"The Class"

            The movie “The Class” presents a very uncomfortable learning environment for the teacher and student. At first glance it seems there is no learning going on because there always seems to be arguments and negative conversations. There is rarely a positive thing said from either student or teacher. Though there is a negative atmosphere created, I would argue that the students are learning how to be non-learners, as Kohl demonstrates in her essay I Won’t Learn From You! The teacher and students have created a culture in their classroom where the students and teacher behave often as if they are on the same level. By creating an environment where the students see themselves as equals to the teacher, they do not see why they must give him the respect that he often demands when he slips out of peer role and into teacher role. 

            While the students were not learning the topic they were there to study, French, they were learning how to not learn. Actions that helped them to not learn French was the teacher behaving like he was one of them. In many instances the teacher would fall into the role as another student in the class, partaking in teasing students, laughing and instigating unnecessary and unproductive arguments. By doing this he is encouraging the behavior of getting off topic and not learning or paying attention to the task at hand. I also believe that while the students get away from their studies, they are learning how to work the culture they have found themselves in. They do not want to study French and show great resistance to the teacher, they have learned how to push the right buttons in order to get off topic. They have learned how to hold true to their identity that they carry with them on the playgroud, in their neighborhood, and in their social groups. They keep this persona in the classroom and fight every moment of the class in order to keep this identity for the other students and their peers.

            Language and culture are obviously a huge part of this classroom and how successful it can be. Working in a classroom that is extremely diverse, you are bound to run into problems of language, words meaning different things to different people, actions portraying different feelings, etc. Delpit talks about this in her introduction in Other People’s Children. She introduces the reader to a few different classrooms where the teacher is different from the new students in her class. The teachers already have poor expectations of the students, and even when they behave the opposite of how the teachers expect, the teachers don’t’ not see it. This seems similar to “The Class” because the expectations the teachers in the entire school have for the children do not allow them to succeed. They are constantly giving negative feedback, and never positive. In one example that the teacher gives positive feedback to Souylamne (?) the boy does not know what to do with it, and only starts putting himself down.

            The language of the classroom is so confused because there does not seem to be clear roles with the students and teacher. Many times the teacher uses foul language, allows the students to use bad words, and then moments later gets mad at them for saying the word again. There are no clear rules which hurts the culture because it seems no one really knows what is expected of them, and the students are able to take control often. It seems to me that boundaries need to be created. Students, as well as teachers, need to understand their role in the environment in order to be able to try and create an environment that will foster the learning of everyone involved.