Extra Credit - "The Class"

At School of The Future, classrooms range from being very different to the class in the movie and being one in the same. It depends on who the teacher is and how they demand their respect (if at all), what class it is (if the class is going to give students actual credit or if it’s just a nonsense class), and most importantly – which students you have in your class. Students tend to push teachers to their limits to see how much they can get away with, etc. The response of the teacher paves the student’s work ethics in class for the rest of the year. For example, if the teacher is overwhelmed or looks nervous being there – then students know they can take advantage.

Contrary to the movie, a typical day at SOF doesn’t quite begin the same way. Yes, students walk in talking, making jokes, not paying attention, etc but usually it doesn’t take very long for us to settle down and begin to pay attention. However, students at SOF do have the same characteristics as those in the movie; smartasses who question what the teacher is teaching. The vibe in the movie was mainly that the students were smartasses for entertainment. Just as in SOF, we’re smartasses to waste time. We think if we can keep the teacher talking, off subject of course, then we have succeeded. Most times – teachers fall for it. We all get the feeling teachers know what we’re doing but in my opinion, teachers find their time better spent if they talk (specifically about themselves).

Just as the teacher called the two class representatives skanks or whatever, kids at SOF are also insulted by teachers. Teachers at SOF are smarter than the teacher in the movie though because they manipulate their words so that if they do insult students, they can get away with it. Here, they like to make witty comments. In the movie, he let his anger/frustration get the best of him and bluntly said it. But also, students don’t run and tell people about what teacher said “this”. I think here, it’s more common for students to be embarrassed and keep it to themselves or just share it with friends. If they do tell, they were probably out to get “revenge” on the teacher (and it has happened).

At the end of the movie, Souleymane got expelled for constantly being disruptive and taking violent action (when his book bag hit the girl in the face). Although the teacher knew his consequence of potentially being sent off back to his home island, the teacher pursued his choice guiltily and of course, Souleymane gets sent back. There are certain students at SOF that are constantly disruptive but don’t take violent action. SOF students are all about the verbal punches instead of physical ones. I think the violence Souleymane took is what set the teachers off and allowed them to expel him. If a student here were to just constantly be disruptive, SOF really doesn’t do anything about it (besides sometimes throwing them out of class). I guess in a way its equal to the punishment a teacher gets if they insult a student here (pretty much nothing).

It was childish for the teacher to come out to the girls the way he did but I still don’t think that it justifies them telling Souleymane lies. You could tell the teacher felt sympathy for him during the meeting and tried to make the report sound as well as it could, so for the girls to make it seem as if the teacher called him a retard was uncalled for. If it wasn’t for them, none of it would have happened in the first place. Even though the teacher lashed out, it seemed okay for the most part by all the other faculty who told him “it happens”. They weren’t saying anything about how bags accidentally hit people just “happens”. If that were to happen here, I think the same kinds of action that took place would have occurred. Teacher wouldn’t have gotten I trouble, student would’ve. Point blank. And that has mostly to do with the fact that teachers do indeed have more power than students. That’s why we’re the ones with the consequences to pay and the teachers aren’t. When’s the last time a teacher actually got in trouble ... like official trouble? ... I’ve never heard.

I honestly don’t think SOF’s that bad of an “institution”. It’s very welcoming and open-minded to students and their opinions. Of course there are right and wrong answers but for the most part teachers don’t really care about that here. It’s more about having a try your best type of attitude and you’ll be fine. Just don’t try to battle the teacher. It rarely ends up in your favor.