Extra Credit Opportunity- "The Class"

1. The main issue in "The Class" is that every character was more concerned about the face they put out than the overall tranquility and the progress of the class. The French teacher, François was trying to put on the face as the authority figure. He expects respect and obedience from all his students. Meanwhile, his students who are trying to portray themselves as rebellious, empowered teenagers are expecting recognition as individuals who can get by on their own. Each of these characters was obsessed with fulfilling their roles and letting their situations dictate their actions/personalities. However each of their desires contradict each other, in that they’re both trying to gain dominance over the other. So in such cases, a compromise would be a very fitting solution. And rather than constantly have a competition between the teacher and the students (and occasionally between students and students, or teachers and teachers), they should eliminate the power struggle. In all the arguments from “The Class” each opposing sides are constantly defending themselves. They are always trying to protect their own faces that they’re not really acknowledging or addressing the other’s face. So instead of moving past these contradictions in desires, the teacher and the students are in a cycle, entering and re-entering fights , in attempts to get their identities out there. And in order to escape that cycle, both sides can benefit from each other through learning who the others really are, and what they want. Although this solution may seem very ideal, once they are able to move past that issue, the class would seem less like a me vesus you, and more like an alliance making progress.

2. I don’t think that teachers should be held completely accountable for the students’ failures in school. Both the teachers and the students themselves play a role in that. On one hand, the students are lacking interest in school- for the most part, they choose to not engage in school. And on the other hand, as a teacher, it is their job to make sure the students learn, which may require gaining their interest. Rather than the teachers responsibility being to teach, it is their responsibility to have the students learn. However, just as it is the teachers job to do so, the students should have an active role in schools as well, afterall it is their education and their life. So perhaps our educational system should be one that is more interactive- one that requires more of an input from the students. In this , it seemed to have work momentarily, where the French teacher gave the assignment of self portraits, and Souleyman finally engaged in a school activity.

In this movie, I think that teachers are responsible for the students’ failures. It seems like they are in the school for themselves and are going through the motion just to get the pay check. Most of their concerns go towards their own selfish needs. For instance, when the teachers had what appears to be a late-night meeting, they were talking about rules and leniency and how they affect the students and their attitudes. And this discussion went on for about one hot minute, before one of the teachers say “we can’t spend all night talking about this” and moves on to another topic: the coffee machine and the profits of the coffee machine. This went on for the rest of the night, or so we assume through the scene ending with that conversation going. It shows how the teachers are prioritizing their own desires over the students’ needs. Another example would be when the teachers were notified that Wei’s mom got deported. Of course, everyone shows a bit of concern at first. But soon after, before any solution/plan was discussed, one of the teacher diverts the attention to herself, and tells everyone she’s pregnant. Of course, it works and everyone instantly forgets about the lives of one of their students.

Although it may be more efficient to view this as a systematic issue, where students get punished and seperated if they’ve done wrong, it does not however solve anything for the students, and do anything for the purpose of teaching. It merely pushes the issue and and the students aside. It causes school to be a filtration system, where only the students who start off strong with interest and has no problems outside of school would succeed (and in many other ways as well). But seeing this as a individual issue has its own flaws as well, because if the teachers were to go through each student and addressed each of their issues, they would be spending a lot of time. And whether or not that time spent is worth it is another discussion, which depends on what each student/teacher values.

3.One of the crucial similarities that I’ve noticed between this film and our school is that if the students ever verbally attacked a teacher (i.e. yell at him/her for something that he/she did wrong), the teacher would instantly go on the defensive mode. Of course, this may apply to most people, but being that teachers are supposedly playing their roles as teachers- as the authority figure, it is interesting to note how they momentarily break out of their roles, to justify their other role as a person. However, one difference between the teachers in this film and the teachers at our school is that the SOF teachers wouldn’t attack back at the students (with the exception of the two senior institute social studies teachers), or they wouldn’t justify themselves through a wrong-doing of a student.

In terms of the students, I think one major similarity is that there are certainly a lot of people who puts themselves out there to appear as cool. Once again, this can be applied to a lot of people, not just those who are within school walls. People make remarks about how much they like the opposite gender, or portray themselves as tough/gangster through their word choices. But similarly there are also some people who follow Souleyman’s mentality: “If your words are less important than silence, then keep quiet.” In that one class, there seems to only be Souleyman and a few extras who keep quiet for most/some parts. And in our school, there is also only a few, some which people may view them as extras as well.

Teacher-wise, I don’t think SOF needs to change it, following the path of the teachers in this film. But perhaps, they should be aware of how much of the class/their working hours are dedicated to themselves and what they want, and how much is dedicated to the students. Student-wise, it is the same- we do not need to follow their example. When watching this movie, I couldn’t help be overly annoyed by the students and how obnoxious and whinny they were, particularly Esneralda (guess she played her role right). But meanwhile, I noticed that some, if not most of the people in our school are just as whinny as they are. People, including myself, are constantly complaining about a few extra problems given to us, constantly complaining about how much pain school is causing us. So we really don’t need to learn how to be like the students from “The Class.” However, I really wouldn’t mind if we had a few more Souleyman’s in our school.