While this blog is still focused on aspects of teaching high school English in the virtual school I felt inspired by a recent film and had to write this, which does relate directly to education. Please enjoy:
This past weekend I was able to sit down, very late at night, and watch the movie I Am Legend. I rarely have time to sit down and watch a movie anymore, much less go to the movies, so I missed this title when it was out in theaters. Having heard all about it from my movie-loving friends, I was excited to watch it, and though I was tired, it kept my interest intact throughout.
While I hear many people discuss the "let down" of an ending and the "cheesiness" of the CGI "monsters," and while I do mostly agree with these things, what I saw as the core theme of the movie was its most engaging and redeeming quality. And, in my eyes, that central theme was one of enduring human love and good will and destruction of aggression, malice and ill-will towards mankind.
You are probably wondering what this has to do with teaching English in the virtual school or education in general, but to me this has everything to do with it. I think part of the job of educators to help promote good will, appreciation, and respect for oneself and others. In my eyes if everyone worked to make the lives of others easier, not harder, then we would all be better off and happier in general. In the movie the main character, played by Will Smith, is the last survivor in New York City following a mass outbreak of a virus that either kills its host or turns them into a hairless, nocturnal, vicious, angry, aggressive and murderous humanoid (or semblance of whatever life-form it was before the virus, such as a dog). Smith's character is among the small minority of people who have immunity to the virus.
Not to ruin it for anyone, but in one scene (the most significant to me) Smith's character explains why he loves Bob Marley and shares a story about how he was like a virologist who sought to eradicate hatred and aggression from mankind through uplifting music intertwined with love and simple pleasures. He shares a story of how Marley was shot in his home two days before he was scheduled to perform a major concert promoting his ideals. He explains that Marley still performed despite his injuries and said it was because "the people who are trying to make the world worse never take a day off. Why should I?" Smith's character says we have to "light up the darkness."
And it is this particular part that I am attempting to connect to teaching, whether it be in virtual
school or the traditional classroom. This is my mission as a person, if I do nothing else in my life I will not promote anger, aggression, hatred, ill-will or violence toward others. As an educator I have to do my part to lead by example and try to show my students how one treats others, what good will looks like and how it is performed. I feel that many teachers don't always treat students well, that they think "these punk, disrespectful kids need to learn a lesson or two" and try to make successfully navigating public education through high school as difficult as possible. I don't think that students have to struggle and suffer to appreciate education or be decent citizens. Should learning be only arduous and laborious? Devoid of humor, understanding and kindness? I think not, then one might turn off students to learning for the sake of learning and damage the likelihood that they will seek out education beyond high school so that they can have a better chance at earning a living wage and being positive members of their respective communities. Students need to be challenged, but we can't lose our ability to empathize and cut students some slack at times. Being uncaring, inflexible and rigid (most of them already have too many of these kinds of people in their lives) never helped win over a student's engagement or appreciation for one's subject area , though some would disagree. Taking this a step further, teachers could teach kindness and compassion even more directly, by making it part of the curriculum. For instance, The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation encourages teachers "to perhaps give them an assignment to do an act of kindness and write about it" or even form a random act of kindness club at the school (see http://www.actsofkindness.org/people/whats_new/news_detail.asp?id=155 for more info).
As teachers we have to be "virologists" like Marley or Smith's character in I Am Legend, and do our part to dole out serums of kindness and understanding in how we teach, work with, and communicate with our students. Hopefully, if we do this adequately enough and consistently enough, then we will help "vaccinate" our students from contracting this virus of anger, hate, and aggression in the future. Then, ideally, they will go on and do the same in their adult lives, making the effect cyclical and perpetual.
If abuse can become a cycle, why not human decency?
References:
Lawrence, F. (Director), Protosevich, M. (Writer) & Goldsman, A. (Writer). (2007).
I am legend. [Motion picture]. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures.
http://www.actsofkindness.org/people/whats_new/news_detail.asp?id=155
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3 comments:
Okay Justin, thanks for making me all teary eyed at four o'clock on a Monday afternoon! Your words are beautiful and true, and a nice shot in the arm at the end of a long day. Sometimes when I hear "the mean teachers" speaking unkindly in the lunchroom, trashing kids left and right, I feel so down. Thanks for reminding me that "the nice teachers" remain plentiful and vocal.
Your next movie: Pay it Forward, but bring tissues. I'll be sure to check out I am Legend. Thanks!
Justin,
With so much pressure to cover so much curriculum, it's easy to skip over the key lessons that make us human. I often talk to my third graders about random acts of kindness. Last year, we did a smile collection. The students had to smile at other students they did not know personally. If the person smiled back, they counted it as a point. Each afternoon we totaled the points for a grand total of over 5000 smiles. Ok - sounds corny - but something as small as a smile can go a very long way. Wouldn't it be interesting to find another simple way for the virtual students to connect on a human level outside of the prescribed curriculum? Thanks for the refreshing reminder.
Reading your post, I think about meeting those teachers that make you wonder what led them to teaching...the ones who don't seem to like students and have the attitude that their job is simply to provide information and for the students to learn it. Luckily, there are so many inspiring educators on the opposite end of that spectrum. Your post led me to ponder the changing roles and responsibilities of public schooling. I'm sure policy says that public virtual schools have essentially the same objectives as F2F schools, yet I wonder if in reality they do have the same objectives in practice. That's a really broad question, but it's something to consider.
I wonder how virtual schools work to prevent the use of the old teacher-centered models of instruction. I have met young prospective teachers that still seem to subscribe to that kind of instruction. I think it's still possible to set up a course in Moodle or Educator that is very teacher-centered.
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