There is so much to unpack from this film so I’ll only touch on a few points. We see the fallibility of teachers, the cultural biases that they bring to class and the cultural disconnect the students have with the materials. We see the diversity of teacher perspectives on their students and we witness the students struggling to understand their place in the classroom and society and to navigate the power-dynamics of the classroom, school and community.
Francois appears to be truly passionate about helping his students to receive an education. He sometimes truly hears what his students are saying but we see him at one moment being positive and supportive and then the next moment being dismissive or negative towards a students’ participation. We see him seize opportunities such as encouraging Souleymane’s choice of photo essay for his self portrait and praising the result but misses the opportunity to dig deeper into the message in Souleymane’s tattoo which could have been positive. Instead, he ends up turning that interaction negative before moving on. While his broad intentions for his class are good, he seems to lose his way and lose perspective on what’s important for the students.
Francois is unafraid to engage in conversation and debate with his students. He treads fearlessly into verbal sparring with the kids and I think that the students have an underlying respect for his candor and willingness to engage with them. Many seem to want to like him but struggle with the inconsistencies in his behaviour, the pointed, probing nature of some of his questions, and what they perceive as his unfairness and the injustices he meters out. He hasn’t fully gained their trust and some of them see him as just being there to do his job. Ultimately, it is his style of classroom engagement that leads to him crossing the line which precipitates the incident with Souleymane. It’s a very negative outcome of his approach which may in fact have been important in engaging some of the students when they might otherwise have drifted away.
It’s easy to be judgemental when viewing this classroom experience from a position of omnipotence but imagining being the teacher in that classroom who is processing the activities and interactions in real time makes me much more sympathetic. This film is a reminder to try to make your curriculum culturally relevant and to be aware of the personal biases that each of us brings to a classroom. It highlights the importance of treating all students with the same level of respect and illustrates the pitfalls of failing to be honestly self-reflective of one’s own behaviour. It shows the importance of establishing healthy, respectful relationships with the students and makes me wonder how much could have been improved if the teacher had been willing to admit to being wrong even occasionally.