The Depiction of Education Through Movies

There is no doubt that the education system in the United States of America is facing new challenges with the rising complexity of the society, especially with the technological revolution. Fostering high-quality educational experiences for students is becoming an obstacle that students, teachers, and ultimately the society have to overcome in order to keep thriving in an ever-changing environment of the 21st century. In this essay, I attempt to explore the possibilities of looking at how the education system is portrayed through popular movies. In order to examine the cultural values that are displayed throughout the film industry, I decided to choose the following three movies: Precious (II), Freedom Writers, and Bully. I will include information about each movie separately and at the end I will hopefully come to an answer about the importance of how the norm depicts the education system and the struggles that students and teachers have to go through.

The first movie I am going to discuss is Precious. Precious was produced in the year of 2009 and it tells the story of Claireece Jones, a sixteen-year-old high school student who was domestically abused both mentally and physically by her parents and often times by her classmates. Claireece or Precious, her middle name that she uses to present herself, is a black female, who happens to be illiterate, pregnant, and overweight. Precious lives with her mom (Mary) in Harlem, New York. Mary is described to be a lazy person who does not even look for a job, live off welfare and who watches TV all the time. She also appears to be someone who just smokes and is involved in fraud regarding her welfare status. On the other hand, Precious seems to be very ambitious, at least through what she narrated at the beginning, despite the adversity that she had to face on daily basis. Her ambition is also apparent through her daydreaming about being safe and healthy; things that she does not possess at the time. In order for Precious to become successful, I believe that she realized that she needs to stay in school so that she can get education and later on liberates herself from the ruthless and harsh environment she was living in. The principal of the school decided to move her to an alternative school where she can learn how to read and write. Precious had a hard time adapting, and since she is not very well accepted in the current high school environment as she was overweight and could not read or write as people in her age. So, despite Precious going through hardships within her micro-society (family), but she had a hard time outside of her house as well. As a result, it is so difficult for Precious to learn, prosper, and gain knowledge. As the movie goes on, we then realize that Precious was raped by her father and as a consequence she got pregnant. In addition to that, Precious discovered that she was HIV positive. I think the movie production team did a great job in describing how she was emotionally abused by her mom who says “Get that MotherF***** off me,” and her peers who call her fat and sexually harass her. The movie depicted how she was physically abused by her mom who was beating her and we could see the flashbacks and memories about when her father raped her. All of those instances count towards the struggles and the responsibilities that Precious had to carry on her back at this very young age.

The second movie which is Freedom Writers, unlike the first movie which focuses on a student, this time this movie gives the center of attention to a teacher who comes from a middle-class family and who seems to be well read, good looking, and very smart. The school that Erin taught in was in Long Beach, California. Erin did not know what she was getting herself into, as she was not prepared for the nature of the classroom having said that Erin just started her first teaching job. Being in such diverse population, where the Latinos, Whites, Blacks, Asians, and others did not seem to get along very well. Many of the students were involved in gang groups and almost everybody in the class knew of someone who died because of gun violence. Erin at this point, tried her best to change the situation and made writing daily journals compulsory, however, she will not read them until the students give her permission to do so. Erin also sacrificed two main things in my opinion: first, her time and money, and second, her relationship with Scott. Erin had to find other jobs so she pays and helps students and she struggled to find a right moment to think about her marriage. Erin kept inspiring her class and putting herself at risk of losing a job since many staff in the administration were worried and very encouraging. Erin also motivated the young students to pursue education beyond having a high school degree only. Once Erin gained the students trust and they became close to her, it allowed her to share knowledge, love, care, and attention; basics that everyone at that school needed. The Movie ends in a very positive note where many of Erin’s students pursue education beyond high school.

The third movie I am going to discuss is called Bully. According to the National Center for Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Between 1 in 4 and 1 in 3 U.S. students say they have been bullied at school. Many fewer have been cyberbullied.” Unlike other movies, this is a documentary that shows how many of us can victims of bullying. Not only that, but sometimes you do not have to directly be a bully, you just have to be a witness who stands silent or indirectly bully someone. This documentary does a great job in providing statistics and real-life examples of kids whose lives have been greatly affected by bullying. The crisis of bullying pushes many kids not to be motivated in their first day of school or even leading to the absence of hundreds of thousands of students across the country. Bully mainly delves into telling a story of five teenagers (Alex, Kelby, Tyler, Cody and JeMeya) who were exposed to different types of bullying. Those teenagers had different stories ranging from being nervous to go back to school in the case of Alex, to Kelby who is a young lesbian girl that she does not feel welcome anywhere in town or in school and a result she would think about committing suicide, to Tayler who committed suicide as a result of bullying where peers would shove him into a locker and abuse him verbally as his dad described it, to JeMeya who was sent to juvenile as she was carrying her mom’s gun (not to hurt anyone but enough to scare the other kids who bullied her). All those stories have personally touched me and showed me how bullying could cost many lives.

To conclude, through the three movies that were discussed above, we can sense a general trend in the general issues that face students and teachers. I am a strong believer in how effective and powerful visual media can be. Throughout, we have seen how Precious struggled as a young woman who got verbally and mentally abused by her parents and her peers. We have also seen how Erin, the teacher struggled to find her place at first and how to manage the chaotic situation and how the teenagers told their stories about bullying. All three of those movies carried a positive and inspirational message to the audience. Messages of how can struggle be turned into a determination and then success and messages of solely raising awareness about gun violence, bullying, domestic violence. All of those social issues show us the backstage of everyone’s life back at where everyone resides. What students go through in their households is not easy and I think by watching such powerful movies, we get to understand and relate to others and most importantly be compassionate about one another.