"The Class"

            It was very interesting seeing how learning was taking place in "The Class", but it was somewhat ambiguous whether there was learning taking place all the time at the same level.  I think that in some class sessions learning was achieved more than in others, especially when the teacher allowed his students to express themselves freely about who they are.  For example, when Wei wrote about his struggles in learning French and what he did outside of school, where he was from, you can definitely see learning was taking place in that Self-Portrait assignment, because it allowed the teacher to learn and obtain a greater understanding of who Wei is; moreover, it allowed the students to reflect on themselves and see what they valued about themselves and things in life or didn't value about themselves, others and life.  I think learning was achieved with the Self-Portrait and it showed a great deal of creativity and different takes on the assignment.  The interpretations to me were great from Souleymane's photograph representation of who he is to Wei's heartwarming narrative and even the new student's take of what he liked and didn't like or in his words "hate", because to me it sounded a bit like a poem, like the "Where I'm From" poem we made in our class.  I think that Marin's assignment was very well done because it was open to interpretation and that makes it easier for students to work with and allows for them to bring in their unique perspective as they did.

            Although learning did occur, I couldn't help but be frustrated and feel somewhat scared because of the class conduct being extremely disrespectful not only to Marin but to themselves.  If learning was hindered at any moment in the movie, it was definitely when students or teachers began to curse at each other, bring each other down and argue with each other.  For instance, as of yet that I've seen in the movie the moment when Souleymane and Marin begin to argue because of what Marin said in the meeting about Souleymane being "limited" definitely showed no learning occurring because it became more of a never ending argument with neither side trying to understand the other's point, and even worse was that they both refused to be wrong.  Marin said that he was the teacher and that he could say certain things and students couldn't, to me showed some serious ignorance and arrogance.  As someone pointed out in class so perfectly Marin employed a double standard for his class.  In addition, I think that Marin's inconsistency in his formal, informal teaching style definitely hindered the students' ability to learn because you never know what to expect, because sometimes they could freely speak their minds without ridicule from him and other times Marin would even tease them in a way for what they said, like when Rabah (I believe) tried to make the tenses of words.  Also, one example in which learning was stunted was when Boubacar and Nassim presented about themselves and somewhat put down each others' nationality when they were talking about footballers and the African Cup of Nations, or when Souleymane criticized the student for not making up his mind about his nationality whether he identified himself as a Caribbean or French and both these examples in the same class period showed narrow-mindedness, which to me is an attribute that hinders learning.

            With all the different nationalities present in Marin's class it was both a something that hindered and promoted learning.  I've already talked about how learning was hindered with the above remarks, but learning was also supported by the various backgrounds because it gave the class a glimpse of different cultures and languages they could learn about.  In the movie I saw a piece of the Koran tattooed on the shoulder of a student, we saw a glimpse of Arab culture when the student explain feeling like an outsider at a party and the bacon comment, how one Boubacar felt shame in eating in front of his friend's mother out of respect.  I think from these examples the students got a greater understanding of each others' culture and language and even Marin did as well.