Urban Schools Film Festival Written Critique: Lean on Me Lean on Me is a 1989 film based on the true story of a principal, Joe Clark, hired to run one of the worst schools in the state New Jersey, Eastside High. His mission is to turn this school around completely in one year’s time, as well as bring order and peace to this crime, drug, and graffiti infested institution. On top of all that, he must also bring up the learning level of the students so they can pass the state’s minimum basic skills test (www.imdb.com). To me, this film is seemingly based largely on urban school stereotypes and the general public’s perception of them. The stereotypes and clichés shown throughout this film of urban schools, teachers, students, and families represent a vague idea of the reality of these environments.
My Captain!” In his class, he is making unusual works for his students in teaching them. An example of which is he ask the students stand on his desk in order to look at the world in a different way. In another class Keating has Neil read the introduction to their poetry textbook, prescribing a mathematical formula to rate the quality of poetry which Keating finds ridiculous, and he instructs his students to rip the introduction out of their books. Inspired by Keating, the secretly revive the school literary club named Dead Poets Society. Neil wants to be an actor but even though he knows that his father will disapprove he still continued to the audition that is held on his school for a play.
For the act of being even momentarily late to work, workers were charged twopence, and some factories would even close the gates of the factory, which disallowed workers from going to their job if tardy (A Working Day in a Manchester Cotton Mill 154). As workers were often poor and relied on their factory jobs for income, even one tardy could create a negative impact on them. Another factor contributing to bad working conditions in the factories was the disregard of the workers’ hygiene. Many factories did not have baths established (A Working Day in a Manchester Cotton Mill 155). Laborers often had no way to keep themselves clean, which was worsened by the factories’ already dirty environment.
What is changing are the people involved and the environment where these freedoms are being questioned. In the essay Schools fail free speech 101, it is my observation that the author takes the position that the constitutional rights of students in American schools are being denied by teachers, principals, and administrators. The author uses many examples of these censorships of students as premises to support his conclusion (2007). In the article, the author reports about a Cincinnati high school student magazine that included a “mildly critical” article about the schools football team and the principal ordered the article be torn out of the magazine before it was distributed (Schools fail, 2007). I feel this is a strong premise to support the conclusion that administrators censor what students write in their publications.
"The upshot of Sputnik...was (and is) an interrupting sting of American educational reforms." Clearly, Schrag believes that this is not the correct way to implement/improve our children’s educations. Subsequently, he proceeded to write a long list of proposed educational reforms in a sarcastic/comedic fashion. In addition, Schrag argues that by reforming schools for a specific need, it shrinks the scope of overall education (I don’t think that this is an arguable statement). He points to George W. Bush's “No Child Left Behind Act.” "The military style reading and math drills prompted by President Bush's No Child Left Behind program have pushed out history, music, art and physical education and may in fact be destroying American Schools."
While he is no longer the victim, he finds himself fast being pulled into the dark world of the Guardians, a secret society of older boys who are orchestrating a reign of terror at his new school. When the Guardians summon him, he thinks that his disguise must have failed. The truth, however, is that the Guardians are so impressed by the new persona Elliot has created that they want him to become one of them. The book follows Elliot's struggle to find a way out of his dilemma. Whilst he has escaped his traumatic past, his future seems to be that he will join the Guardians, and become one of the bullies that he once despised.
Malarkey Critical Evaluation Keith Gray’s emotional text ‘Malarkey’ is a text that not only deals with conflict but is also an emotional journey of the characters. The writer conveys the idea to the reader by characterisation and through the plot of the story. John Malarkey is in the wrong time, he has started at a new school, Brook High and the gang situated at Brook High ‘The Tailors’ take an instant disliking to him. They feel like he is a threat to them, they want him out of Brook High so they do there best to have Malarkey excluded from the school. They start off by stealing his bag and planting his maths teacher Mr Macallan’s wallet in it knowing he would get the blame because he couldn’t explain why it was there.
Each one of these eight characters contributed to the plot of this exciting story, and effected the reactions of the audience. The film soon begins within the halls of the academy at the beginning of the new school year with students and parents running around trying to prepare for the first classes of the year. Mr. Keating has recently begun teaching English and starts the year by taking the students outside the classroom and stating that they are "powerful individuals" which no other teacher would do. The next day Keating instructs Neil to read the introduction to their poetry textbook, which Keating finds ridiculous and tells them to tear the pages out and that "This is a battle, a war. You will have to learn to think for yourselves."
Today with the constant reports of low student achievement, school violence, drug use among students schools are scrambling to reform and improve student achievement and discipline. Bill Clinton in his 1996 inaugural address mentions the benefits of school uniforms as part of a school improvement plan. If one looks at the LBUD case study they would tend to agree with the former president. The Study shows from 1993-94 to 1994-95 a 51% drop in physical fights, a 34% drop is assaults and batteries and 50% drop in weapons offenses and a 32% drop in suspensions (Stanley 1996), but a closer look at LBUD shows other measures were also instated (Brunsma and Rockquemore, 1998), such as a heightened security measure and stricter rules for student conduct were also a part of the LBUD improvement plan. Since 1994 other cities and schools districts have adopted school uniform policies.
He then sets up rules to help manage the classroom. The more the rules are reinforced by negative or positive reinforcement the more the rules will work to correct the student’s behaviors. For example in the movie to enforce the rule of everyone having to stand in line if someone isn’t in line or gets out of line to go to lunch he locks the door and no one can go until they have done what they said or stood in line correctly. This is a good consequence because if one person gets out of line then their classmates will be mad at them and to students what their peers think is more important then what their teacher thinks so they will make sure they will do the right thing. Then once he has controlled the behavior issues in the classroom, and the class can function like a normal class he needs to teach them what they need to know to learn what is required and pass the state test.