(Full disclosure: I have an M.A. in Education and spent the better part of five school years substitute-teaching. Not that I feel superior to Mr. Bégaudeau- I'm not in the classroom anymore, either.)
The Class is an admirable and bracing film, a welcome antidote to the typical, facile-inspirational classroom/educational Hollywood flick. The actors- nearly all nonprofessionals -are engaging and refreshing, the screenplay (what there is) does not build toward dramatic reversals and heart-rendering emotion. It is the most realistic film about school that I have seen.
In the end, though, it remains just a movie. And that's unfortunate, because the reactions it provokes are valuable and overdue.
I can't call the French educational system into question. But I would caution against drawing too many parallels between this film and U.S. public education. Among the numerous problems with this classroom, and the school, as depicted in the movie:
1. Classroom management. There appears to be almost none; the teacher frequently loses control of the class. This would be understandable, and even forgivable, from a first-year teacher. But a fourth-year, as this one is supposed to be? Inexcusable, and not credible.
2. Services. What is a reasonable reaction for the viewer to have regarding the mother who cannot speak French? That it's just 'too bad'? Viewers might be surprised to learn that schools go out of their way to accommodate parents, in cases like this one to procure interpreters. In many if not all places, they are in fact required to, by law.
3. Leadership and structure. I'll limit it to this one aspect: How very democratic of a school to include students in the evaluation process. And how very stupid. No professional, no administration could expect this to be fruitful.
4. Curriculum and method. If this is what and how they are teaching, the French language deserves to die. (While I do know English teachers here in the U.S. who insist on the part-and-participle teaching of grammar, I do not know any who are successful because of it.) Furthermore, any teacher who is combative and confrontational as this one is should be removed from the classroom.
The movie does not seem to understand, or to be pointed enough to indicate, the fundamental ways in which this school fails its students. (And no, it is not students who are the problem.)
Instead of daring to admit this, the movie makes a virtue of its impartiality. This may make it formally exceptional and artistically 'brave', but as a supposedly realistic depiction of a crucial social institution it offers us little of use.
What The Class does, finally, is feed into the perception that public schools are lost causes, hopeless quagmires that do not reward care or effort. The truth is that sound methods, strong leadership and careful planning can result- regardless of socioeconomic or geographic characteristics -in improved and excellent education in public schools.
As difficult to truthfully depict as that may be, and as unbelievable as viewers might find it, that is a movie that would truly be revolutionary.
The Class is an admirable and bracing film, a welcome antidote to the typical, facile-inspirational classroom/educational Hollywood flick. The actors- nearly all nonprofessionals -are engaging and refreshing, the screenplay (what there is) does not build toward dramatic reversals and heart-rendering emotion. It is the most realistic film about school that I have seen.
In the end, though, it remains just a movie. And that's unfortunate, because the reactions it provokes are valuable and overdue.
I can't call the French educational system into question. But I would caution against drawing too many parallels between this film and U.S. public education. Among the numerous problems with this classroom, and the school, as depicted in the movie:
1. Classroom management. There appears to be almost none; the teacher frequently loses control of the class. This would be understandable, and even forgivable, from a first-year teacher. But a fourth-year, as this one is supposed to be? Inexcusable, and not credible.
2. Services. What is a reasonable reaction for the viewer to have regarding the mother who cannot speak French? That it's just 'too bad'? Viewers might be surprised to learn that schools go out of their way to accommodate parents, in cases like this one to procure interpreters. In many if not all places, they are in fact required to, by law.
3. Leadership and structure. I'll limit it to this one aspect: How very democratic of a school to include students in the evaluation process. And how very stupid. No professional, no administration could expect this to be fruitful.
4. Curriculum and method. If this is what and how they are teaching, the French language deserves to die. (While I do know English teachers here in the U.S. who insist on the part-and-participle teaching of grammar, I do not know any who are successful because of it.) Furthermore, any teacher who is combative and confrontational as this one is should be removed from the classroom.
The movie does not seem to understand, or to be pointed enough to indicate, the fundamental ways in which this school fails its students. (And no, it is not students who are the problem.)
Instead of daring to admit this, the movie makes a virtue of its impartiality. This may make it formally exceptional and artistically 'brave', but as a supposedly realistic depiction of a crucial social institution it offers us little of use.
What The Class does, finally, is feed into the perception that public schools are lost causes, hopeless quagmires that do not reward care or effort. The truth is that sound methods, strong leadership and careful planning can result- regardless of socioeconomic or geographic characteristics -in improved and excellent education in public schools.
As difficult to truthfully depict as that may be, and as unbelievable as viewers might find it, that is a movie that would truly be revolutionary.