She can sense right away the segregation in the class room and very violent tendencies, as a fight broke out the first day. She is torn on how to get to these kids. The next day she tries again, but certain people do not want to sit next to each other and cause problems for everyone. Mrs. Gruewell decides to tell the class to get up and everyone move around to a different seat and this is where you’re going to sit for the rest of the time. Mrs. Gruewell uses the Pathfinder Style which seeks both a high degree of effectiveness and a high degree of member satisfaction, believing that greater effectiveness is possible when all members are involved and problem solving is done through teamwork (Brown, 2011 p. 92).
Ms. Erin Gruwell, a new teacher at Woodrow Wilson High school, faces several challenges with the class she is presented with on her first teaching job. She is exposed to a different environment around teenagers who partake in gang groups in order for them to protect their own race and seem to have no interest whatsoever in their education. Ms. Gruwell’s perseverance leads her to try and make a change with these students, even though she is getting no assistance from her colleagues who are convinced that the students are nothing but trouble. In the end, perseverance is what leads both her and the students to success. One of the themes that are portrayed in the film is that of Segregation.
Ms. Lucy, one of the guardians at Hailsham, was somewhat different than the rest of the guardians. She believed the students should be taught everything. Everything about their futures as carers and donors. One day Ms. Lucy had a breakdown after listening on one of the conversations two students were having, they were talking about becoming American film stars, “The problem as I see it, is that you’ve been told and not told. You've been told and, but non of you really understand...
One of the classes I took during my undergraduate studies was Contemporary Moral Issues. I had actually taken this class twice because I was unsatisfied with the grade I received the first time. Nonetheless, I had noticed a significant difference in how each teacher executed her class. In the first class, the professor took control of everything, which is common for a teacher, but she dictated every move the class made. There was no variety in the lessons, and even when the students were clearly lost, she continued anyway.
Such person notes that, a teacher should be acquainted with capacity of each student and firstly they should believe that they can do everything. As I read in the article, they can gain success when they make their students feel this confidence. We can see the same approach in the film too. McKenna involves all of his students to withdraw from a forcible lifestyle and discover their potential. Speeches of the students in the school event, their participations in lessons, in a word their maximal change is evidence of it, earlier these students fought with each other, having bad habits, not approached to the school as a educational institution.
Invoking fear to one another has been a necessity to survive. On the first day of Ms. Louanne Johnson, she was not welcomed by her students because at the back of their mind, even if they learn or not, the culture where they grew up instilled in them that they will not accomplish anything outside of what they grew up with. They will be that kind of person sooner or later, they will eventually be one of the drug dealers or notorious gangsters of their neighborhood. Ms. Johnson, had a hard time surpassing the barrier between she and her students. Ms. Johnson had to think outside of the box in order to connect with her students better.
Critics say that the main focus of Educating Rita is the English class system and the clash of cultures, however there are many other themes portrayed in the play that are of equal importance. As the title would suggest, one of the key themes in Educating Rita is indeed education. Rita strives to become educated after taking school for granted before. Frank asks her “what do you want to know?” and Rita replies “everything” showing her thirst for knowledge and her enthusiasm to learn. However, when Rita first meets Frank she is a working class, pop cultured hairdresser who knows nothing of English Literature, shown when asking Frank “what is assonance?” But, through education she learns more than just literature, which she exposes when, at the end, she reveals she can make her own choices, “I’ll make a decision.” This displays how education has a huge impact on both Rita and the play, making it a very important theme in the play.
They develop character throughout the movie and at the end, have turned on a light in others’ lives and in their own lives. Erin Gruwell was an inexperienced first time English teacher. She had no idea what to expect or what was going to happen with the students of Room 203. The students had difficult upbringings and were exposed to gang violence every day and because of this, many of the students had lost hope. Erin saw the students differently to the other teachers at Wilson High.
Doris Lessing, in an acceptance speech for a Nobel Prize in literature, states “Kids today don’t read, don’t write, and don’t care about anything further in front of them than their iPods. The internet has seduced a whole generation into its inanities.” After stating the beliefs of the older generation, Goldwasser begins to question the reason behind their beliefs. Amy states the older generation often conducts so many surveys out of jealousy, fear and ignorance. They fear that young people know more than they do. She brings up a good point that before the internet parents didn’t complain when kids would be in their rooms for hours writing letters to friends or talking on the phone.
In High Schools around the United States scores are getting worse and worse and it’s due to unmotivated teachers who don’t care about the integrity of teaching anymore because it all seems pointless in this current time. You could make a lot more points about High School and its flaws but these ones are the biggest ones that need addressing. From High School to College, a lot of things change. In College you pick your classes, your times, basically everything. You have freedom to do what you like and aren’t held back by counselors and certain start times.