TEACHERS LEARN FROM STUDENTS IN THE CLASS
A French film, The Class (Entre les murs) seeks to portray the difficulties of instructing early teenage immigrant students in a Paris middle school. Based on the book by the director, Laurent Cantet, the main focus is on French language instructor François Marin (played by François Begaudeau) and his multicultural students, who were recruited from Françoise Dolto Junior High in inner-city Paris. New to the school, Marin is immediately challenged by articulate, verbal students who challenge his pride based on French values in several ways. Among those featured are a bright Chinese student, Wei (played by Wey Huang); a talkative Caribbean, Carl (played by Carl Nanor); a Mali macho guy, Souleymane (played by Franck Keita); Arthur, a Goth (played by Arthur Fogel); and Esméralda (played by Esméralda Ouertani), who challenges him the most. The story comes to a crisis when Souleymane accidentally hits another student while exiting from the classroom in anger, as a disciplinary hearing follows, with the principal and other teachers struggling to find an appropriate response. The paradigm presented, an ethnocentric teacher who treads on the values of students from many cultures due to lack of prior cultural sensitivity training, could apply to inner-city schools in many Western metropolises. The film, clearly a must-see for students in Colleges of Education, was in contention for an Academy Award for best foreign film of 2008. MH