only difference is it is actually going to be fun.

This new approach to learning is widely popular among Lexington High School students.

“I started watching a lot of TV on Netflix when school shut down in March, and let me tell you, the amount of knowledge I gained was amazing,” Aryan Narayan, a junior at LHS, said. “I’ve started taking some trial classes at the VSAES, and my expertise in all subjects has increased at least ten-fold.”

Even teachers, while initially apprehensive about the new teaching method, are starting to come around to see the benefits of Suraj’s approach.

“I was wary at first of this plan to do away with school altogether, but then I thought about it a bit more,” Michael Egbert, a social studies teacher at LHS, said. “Instead of having to teach history every single day, I can join the VSAES and just tell students to go watch a movie! It’s a win-win situation for teachers and students.”

Let’s start with our science curriculum. Up first, for biology, we have the movie ‘Contagion,’ a film eerily similar to the current COVID-19 pandemic, or the “Jurassic Park” franchise, which describes both how to create dinosaurs and why no one should ever attempt to create dinosaurs. For physics, there’s the movie “Interstellar,” which delves into the science of wormholes, black holes, and interstellar travel or “The Theory of Everything,” which documents the life of renowned physicist Stephen Hawking. “Interstellar” is also a good fit for astronomy, as is the “Star Wars” franchise. Who needs to learn about the planets in our solar system when you could learn planets like Hoth and Coruscant in a galaxy far, far away? And for chemistry, we have some options.

“My chemistry knowledge increased so much because of watching ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender.’ Who knew learning about the four classical elements would help me in AP Chemistry?” Narayan said. “Oh, and ‘Breaking Bad’ helped too, but I guess I can’t really legally use that knowledge.”

Next, we move on to social studies and back to Egbert, our faculty social studies coordinator.

“Most of my history knowledge comes from movies,” Egbert said half-distractedly while simultaneously watching the TV shows “Veep” and “The West Wing” (shows that document the inner workings of the executive branch and would cover US Government and Politics courses). “There is a great movie for every major historical development. The movie ‘Lincoln’ gave me the majority of my Civil War knowledge, ‘1917’ for World War I knowledge, ‘Dunkirk’ for World War II, and ‘Bridge of Spies’ for the Cold War. Movies and TV shows are a great fit for covering history courses.”

What about the English department? The thing is, most movies that are covered in other subjects could also be used in this department. That is because the only requirement is that the content is in the English language. Critics of this plan have falsely claimed that learning the English language does not adequately cover a proper English curriculum. While these claims are unfounded, to appease them the VSAES has found some TV shows that could do the trick.

“I recently found out that there are actually a lot of TV shows that are related to the English department at school,” Fil Kritic, a senior at LHS and television aficionado, said. “For instance, the Apple TV+ show ‘Dickinson’ has some overlap with the American Literature course. Also, senior English electives have a wide assortment of content associated with it. British Literature? Try ‘Sherlock.’ What about Speculative Fiction? Literally, any episode of ‘Black Mirror’ works. Even the school has started to acknowledge that movies might be a good way of learning by implementing the Film as Literature course. Honestly, the breadth of knowledge out there is fascinating.”

Critics of this plan might point out the fact that it lacks plans for math courses. These haters could say that there is no way a single movie could cover the entirety of complex science, history, or English courses. And to those naysayers, I say this: who cares! If a topic isn’t interesting enough to have a movie or TV show dedicated to the treatment of the topic, then maybe we should reconsider just how important learning that subject really is.

So, come join the Varun Suraj Academy of Entertainment for School! We offer a thorough curriculum customizable for all people. We have a 100% satisfaction guarantee, or your money back. Click here if you would like to register for our classes.

(enrollment is $4595 per semester, does not include costs of subscription to streaming services and/or renting/buying movies. The money-back guarantee thing was a lie, I will not give you your money back Each referral gives you a $1 discount. If you don’t learn what you need from the course, then it’s not our fault, you just didn’t pay enough attention to the flawless curriculum that we have put together.)