In discussion of Students' authority
As discussed in previous post of mine, the title “teacher” is ambiguously placed on certain people without thoroughly considering their academic background as well as instructing skills in school nowadays. Finding Forrester (2000) clearly depicts how Professor Crawford chooses teaching as a final resolution for his career’s failure while Mr.Forrester is still regarded as an inspiring teacher to the protagonist Jamal Wallace, though never officially taking the job. To properly explain why Jamal only regards Mr.Forrester as his teacher, I think it is fair to take into account the idea that what determines a teacher depends much on how he ''satisfies'' the students’ needs in terms of skills, knowledge, information, even inspiration and motivation. Hence, the students should have more rights in deciding what they should be learning in school rather than digesting what others have them to.
This post of mine will refer much to the previous post of Norah, in which she emphasizes the fusion of orthodox and ''liberating'' teaching methods as the new, possible approach to reach highest purpose of education. Mr.Crawford represents ''conventional'' methods of teaching where he has ultimate authority in the class and students passively complete all the tasks assigned by him in order to digest as much knowledge as possible. On the other hand, Mr.Forrester, in the surface, represents a new, liberated instruction in helping Jamal advance his writing skill. However, he somehow still embraces in his method the 'tradition' of assigning students certain tasks that he thinks would be helpful to them without doubting the feasibility. Fortunately, Jamal can still be able to adjust himself with Mr.Forrester's instruction method and appreciates him as a true ''Teacher''. At this point, more than an adequate teaching method, how much a teacher can facilitate students, how greatly he can inspire them in develop their capacity by themselves is a more difficult and complicated process. Writing, to Jamal, would have been a mere hobby that he would never have chance to advance if it had not been for the presence of Mr.Forrester. Whatever the possible title that can be granted to Mr.Forrester: Teacher, Teacher-student, mentor, etc, he is still an important source of inspiration, for Jamal in not only academical field but also his personal life.
Aside from instruction methods or passion in learning, students should also have authority on whichever the subjects that they would learn. As we can spot in the movie, from the first unusual encounter where Mr.Forrester commented on Jamal's notebook, Jamal has insisted on asking the reclusive author to check his writing pieces and help him to develop his skill. Starting from a normal hobby to eventually seriously into the subject, the young talent has showed how much he wanted to learn, how much he wanted to master his skill, and how personal interest can stimulate the desire to learn.
The theme of Students having authority in deciding curriculum and class content is also vividly mentioned in the movie Accepted (2006) that I had a chance to discuss in Education and Society class. The theory is that to further expand students creativity and passion in learning, they should have the right to decide, or even make up their own subjects and content that correspond to their liking and career pursue. Yet, the irony is, when we are granted such authority, we might end up lost in the pool full of the favorites, of what we like but are those what we need? The problem gets more serious when students are not certain about the class, they may rely on class’ description to have their decisions made which would eventually results in the vicious circle of “liberated curricular-fixed curricular”. In Finding Forrester, we do not know for sure what would happen to Jamal regarding his writing after he proves himself innocence; or in the movie Accepted, we are all not sure if all the students of South Harmon Institute of Technology (SHIT) would continue to pursue what they have chosen after graduation. I myself also have similar experience during my highschool time when the school conducted a special survey for students in order to established new classes that would be beneficial to our career after graduation. Though we are allowed to build up our own classes based on our liking, without any description or instruction, we failed to draw even an outline of a feasible class in which we can learn, discuss, gather different ideas, that is helpful to our learning. We are all lost in our own preferences when designing our class. We also have problems of finding a person who can guide everyone in class, how to conduct each session when the number of students in our school is too many, especially the seniors. Unfortunately, the project was turned down and everybody finally has to stick to the fixed curriculum determined by the Department of education and training which is out-dated and strict and over-loaded.
Though the idea of granting students authority in designing the curriculum in school, in reality, personally I think it still has to follow certain guidelines or requirements. Passion and enthusiasm are crucial and important in education, so in order to attain such essential elements, teachers alone can’t make it happen. Students opinions and their performances should be taken into account more seriously so that learning is a process of joy not of compulsion.
Reference:
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group.
Accepted (2006) - IMDb. IMDb - Movies, TV and Celebrities. Retrieved July 16, 2013, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384793/
Finding Forrester (2000) - IMDb. (n.d.).IMDb - Movies, TV and Celebrities. Retrieved July 16, 2013, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181536/
Illustration from Marie Nimrichterova