Hwk 49

Our class voted for Carrie’s idea to be filmed, unfortunately we were not able to complete the filming. The outline was about a teacher who had the “good students” and then there were the students that were labeled as “the bad students”. The role I played in the film was one of the teacher’s pets. Kate, Remy, YuXi and I were all playing the teachers pets; we were the ones that the teacher liked the most. Whenever the teacher had a question to ask, our hands were the first ones up. Kate played the main role of the teacher’s pet because she is the one who gets called on when the teacher asks the question. I supported Kate’s role by sitting next to her and discussing all the class work being done at the time. After she gave her answer to the teacher, I would always be giving her a smile or thumbs up so it could be seen that our characters were close. My role was important in showing how our small circle of teacher’s pets were better known than the small circle of the tough kids in class.

To me the main point of the film was to show that sometimes teachers do not give all students equal credit. Just because some students may be doing outstandingly better than their fellow class mates, it does not mean the teacher can have his/her favorites. The students that aren’t very likeable by the teacher shouldn’t be judged on their performance in school, yet they should be looked at who they are as a person. Later on in the film we were supposed to show how the leader of the tough crowd aces a test. We wanted the viewer to see that a student cannot have a label put on them based on their character in school. Just because they don’t fit the role of the “good student” doesn’t mean that they are a failure. When she passes her test with a good grade by studying hard, the teacher gives himself all the credit for being a good adult figure into teaching her all the content she needed to succeed in his mind. Instead of arguing, she stays quiet and lets him have his moment. This shows that even though not all students are able to fit into the “teacher’s pet” role, they are able to succeed when they are willing to do so; it’s a balance between the teacher and the student for the student to succeed.

Our film was intended to be different from those other savior teacher films. In the films like Freedom Writers and Dangerous Minds the teacher came in to a class full of students that didn’t care much about their education; they were slacking off and had personal problems outside of school to deal with. The teachers would try to comfort their students and find a solution for all their problems even though they were hesitant at first. In our film we did the opposite; the teacher did not show much sympathy or love for his students. His relationship with the students wasn’t personal and deep. He only cared about his students doing the work, which would be the teacher’s pets. He did not want to have a heart felt relationship with each student. He only showed a limited amount of care towards the students playing the teacher’s pet role. He would only give most of his attention to the “good students”; the other students would just be the back drop. In the other films the teachers were there to fix the lives of their students as if they were some angel sent down by God to help these poor kids out. In our film it was more like if you want to learn then learn, if not then no body really gives a damn because it will all eventually fall on to you.

In our society many teachers feel as if they become the parent figure for their students in school, which is true in many cases. They act as if they are there to help their kids with all the problems they may be having and always be there for them when needed. They feel as if it is their duty to take part of their student’s lives and guide them into what they as an adult feel is right for them. The teachers in our society today treat their students as if they are an experiment; they brainwash us into thinking that all we need to survive is an education. Without an education we would all be seen as failures. I understand why they feel as if they have to guide us to a better pathway, but they should let us experiment ourselves so we can learn from ourselves as well. If we have someone guiding us the whole way, then what would we have learned at the end? We don’t need to be babied while being educated; this is why we can’t seem to remember what we learned in the past decade. We need to be given an education in which we are given material, and we figure it out ourselves. We won’t have a teacher to guide us through our whole life; we need to prepare ourselves by standing on our own feet.