A scene from Chalk that supports one of Friere's concerns is one with Mr. Lawery. During the movie he has lines on the chalkboard that he has the students read and repeat with him. He does not go into any explanations or interact with the students to get them to understand. He talked at them instead of with them. This is a prime example of the "Banking Method" explained by Paolo Freire in "The banking concept of education."
In chalk Mrs. Riddell the vice principal comes to the principal of the school for important questions regarding the benefit of the school and its students. Every time she asks him a question he always answers with something completely unrelated because he either doesn't know or doesn't care about her concerns. As stated in the article "resolutions on education" by Mike Rose , "To ensure that people who actually know a lot about schools will appear on Oprah and will be consulted by politicians and policy makers. When President Obama visited my home state of California, the person he met with to talk about education was Steve Jobs." If the representative is asked an important question, just like politicians they will change the subject if they don't want to address that issue.
Mr. Lawery's teaching methods were boring and he knew it. During a scene in Chalk he goes into the library and gets a book on "Classroom Management." He then goes to class and actually interacts with the students and had more fun. He even won the "spelling hornet" that was put on by the kids. This pertains to John Taylor Gatto's "Against School." He states, "Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame? We all are. ”Mr. Lawery was not taught to teach the curriculum in a fun manor. Once he saw how boring it was he decided to "go outside the box."
In Lewis Black's video "Education in Crisis" he shows a blip from someone responding to how to help our education system, he said "if you drive by a public school even if your kids don't go there, walk in and ask if you can help." Obviously that isn't how we are going to help our education system. The person that stated that was not educated enough to answer on how we can better our educational system. In the movie Chalk the new assistant principal Mrs. Reddell was hired because the old one was fired and they needed a quick replacement, and not necessarily because she was qualified. It shows that we will hire people who are not qualified to find solutions to our educational problems.
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