Entre Les Murs aka The Class

So I haven't done this yet, but lets do a movie review! A few weeks back I was talking to a friend about French films and she said, "Hey have you seen this film, 'Entre Les Murs', it is supposed to be really good!" So we sat down and watched it.

Now, I have to say it is not your typical, 'this is so inspiring I feel really touched by this film and want to volunteer for a week then stop.' It is more of a film that plays like a documentary, but isn't. Essentially, it shows a teacher teaching French in one of the urban schools in Paris. The group of students are mixed, showing the diverse background that is Paris. We watch as this teacher goes throughout his day, trying to reach his students and deal with the same diverse group. Of course there is the challenge in the film, a student who is viewed as "a bad seed" and the story ends up following the work done with him.

I'll go out and say it. The ending is not what you want to happen. The way many people like to see a film end is with a happy ending where the bad students get on the right path and all is well in the world. Well people, that really isn't how things go. If anything, those "bad seed" students are left. There was one quote that really got to me in the film. One student said that he hates teachers who expel students because when they do they give up on them. Yes, I realize that expelling students is sometimes the only thing some teachers can do, but it does feel like giving up. I personally feel that we as a society focus on saving the the majority and ignore the minority group. If they are causing the problems, we need to remove that small group to protect the larger. I understand that, but do we really have to leave them to fend for themselves? If anything, they need more help. It is easier to toss a problem to the side rather than fix it.

It is just so frustrating to see it happen. I know many times when I was teaching I had to defend my students because they were those "bad seeds" in school. They were placed in the behavioral problem classrooms and they were the ones teachers dreaded working with. The thing is, those kids loved me, and I really did care about them. When the students would do something in class, the teachers would give up and I would have to go over and talk to them. All they needed was someone to reason with them down to their level. They needed someone who would let them be a kid. It was also frustrating to see the "help" these kids would get. The school had part time counselors who would meet with them once a week. The counselors did a Freudian analysis and really didn't work on the social problems the students were having. Seeing the counselors ended up being free time away from class. I couldn't be too mad at the school though, they were they only counselors they could afford in their budget.

There is defiantly a problem in schools when dealing with these "difficult" students. Unless you have the extra staff, such as my City Year team, working in the school the teacher is the only source of help these students can get. This can cause a teacher to be overloaded and maybe even to give up. As well, schools lack a lot of funding to provide that extra support for kids or to find ways to connect the parents with the school problem. When we look at education reform we have to look at ways to help every child succeed, not just a majority. Like the film says, we can't give up on a child just because it is not easy.