French film smacks with truth

Experiencing the ultimate training on how-things-work in public education at the lowest level of stature, as a substitute, I'm gaining more valuable insight into the issue of public education then I ever imagined. Much of what I attained so far has to do with expectations. Any attempt to capture and do justice to the subject of teaching through cinema is tried and too often failed. This past year a foreign film Entre les murs (The English title is The Class) took a swipe at wiping that stubborn chalk off of the facade that teachers always win in the end. I havn't seen the movie yet but judging from the reviews this film might provide a perspective of classroom dynamics today's future educators can use to heighten their understanding.

You enter the classroom and you know anything can happen, but you expect that the kids will have a some sort of basic desire to gather some new tidbits of knowledge. Then the CD-ROMs start flying and desks are toppled. Pencils become flesh scrapping devices and bathrooms UFC octagons. When the storm calms, similar to a hurricane, if you are lucky you have a small window to transmit some academic or life lesson, before some minute incident reminds you that the rest of the hurricane is on its way. I often laugh to myself and wonder if I'm crazy to think that this what you must realistically plan for everyday as a teacher and if I'm crazier to completely embrace this reality. In my view its not a battle that eventually the teacher wins, as is often portrayed on film, but rather it's an never-ending adventure story, a process, a lifestyle.

Testing the Water

I have a friend who works for City Year, the name-brand non-profit that does cool stuff in deprived neighborhoods while rocking Tim-bones on their toes. Even though it makes sense why, I was a little disappointed when I heard the cut-off age was 24 years old. I caught myself being overly cynical about the whole AmeriCorp cultural phenomenon and urged myself to think of it another way. Working in impoverished urban areas is very Romanticized in the US. In some way, I perceive AmeriCorp to be the organizational embodiment of this Romanticism and at my most cynical view I view it as a zombie army feeding off of the antiquated paternalistic "white man's burden" ideal and body of knowledge. You have Hollywood especially feeding this train of thought. Dangerous Minds maybe the best example of this category of movie. Equally idealist but obviously not motivated by cultural hegemony, Lean on Me, probably represents the best in the category of inspirational education movies. Both feed the "save the world" mentality that will drive those with limited first-hand experience in how poverty destroys the social fabric of communities, to pursue careers in social services or education in order to "make a difference". Some succeed but just as many are left jaded by their experiences when the "difference made" is contrary to what they expected (i.e. no difference).

My change of heart on AmeriCorp occurred when I convinced myself that Americorp-esque programs at least give young professionals needed exposure to unfamiliar communities, so that valuable lessons are learned during that first go-around in the system. The stakes are very high, adolescents and young adults can be unforgiving. Young education professionals do deserve a space to err, temper their expectations, fears, and misconceptions. Deprived communities do need saving, but young education professionals also need room to confirm or deny they're biases and decide if they can challenge themselves to withhold sympathy and/or judgment, and instead offer empathy and stern compassion. Developing realistic expectations and the appropriate attitudes don't hurt either. Becoming an effective educator, is truly a trial by fire process that takes more than "structured activities", "engagement", and do-good intentions to achieve.

This is where movies like Entre les murs (The Class) can serve a very important function simply by entertaining the possibility of failure to "reach" the students and irresolvable conflicts as classroom outcomes. As a side bar it is also very intriguing to me that Entre les murs proposes that the challenge of educating youth is shared internationally with respect to the factors that seem purely American, i.e. urban poverty, general social depravity, despair and legacies of oppression. I can't wait to check this one out, it might be the best since 187, and an avenue to compel the discussion concerning education to heed the contextual realities, and broaden the discourse to capture it's global aspects.

Entre les murs won the Cannes Film Festival honor Palme d'Or and was nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Foreign Language Film. It also helped me find this site rottentomatoes.com I can wait to explore (I'll probably like the name better than the site |:{ ...)