Thursday, January 25, 2007
Movies
So, I was thinking in class how much of an impact movies like Lean on Me and The Ron Clark Story have on society. Not just because they portray urban schools in a fictional light, but because they back up the views that society already has. What I mean by that is, people love to be right, let's face it. We make blanket statements and feel empowered when we are proven right. Well, for such a long time, society as a whole has a negative view on the inner city and the people that occupy it. Movies like Lean on Me confirm all their fears about the inner city. People watch it and say, "See! I knew the inner city was a dangerous cesspool!" It is so dangerous how people take media and consider it fact. Furthermore, people blow things out of proportion all the time, and movies like this fuel them. I am student teaching in Little Village next year through the PDS program. Coming from Naperville (ugh), my mom is naturally nervous for me. She would read an article in the paper about a shooting in the area, or something like that, and say, "Now, see what I'm telling you? Why don't you want to teach down the street? It is safe here." Also, she went to high school in an apparently shady part of Wisconsin, and she would tell my family stories about how there was hair in the sinks of the girls bathroom. She explained how the hair was pulled from a girls head in a fight. I'm not sure if she even witnessed this, but naturally, if there is hair in the sink, there was a fight. I'm wondering what kind of mindsets your parents or guardians have? Anything they tried to instill in you?
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9 comments:
You posed an intersting question.
As far as my parents are concerned, I'm not 100% sure what they think. I told them what I wanted to do, and they seem to be perfectly okay with that. They've never voiced any concerns or objections, they've actually been really supportive.
Maybe its a gender thing?
My parents knew I wanted to be a teacher since I was in the sixth grade. And I always said I wanted to teach in CPS. I think they naturally assumed I would be teaching in an area that is predominantly Latino because of my ethnic background. However, I was at a high school in chicago this summer which was 99.9% African American, and I really loved it. I shared this with my parents and how I may find myself there teaching in a few years and all of the sudden there was a fear for my safety. It amazes me how one group of people which has undergone racism and opression can be prejudice against another group with is parallell to them in their struggles. I don't understand how my father who has experienced racism first hand can perpetuate that cycle with his comments about that school and that area of Chicago.
Your post reminded me of something I meant to say last night in class, but I don't think I did. One of the ways these "teacher hero" movies make the audience feel good (and, as you say, confirm people's preconceptions), is that their basic message is this: the only thing poor kids really need is a caring and committed teacher and everything will be OK. Racism? Don't worry about it. Poverty? Big deal. Lack of jobs? Doesn't matter. As long as kids have a caring teacher and a good work ethic, societal injustices are unimportant. In other words, it's not the larger society that needs fixing, it's the kids.
This, it seems to me, is the biggest problem with such movies: not only do they make people who aren't living in impoverished circumstances feel good, but they let us off the hook.
My family believes that I have made the greatest choice in life to be a teacher and to especially teach in an urban area. They think that urban area schools need more minority teachers who can relate to them from different aspects. I grew up in the inner city went to an inner city school becuase my mother thought it was the best education and experience that I would have in my lifetime especially because since I was three I wanted to be a teacher. My mother worked at an alternative school for troubled teens and she would come home and tell me stories about what had happend that day and at times, I would say "Why do you work there. It cant possibly be safe." and she would reply "Just as much as you need me, they need me too. They look up to me and I tell them my story and they are shocked at how I was once one of them and I had changed my life. It allows them to see change can happen." So my mother instill in me to follow my dream and teach in the urban area and change a life!
My parents are the same way. My mom wants me to move back into her house and teach in my hometown. My dad wants me to go out and find a job with a high enough salary to pay off my student loans in the year after I graduate. Every time my dad watches the news now, he listens for crimes in the neighborhoods near where we'll be student teaching. When he tries to quesion my decision for student teaching in the city based on all the violence, I always respond with, "How is this community any different than Waukegan (my hometown)?" He has no response to that, because he knows there are no huge differences besides location.
Unfortunately for my parents, and the majority of my family for that matter, their only experience with the inner city is through the media. I realize that we've all pretty much come to an agreement about the huge problem with how the media portrays urban schools, but has anyone thought of what they think would be a reasonable solution to this problem?
I think my mom wants me to do what's best for me. She knows that I wouldn't put myself in a situation where I don't feel safe or comfortable. My dad on the other hand wants me to teach in a little neighborhood and be the little school teacher who wears teacher sweaters. I know he is only concerned for my well being, but I think we have to face the fact that we are adults and going something that we feel is right and we have to go with our gut instinct. I hope both of my parents will support my decision no matter where I teach but I know that I will have to be determined to work wherever I choose.
After watching the clips of these movies and thinking back to the many other movies I have seen like these over the years, I begin to analyze them in a new way. I think that these movies are feel good movies in a certain way. They give us hope that if these people can do it, then we can too. If an ordinary person can come into these "rough" urban schools and make a difference, then maybe I can do the same. I think after watching Dangerous Minds when it first came out, this is what I thought. It made it seem possible for me being a white female to be able to go into a urban school with mostly minority students and eventually do something positive for the students.
However, now after some further analyzing, I feel like these movies may give a false sense of hope. They make it seem so easy, I mean in the movie there is always a rough patch that the teachers go through but at the end of the two hours, everything is great and they love the teacher. Either their test scores have sky rocketed or all the problems seem minimal by the end. I know this isn't reality. I know that we will all face hard realities no matter where we teach. It will take a while for us to be accepted by the students and the faculty. We just have to stay optimistic but at the same time stay realistic to the chance that everything is not going to go right in the first year, as we have seen on the documentary.
I do have to say though, that if these movies inspire more good people to become teachers, I am all for that! I think we need more people that have a heart for the kids to come into the schools (especially urban schools) and teach our students!
I think that movies like that can be seen as both good and bad. A very negative part in both movies is how they play everything to the extreme. No "urban" school that i have ever been in has been that disorderly.
Every city has it's ups and downs. Things happen in rich neighborhoods too but they are just not dwelled upon like they are in poorer neightborhoods. Like for instant in the news broadcasters will say things like there was ANOTHER shoting in chicago. But more well off places they may say there was a shoting. It is all in the wording and the politics. I currently unfortunately live in bloomington( i can't wait to go back home) and tuesday a woman just less than a block away from my townhouse was beaten to death. On the news they talked about this for tops 30 seconds. If this had been chicago oh my goodness they would have got the worst person most "uneducated person" on the street to do a interview and say what they think may have happen and it would have gone on and on about the victim and the possible suspects. But here in bloomington down the street from state farm it was almost like they were trying to keep it hush hush. But do i feel unsafe in the neighborhood that i am in no. Things happen everyday and it is impossible to run from life. So think nothing of it go and student teach in little village and make a difference.
My mom can see things for what they really are and she would not go by what is seen in movies such as these. My dad on the other hand does. When sarah mentioned her mom's stories about girls' hair in the sink my dad would think the same thing that every time there is hair in the sink there was a fight.
He sees city schools as the two movies portrayed. He could not understand why my first two years of high school were spent in a high school where I was the minority. I told him that it really did not make a difference to me. To this day I thank my mom for allowing me to have the experiences that I had in that high school for those two years. If she had not had to relocate for her job I would have graduated from that high school.
I do think that some parents who are not familiar with inner city schools would have doubts about their children teaching there because they are a totally different generation who can tend to see things in a different light than our generation.
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