Blog #10. The Class/Between the walls.

This really is an amazing film. At least I think so. It does something that none of the other films we've reached do: it focuses on the classroom. Think about that for a minute. What is most of school but the classroom, and yet almost any movie or show about school spends as little time as it can in the classroom. "Friday Night Lights" showed no class in the pilot—and honestly, does little with the class throughout its five season run. Keating's class takes a backseat to the dramas of the boys. A lot of you found Pete Dixon's class unbelievable—as some of you found Escalante's class. Looking back, the only things we've watched that rival the almost total focus on the classroom found in this movie are "To Sir With Love." And the only shows we've watched that come close to the verisimilitude
that this has are, in my opinion, "My So-Called Life" with its bored students and classes that seem to blend into each other, and "High School" with its own boring classes and bored teachers. This may not be your experience, but for millions of American (and would seem French) students, it is theirs. Not that Marin's class is boring: but every time we see his class, he seems to wrestle with the students to keep them invested. Sometimes it works: sometimes it doesn't. And like every other teacher we've seen, Pete Dixon excluded, he is a fallible human being. He isn't Taylor or Escalante, though perhaps he wishes he could be. But we never know what he's thinking, really. Why is he even a teacher? I found myself asking that as we watched the movie today.

"The Class" is filmed as though it were a documentary. No music. No fancy camera angles. No movie star looks. Kids who are played by kids who don't look like they're acting. The class felt realistically messy, with people talking over each other. Who were we supposed to "relate" to? Who was the hero? Little seemed judged in this film by the filmmaker: it really was as if he just spent time in a Parisian junior high school populated by a truly diverse cross-section of France and turned the camera on. But this is a fictional story: it is judging; it is commenting; it does have a point, just as a documentaty like "High School", edited and formed deliberately, has a point. So:

1. Reaction to the film? Like? Dislike? And why?

2. The kids: Esmeralda, who just likes to stir things up; Khoumba, so proud and angry; Wie, fresh-faced and sweet, but never gets enough sleep because he's playing video games until all hours (that never happens here); Boubacar, feisty and who loves the Mali soccer team; Carl, who looks like he's a junior in high school and says he feels perfectly French, unlike several of the other kids; Louise who may be laughing at the committee meeting but was aware enough to take notes; and Souleymane, the "troublemaker" who takes good phots and whose mother does not speak French. What do you make of this class? You reaction to this truly diverse group of adolescents? Which one of them stuck out the most for you—and why?

3. Think about Marin, the teacher. Your reaction to him? Do you see a plan in his teaching? Do you see a larger goal for the students in what he's doing? Is he a good teacher?

4. Rick and I talked about the film a few minutes after class. "Confusing" was the word we used for it. What is this movie really about? Yes, about a "class"; we get that. But it's so plotless—the narrative is driven by the fact that these kids have to be in that French class and Marin is their teacher. So what do you see as a (the) major theme or conflict in the movie? And why do you say this?

For most of you on last night's blog, good length and depth. For a few others: not so much. Give this blog the same healthy attention you gave last night's. We'll finish the movie tomorrow and talk. A lot. See you then.

Blog #9. Stand and Deliver.

"Stand and Deliver" may be the original teacher saving the poor kids of color film. It's become a cliche in many ways. Maybe the most egregious example is "Dangerous Minds" with Michelle Pfeiffer as the ex-Marine in the ghetto school."You don't understand nuthin'!" she's told. But she does.

Then there's "Lean on Me": Morgan Freeman as real-life principal Bill Clark showing those teaches what's what:

Most egregious is "The Principal."Jim Belushi, washed-up teacher gets to take over an urban high school where drug dealers run the place. That is, until he gets serious:

There's something so evocative about this narrative for American audiences. Think of the assumptions these all share: 1. Urban schools made up of children of color are hell holes. 2. They need saving. 3. The savior, often white, brings order to chaos. And the teacher or administrator is bigger than life. We've seen this to some degree already in "To Sir With Love." But it could not compare to the last two examples above. And Escalante, as we said in class, is an imperfect figure: and the school in many ways is doing its best. It's perhaps the best of this particular genre.

You got the idea. And Stand and Deliver was the original. Three (3) questions we'd like you to answer:

1. Jamie Escalante, who died in 2010, fits perfectly in the teacher, educator, narrative we've seen: he's in the pantheon of "great" teachers along with Pete Dixon, John Keating, Mark Thackery, and Eric Taylor. One can argue that what unites all these exceptional (and often flawed) teachers is the fact that they all are a little crazy. Agree or disagree? Why or why not?

2. How would Escalante do at Paideia? And would you do what his students do? In fact, why do his students do what they do?

3. Going back to "Friday Night Lights." As Mary said in class today, it is based on a book that was a best seller as well as the basis for successful film. This is a world where football is king, academics are second. We're curious: what role do you think athletics should play in high school?

Many of you are writing your answers down in what appears to be five minutes. 200 words is what we've asked for all short term. Give some depth to your responses. And we'll see you tomorrow.

Blog #8. Friday Night Lights.

I wanted to post the last couple minutes of the episode—the players and coaches gathered on the field holding hands while Smash gives a prayer for Street, followed by Coach Taylor's speech about "How we all we be tested; and we all will at some point lose"—but it's been taken down on YouTube. You can still see it below at the 43 minute mark. Or watch the whole episode again. It's about as perfect a television pilot as I've ever seen.

It's a powerful moment. Also, think about the last time you saw faith portrayed on television—in movies even—in such a straightforward, non-judgmental manner. No irony; no snark; no comment really. That's just the way this group of people live and work and pay in this world, in this community.

This is our first foray into school and athletics. Which brings up lots of interesting questions. Answer 1 and 2 and pick 3 or 4—that's 3 responses:

1. What was your reaction to the episode? What jumped at you, positive or negative, in the episode? How so?

2. Follow up: who jumped out at you in this episode? In what way(s)? There's Eric, Tammy, and Julie Taylor: Jason Street the all-American QB and his perky girlfriend Lila Garrity: "Smash" Williams, the cocky running back: sullen, sexy Tim Riggins and his hot but not dumb girlfriend Tyra Collette: nervous, stuttering second-string QB Matt Saracen and his smart, quirky best friend Landry Clarke.

3.  Coach Eric Taylor. Not exactly a tree-hugging Paideia type is he? Think about how he makes his point about team to hung-over Tim Riggins. So: is Taylor too hard, too mean, not caring enough?

4. One of the striking aspects of "Friday Night Lights"—based on the non-fiction book of the same name set in Odessa, Texas, home of the Permian High School Panthers, several time Texas state football champs—is the role that the football team plays in the community of Dillon. What role does the HS football team play in the community? And why? And how healthy do you think it is for a HS sports team to be regarded the way the Dillon Panthers are?

I apologize that this is late as it is. Tomorrow we will watch "Stand and Deliver" about an AP Calculus class. That should get you pumped up.

Blog #7. Freaks and Geeks; My So-Called Life.

Above are two clips from what we watched in class today. Both are cringe inducing in their own honest ways (I think): Lindsey thinks she's protecting Eli, but it backfires: one of many things that backfires on Lindsay as she tries to shed her old "mathalete" persona for a new "freak" persona. The second is Angela swooning over Jason Catalano: he leans so well against the wall. What more do you need to fall in love with a hunky guy? It struck both Rick and I as being perfectly believable that Angela would fall for him. Silly, yes; adolescent, absolutely. But that's the point, isn't it?

After class, Mary was saying how she didn't understand Angela. Angela's bad choices—and she makes a few of them—didn't make sense to Mary, and maybe others of you. That's what I know I find so fascinating about the character. She's a lot like Lindsey Weir: it's as if both shows catch them in the exact same moment in their lives. Lindsay rebels—she smokes, she wears her dad's Army jacket, she quits the math team, she dumps her old best friend, she hangs with the wrong crowd, she skips Latin—and we see Angela do much the same. But they're very different, I think, in their respective episodes. Angela strikes me as being more passionate, more confused, more willing to do something harmful and hurtful to both herself and others (she certainly hurt her old best friend). There's something deeper, for me, in Angela's rebellion. Lindsey's stoner friends seem, at least in this episode, to offer no danger for Lindsey: Rayanne, on the other hand, is a mess. And Angela is basking in the attention their night-that-could-have-gone-really-wrong brings her at the end of the episode. Angela seems rawer, younger, more yearning for something more, something different, than Lindsey. And she does stupid things. As many people her age do. At least that's my take.

So:

1. Your reactions to both shows? What did you like—what stuck with you? What didn't you like, if that's the case—and why?

2. I commented above at my sense of the two main characters—how they compared and contrasted. What's your sense of both Lindsey and Angela? And why are they doing what they're doing? Why the big change, switch for them?

3. "High school is a battlefield," Angela declares in her usual dramatic way. Lindsay: "I hate high school." We're a long ways from Whitman High now. There are no Pete Dixon's: there's Mr. Rosso and the gym coach (and God, did I hate dodgeball in HS and JH); there's the teachers who Angela, fairly or not, can barely tolerate (and who many of her classmates actively ignore). There are no Keatings or Thackerys here: this is the world of "High School." And both shows focused more on the social life in school: maybe this is a reason many of your parents remember their social rather than academic lives when they remembered back. So what the two shows saying about life in HS for their characters? If you had to answer the question, "In both Freaks and Geeks and My So-Called Life, High School (or adolescence—they really can't be separated in either) is ____________," what would you say—and why? What specific details from both shows support this characterization?

See you guys tomorrow. We'll talk about what we watched today and then watch the pilot episode of "Friday Night Lights."

Blog #6. The Breakfast Club.

And:

As I was saying to Maggie after class, I've always found this to be a confounding movie. Is it about the need to conform? Is it criticizing conformity? At the end, have our heroes broken the rigid shackles of cliques? Will they actually talk to each other on Monday? Have our kids really changed (Brian is talked into writing the paper by 'I'm so popular' Claire—plus he doesn't get the girl!)? And so on. At the same time, having seen this movie a zillion times, as well as having shown it to classes many times, today was the first time it actually made sense to me—and was emotionally satisfying. Who knows, I may feel differently the next time I see it.

So: everyone do numbers one and five. Those choose one of the three remaining questions to do. Answer them fully, ok?

1. Is there a particular character you "relate" to? Clearly, John Hughes meant this cross-section of high school types to be identifiable to his 1985 audience of moviegoers your age. So do you identify with any of these kids? How so?

2. What is the message of Allison's make over at the end? How does it fit—or perhaps not fit—into the greater message or thematic concern of the movie?

3. This is a story that revolves almost exclusively around the kids, and tells a story about what school has done to them, much in the same way "Dead Poets Society" shows us what Welton has done to its students. So what has Schermer High done to The Breakfast Club? What role do you see the school itself having in the conflicts and dissatisfaction we see in the kids? Don't defer immediately and only to Mr. Vernon—or "Dick" as Bender addresses him in the film. Think of the school we hear the kids talk about.

4. A brain. A Jock. A Princess. A Kook. A Criminal. A cross section of Schermer High School. In your experience, is High School society so rigidly defined? Explain.

5. The film, as Rick and I talked about after class, clearly comes out of a sixties anti-authoritarian mode: for Allison and Andy, the worst fate they can image is becoming their parents. Parents seem to be the enemy as much as the authoritarian teachers (shades of "High School"). The kids, as I imagine most teens do, fear growing up—it's the Peter Pan syndrome—not only for the uncertainty of adulthood but for the almost certainty of "losing your heart," as Allison says. What did you think of this part of the movie? Did it ring true to you? Is it something that may be as dated as parts of "To Sir With Love"? Does this fear exist in your generation? If so, why or how so—and if not, why or how not?

According to Wikipedia the film, costing a million dollars, grossed 51.5 million dollars. Ask your parents about it—they probably saw it when it came out. Two or three times even.

Blog #5. High School.

 This scene I had forgotten about until Rick reminded me.

And:

From the website of Frederick Wiseman's Zipporah Films concerning "High School," made in 1968 in Philadelphia.

HIGH SCHOOL shows no stretching of minds. It does show the overwhelming dreariness of administrators and teachers who confuse teaching with discipline. The school somehow takes warm, breathing teen-agers and tries to turn them into 40-year old mental eunuchs… No wonder the kids turn off, stare out windows, become surly, try to escape… The most frightening thing about HIGH SCHOOL is that it captures the battlefield so clearly; the film is too true.

I'm not sure I'd totally agree with the statement above—though on the whole it rings all too true. There are moments—and that's all—where there is life for the kids: the boys who come out of the mock space capsule; the boy with the sunglasses—hey, it's Nuwanda, folks!—who won't let any teacher tell him how to think and feel. School sucks! he basically says. And the black kid near him agrees—even as the teacher tells them both they are overreacting. So there's life here, even in that boy in the second clip above who agrees to wear the gym clothes and is still suspended. He's pissed—and confused—and will probably remember this moment for the rest of his life.

A few questions for you before we watch The Breakfast Club -- tomorrow.

1.  What is you response to what you saw today? Some of you spoke to this in class, but not all of you. And what moment in it stayed with you, and why?

2. We were talking on Friday about what each school we had seen so far—Whitman High, Welton Academy, North Quay Seconday School—was attempting to do with its students: what each sees its purpose as in regards to its students. What would you say about this school? What do you see its purpose or mandate as being in regards to its kids? And why?

3. Rick and I were talking after class about the teachers in this film, at this school. They value on the whole, as the quote above states, discipline over teaching. Which got Rick and I talking about how we teaches at Paideia accomplish what we do with a modicum of discipline, or at least not the kind we see in the film. So what makes you guys do what your teachers ask you to do—even when it's silly or not well defined or when it makes no sense? Or even when it is all those, and at the end of the semester, and you know it will take you hours and hours to do. What do we wield that takes the place of the discipline the teachers in the movie use? Or maybe it is discipline. In any case—what makes you do what we want you to do?

Tomorrow: Judd Nelson is a bad-ass. And he went to college with Clark Cloyd. Ask Clark about ol' Judd sometime.

Blog #4. To Sir With Love.

First. I love this scene.

Like some of the film, it's a little hokey. And yes, the film is dated a little: the music in particular. And for a movie that went as far as to clearly film on location in London's East End back when it was a working class neighborhood, if not actually a slum (now it is an exclusive area), the way it gets all unrealistic in the final dance (singers with no mikes, piano where one doesn't exist) is too bad. And of course every student is way too old. But that's almost always the case. Yet the film is refreshingly non-judgmental, I think: the kids and their parents are never condescended toward by the film (not in the way "Dead Poet's Society" really, when you get right down to it, looks down its nose at the local public school and its students); the teachers, some cynical and bitter, are not villains; and Mark Thackery really is not much of a dancer, deliberately so. I love the end when he says goodbye to Pamela. It was uncomfortable, yes—but it ends on a very realistic note. "Good-bye" she says and walks away. She's moved beyond him already.

So: we've seen a big urban high school in LA; a posh boarding school in rustic New England; and a London slum school where no one is going to college. All the films are on the side of the students; all of them acknowledge a world that is not always kind nor friendly to them. What the kids at North Quay have to look forward to is living a life a little better than their parents; yet they seem, in some ways, freer and happier than the privileged boys at Welton, whose lives are just as prescribed as the poor English kids' lives are. Harvard, Yale: law or med school: marriage: big houses and big money: and send their kids to Welton where they too can be treated like cattle and beaten by the headmaster when they get out of line. This is a picture of nineteen-fifties conformity and anxiety: maybe not all that different from the conformity and anxiety we see today. And in all three films is, at their center, an extraordinary teacher (interestingly all men, in a profession that is still more female than male).

1. Reaction to "To Sir With Love"?
Again, we know it's dated, both in how it's filmed and in its language (as we were talking about during the break, Thackery's use of the word "slut" is not how it is used today), not to mention, perhaps, its attitude toward men and women. Then again, on that last point, maybe not. Thackery understands the world these kids are going into: liberated and liberal it is not. He can't change the economic and class realities of 1960s England. So he begins with the fact that all of his diverse class (not that different than Pete Dixon's class) is entering a working class world.
So given all this: like? Dislike? Why? And what scene or moment in it stayed with you—and why?

2. A question you should expect for this part of our investigation of school. Is Mark Thackery a good teacher? Why or why not? Do you agree with the choice he makes halfway through the film to ditch the books and teach his class about life? Why or why not? And what do you think of the boundaries he creates with his students? Appropriate? Inappropriate? How so?

3. We've now seen three singular teachers: Pete, Keating, and Thackery. Which one of them would you want to have as a teacher? Why?

4. Finally: do you think these three teachers could switch schools easily? Could Pete teach effectively at Walton and North Quay? Could Keating teach effectively at Whitman and North Quay? Could Thackery teach effectively at Whitman and Walton? Give a sentence or two explaining each of your responses.

Okay. We'll see you all tomorrow. Deep discussion, we're hoping.

Blog# 3. Dead Poet's Society (Second Half).

This is right after Neil's death, and to me, at least, is one of the most affecting, sad, and beautiful (in how its filmed) parts of the movie. What "Dead Poet's Society" gets so well, in my opinion, is the life of these young men (and woman, when we include Chris). I believe everything they say and do—I believe that Chris would be taken by the romantic Knox. I believe that the boys would be self-conscious and nervous when Charlie—Nuwanda!—brings the two girls into the sacred cave. I believe it when Neil kills himself, just as I understand why he cannot bring himself to tell his father what he thinks when asked. I believe that Nuwanda ends up being the only one of the gang to not betray Keating—just as I don't hold it against the rest that they do. The adults in many ways are sketches and one-dimensional, but not the kids.

So much to ask you guys about. So:

1. Reaction to the movie? Like? Dislike? Why? What moment or scene in the movie stays with you—and why?

2. Of the boys (and girl), which one did you feel most drawn to—or liked the most? Neil the actor? Todd the shy one? Charlie the rebel? Knox the romantic? Cameron the overachiever? Meeks and/or Pitts who make their own radio? Another? And why?

3. John Keating. Robin Williams' first dramatic role. But of course he got to be "Robin Williams" with his imitations and humor. We know actually little about Keating. He went to Welton—Hellton. He started the DPS. He taught in Europe. He has a wife still in London. He came back to his alma mater to teach, leaving his wife behind. He appears to be the youngest member of the faculty. His students love him. He teaches literature, which for him means only the romantic poets and Walt Whitman. He tells his students to "seize the day" but here he is at Hellton, living a monastic life. He urges them to rebel, but gently chastises Charlie when he does actually rebel. In the clip above, after Neil's death, we see him look at his DPS book, which has so influenced these very innocent boys, and break down in tears. Did anyone wonder why? Because Neil is dead? Because he may have had some role, tiny as it may have been, in Neil's fate? Because he recognizes the distance between what he says and teaches and how he actually lives?

The real question(s): is Keating a good teacher? Why or why not? What is it exactly that he teaches? Would you want him for a teacher? In a world where the boys' parents and school administrators in many ways let them down, has Keating in any way, shape, or form, let them down too? Why or why not?

That's four questions in number 3, I realize. But answer them all. As well as 1 and 2. And we'll see you guys tomorrow for "To Sir With Love." Here's a preview:

Blog #2. Dead Poet's Society.

Here's a preview of what we'll see tomorrow.

We started talking about teaching and teachers today in class as we discussed Pete Dixon, who most of you felt was a pretty good teacher if also a little lax in discipline and perhaps a little too friendly with his students. Now we have John Keating who tells his students to rip the introduction out of their poetry text and, as you'll see tomorrow, puts his hands on his students (not in a violent way). If Pete is at all unconventional, what the heck do we say about Keating?

So:

1. What makes a teacher good at what she or he does? How do you know a good teacher when you have one? Go ahead and define what makes a good teacher.

2. Given what we saw today, would you call Keating a good teacher? Does he fit your criteria? (Now I'm sounding a little like Pritchett, the writer whose introduction to the poetry book Keating had his kids rip out. "Excrement," Keating called it.)

Write a couple hundred words. We'll see you tomorrow.

Room 222

The following is the opening for Room 222.

We have yet to see what happens in the episode, what the school will do to Richie who wants to stay at Whitman High where he clearly flourishes. But we do get a quick introduction to the world of Walt Whitman High School, a big urban institution that is clearly diverse in terms of its student body and teachers. The plight of urban American schools was clearly on the mind of educational experts and social scientists at this time—1969—just as the Civil Rights era was peaking.

What we would like you to do is address one of the following questions, one about the opening and the other about the protagonist of the show, American History teacher Pete Dixon, and then address the third question.

1. The opening: what does it say to us about the world that we are entering into by watching this show? How does the imagery—the shots of the students, the way the main characters are introduced, the music even—create this effect?

Or:

2. Who is Pete Dixon? He is clearly the main character, the protagonist, and as such, he embodies certain traits and behaviors that mark him as our hero. So what are those traits and behaviors that so clearly make him the hero of the show? He is a type that we will see again and again in our study this term. What is that type?

And everyone:

3. Ask your one or both of your parents what is their most vivid memory of high school. Sharing as much as you feel comfortable sharing, what is that memory? And are you surprised by their answer? Why or why not?

Write a couple hundred words in all for the two questions. That's enough to start the term. Good class today, guys.

Write a couple hundred words answering one of these two questions. Be sure to click on the comment icon below to post your comment.