HW 49

Initially, I was confused about whether the teacher in section 1's film was thinking about his day or he was dreaming. I figured it was a dream because it was portrayed with his head on his desk and his students did not look out of control the next day. One way I took the film was that the teacher was afraid that his students would one day disregard his wisdom and act out of control. But since there is not enough information to support this, I thought that the message of the film (and I can be totally wrong about this) is that teachers are the ones who need to be taught. The teacher in the film ignores the papers he was once holding, picks up a blackberry to text, and falls asleep on the table due to boredom. He dreams about his "want-to-be" self and the rude students but the next day, we see that things are the other way around. After a student wakes him up, he walks as if he was drinking alcohol, starts insulting the students and walks out the room.

This is different from Freedom Writers, Blackboard Jungle, and Dead Poets Society. It related more to the parody that we saw in class; in both films, the students were the ones knowing what they were doing and the teachers were the clueless ones. While the students in the other films walked into class disrespecting the teacher, the students in section 1's film came into class and waited for the teacher to start class. And when the teacher was still sleeping on his desk, a student went to wake him up, hoping he could enlighten them. Instead, he continues to be hopeless, starts yelling at the innocent students and leaves them behind.

Maybe there is no way schools or teachers can help students, or not all teachers can save students, or not all students can be saved. Each student have their individual and different conflict, which makes it hard for the teacher to save each and every one of them. The teacher in the film did not do anything to save the students and in fact, influencing them in a bad way by drinking in class. Some teachers themselves may be too out of it to teach their students about life. The students might just have to teach themselves on their own and this might just be the alternative to school.