Unschooling, homeschooling & hackademic movies

UnCollege just published a list of six great movies for hackademics—well, some of them are great; I haven’t seen them all—and I couldn’t help but notice it’s a very male-centric list. Most movie lists are, unfortunately; women’s stories, other than love/sidekick/token tales, aren’t portrayed as often in film as men’s. I also noticed that it’s a very white-centric list, too. That said, I wondered if we could come up with a great diverse list of such movies about unschooling, homeschooling and alternative learning.

Racking my own brain, I wasn’t able to find much. I know two movies that feature young women learning from home, but the stories are only alongside the main plot. These films are We Bought a Zoo and Dolphin Tale. Both are fun movies that I enjoyed, but they’re mainly about other characters. Both are good family films to watch.

Nim’s Island is about a girl who lives and homeschools with her father on an island, and she is resourceful, smart and fun. Wood Sprite absolutely loves this movie; I have a feeling that she would live as Nim does, with animals and the beach, if she could.

Beasts of the Southern Wild is an amazing mythical movie, but it’s for adults only. Hushpuppy not only learns on her own, but she also takes care of herself (and her father), faces the beasts and makes such eloquent observations about life that at times it makes you cry.

Okay, now I’m totally coming up blank. I can think of a million movies about teachers stepping in and saving kids’ lives one way or another, and while some of those are moving and some of them are actually insulting, what I’m interested in are the movies about people (children or adults) who learn on their own or learn differently than their peers. Any ideas?

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia