EC Opportunity - "The Class"

Discussing Souleymane and the road he went on in school, i feel it was inevitable for him to be expelled from his school. Nonetheless, he was a good kid, just compared to the others he seemed to be the most highly troubled. When he presented the self-portrait to his teacher, he hanged it up for the entire class to see and allowed his work to be praised by all. In that brief moment, you can see how his eyes lit up and accepted the praise. I dont hold the teacher responsible for what happenned, or at least i didnt want to. Even during the teacher-commitee it was two-sided, some didnt know whether to blame the teacher's remarks or just souleymane alone for igniting his actions. i couldnt blame the teacher for becoming mad at the student reps for blurting out information that is syupposed to be confidential, but to expect two girls that are more close to their classmates than their teacher is also expected for them to look out for them and deliver word on what is said about them, and might even be used to personally alter ways in order to avoid defeat by teachers. For Souleymane to be furious to hearing that he is seen as just "limited" is acceptable on his part, but still shaky as to whether it was a reason to create a scene.


Refelcting on Souleymanes actions, just as the rest of them are, they are only 14 and 15 years old. The teachers in the school expected them to be perfect angels and saw behaviorial attitudes set by them to be an increasing slump by them yearly. To hear "trouble' and "attitudes" repetitively by them was actually exxagerated to me, because compared to what i know as bad students or even a bad high school, that school seemed very good to me. If that one incident is referred to as a "carwreck" i dont know what one is than. Khoumba, as an example, had a public confrontation with the teacher over being picked on, and after admitting to not being sorry for her actions, she wrote a letter to him explaining her side and whatever discretion she felt. That alone seemed more mature and unexpected from any other regular 14 15 yr old. And for the teachers to already praise twei more than all the rest, was a little exposing as to how teachers really felt about their students, despite the sympathetic dilemmas twei's mother got herself into, the scene involved the teachers coming up with an idea for raising money for Twei's mothers lawyer, but soon after pop open a bottle of champagne. hmmm....

When discussing choices and morality created by the students within the film, i feel no one even including the teachers made unorthodox choices that could've been handled better. I thought the film was realistic in most ways, especially for a french school that i have never been exposed to but can only imagine. "Training" to become better at making idealistic choices can only go any further than within school and home, or for a workplace when discussing adults. One point made by esmeralda within the film that i did like, was that when heard by Mr. Marlin she had told Julie, another teacher, about him calling her and louise Skanks. Esmeralda, confronted by the teacher why she spoke to Julie and not him directly, said You can talk about students without them knowing it goes both ways. I think teachers sometimes forget their positioning based on their position of power, which can only go so far. They have to keep a group of students as "tamed" as possible and if ever one was to act out as strout out as possible, they are taken to their higher seened power, the principal. Everyones a pawn. Schools just a way to TRY and train us. But then by the end of the year, just as shown in the film, some dont even learn much or sometimes nothing at all. How trained can we be, mentally.