For those of you who are as ignorant as I am about wrestling terms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_hold Lots to say about the movie, but will post after I finish my paper!
Wow, what an intense message, the child is the adult, the student is the teacher, the naïve becomes the wise. It makes me wonder how someone like Dan Dunn who is so passionate, well read, charismatic and in control of his classroom can be such a mess on the outside in his own world? I’m not quite sure I know what Dr. Schmidt wants us to get out of watching this film, although I am glad I saw it; the cinematography, dialog, disjunct scenes, the reality of the drug world, and the bleakness of Brooklyn, perfectly portrayed the confusion of Dan Dunn’s life.
As a teacher, just as in his life, he did not follow the rules. He used what he knew to work with his students, inspiring most to want to learn and discover the “opposites” in life and History. As we discover in the movie one of his students even went to college as a history major, no doubt a reflection of his teaching style. After reading the intriguing article The Silenced Dialouge by Lisa Delpit I wondered if some might argue that he was feeding into the “silenced dialogue,” by not follwing the curriculum in which his black principal had put into place, but I noticed that his teaching methods were in fact affective. Next I thought, well what if I am too feeding into silencing? Is my agreeing with Dunn a bad thing, am I being objective or am I a victim of my skin color? I know I can be objective, if I could not I would not live in the world that I do. Those who know me well can attest to this, but that does not change the fact that I did in fact wonder and question myself…which I think is important to doubt at times…it humbles me.
I do not believe he was silencing any of his students or his principal since his methods were quite effective and his students were engaged and learning. I especially enjoyed his “insults” board, which basically allowed students to defend themselves and fight back with dates in history as if to challenge their insulter. In return their insulter could only rebuttal with the cold hard facts of that date challenged to them. Thus the challenging student had to have knowledge of a month, day, and year to challenge with, and opposing student was responsible for researching this information and presenting it to the class creating a power shift, student becomes teacher. In the end great learning is taking place, each student is held accountable for his or her historical findings.
As someone mentioned, in wrestling a ‘half nelson’ is a move used to lock ones opponent under their arm and at the back of the neck leaving them with a dead arm and neck, unable to make any sudden turning movements or look the opponent in the eye. This title I found fitting, considering Dan cannot seem to look his problems in the eye, he says he smokes crack or snorts coke to get by, but it appears that he needs it to escape reality everyday, he is addicted. Also he feels trapped, unable to turn his head and break free to get his life together. When I first picked up the movie and saw the cover I thought, great another movie where the white man saves the unfortunate minority children, hooray white man, but I was so wrong. In fact a young girl of thirteen is strong enough to save herself and her teacher. She sees that her teacher, an obviously brilliant man is stuck (in a ‘half nelson’) and a bit lost, not know who or where to ask for help. The ending seems to allude to a brighter future for both Drey and Dan.
1 comment:
Wow, what an intense message, the child is the adult, the student is the teacher, the naïve becomes the wise. It makes me wonder how someone like Dan Dunn who is so passionate, well read, charismatic and in control of his classroom can be such a mess on the outside in his own world? I’m not quite sure I know what Dr. Schmidt wants us to get out of watching this film, although I am glad I saw it; the cinematography, dialog, disjunct scenes, the reality of the drug world, and the bleakness of Brooklyn, perfectly portrayed the confusion of Dan Dunn’s life.
As a teacher, just as in his life, he did not follow the rules. He used what he knew to work with his students, inspiring most to want to learn and discover the “opposites” in life and History. As we discover in the movie one of his students even went to college as a history major, no doubt a reflection of his teaching style. After reading the intriguing article The Silenced Dialouge by Lisa Delpit I wondered if some might argue that he was feeding into the “silenced dialogue,” by not follwing the curriculum in which his black principal had put into place, but I noticed that his teaching methods were in fact affective. Next I thought, well what if I am too feeding into silencing? Is my agreeing with Dunn a bad thing, am I being objective or am I a victim of my skin color? I know I can be objective, if I could not I would not live in the world that I do. Those who know me well can attest to this, but that does not change the fact that I did in fact wonder and question myself…which I think is important to doubt at times…it humbles me.
I do not believe he was silencing any of his students or his principal since his methods were quite effective and his students were engaged and learning. I especially enjoyed his “insults” board, which basically allowed students to defend themselves and fight back with dates in history as if to challenge their insulter. In return their insulter could only rebuttal with the cold hard facts of that date challenged to them. Thus the challenging student had to have knowledge of a month, day, and year to challenge with, and opposing student was responsible for researching this information and presenting it to the class creating a power shift, student becomes teacher. In the end great learning is taking place, each student is held accountable for his or her historical findings.
As someone mentioned, in wrestling a ‘half nelson’ is a move used to lock ones opponent under their arm and at the back of the neck leaving them with a dead arm and neck, unable to make any sudden turning movements or look the opponent in the eye. This title I found fitting, considering Dan cannot seem to look his problems in the eye, he says he smokes crack or snorts coke to get by, but it appears that he needs it to escape reality everyday, he is addicted. Also he feels trapped, unable to turn his head and break free to get his life together. When I first picked up the movie and saw the cover I thought, great another movie where the white man saves the unfortunate minority children, hooray white man, but I was so wrong. In fact a young girl of thirteen is strong enough to save herself and her teacher. She sees that her teacher, an obviously brilliant man is stuck (in a ‘half nelson’) and a bit lost, not know who or where to ask for help. The ending seems to allude to a brighter future for both Drey and Dan.
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