If You Don't Want To Die You Should Remember To Knock- Dangerous Minds

          Dangerous Minds could easily be considered a “white savior” film. However, I think this specific film goes far deeper than that.  A number of times in the film the teacher is challenged by the students and she does in fact fail in her mission to help the kids in several ways. I do feel like it was a bit cliched for her to attempt to leave and then be convinced to stay by the students, but everything else in the film gave a genuine sense of emotion. The idea of using praxis was very interesting in Dangerous Minds. The challenge of sticking to your own personal and abstract views about teaching when it seems nearly impossible was great to analyze. Also, the idea of positionality being a generational issue was a frequent theme in the film. I will focus on both of these ideas here.

            It is in the first half of the film that we really see the challenges that new teachers in any school will probably have to face. Ms. Johnson is thrown in with a group of students who may or may not have pushed their previous teacher towards a nervous breakdown. These students do not look like her, talk like her, or act like her. Even worse, the students do not acknowledge her presence for a noticeable amount of time, and when they do the harassment begins. This is something that was of particular interest with me. All of us are taught rules and procedures for when rules are broken or students are not fully engaged in the classroom. However, I do not know how I would handle a group of students who were completely ignoring me.

The solution comes when she realizes why the students are acting that way. The students in Ms. Johnson’s classroom view her thinly veiled position of authority as a complete joke. They have proven a few times before that they can “defeat” the teacher that is assigned to them. More importantly, they all have an understanding of why they are in that particular classroom. They have been tracked by a system that sees them as worthless. They are only there because the law requires them to be, and even that is not enough to keep some of them in the classroom.

            The judgments that have been placed on these students is wholly realized when there is a loud raucous coming from Ms. Johnson’s classroom, Mr. Griffith’s class stops because they hear all the noise as well. When Mr. Griffith is trying to get them to focus back towards his lesson he says “Come on now focus, you know how they are.” Not only do the teachers label the students but the entire student population at the high school understands that these students are below them. When that type of grand narrative effect is placed upon a group of people that are only exposed to each other, they will quite understandably have their own preconceived notions about the people coming in to “help them.” With this in mind I can see how it would seem almost impossible to stick to the dogmas of educated “the whole child” or creating a democratic classroom. These things are great to put into our own personal philosophy, but when we are faced with day after day of losing battles who of us can say that we will enact our philosophies exactly as we had imagined them?

            I think the answer is that there needs to be an ideal. The same way moral philosophers try to define the true moral good without the philosopher necessarily being a complete proponent of their own ideologies so too must we understand that our own philosophies are a goal that we must strive towards. This may mean straying from the specifics at times, but there needs to be a constant theme towards the goal no matter what.

           

            The idea of second generation segregation was particularly poignant in Dangerous Minds. Some students are fully aware of their positionality. Others tacitly accept what they think is simply their lot in life. The former type being exemplified in Emilio while the latter is displayed through Callie. When Ms. Johnson gives a speech about each new concept being another choice that the students can make, it really challenges what they have grown up understanding up to this point. No matter how aware of their position in society the students may be, they all have some form of intrinsic motivation when it is passed onto them in different language than what we are used to. The idea of cultural capital must translated into an idea that the students can really grasp.

            Often in the education curriculum we talk about the need for intrinsic motivation, but the idea of learning being its own reward seems to largely reflect the middle class value system when considering the context in which we most often discuss it. Becoming enlightened or highly analytical seems like a useless pipe dream to someone who is struggling just to have money for food. However, when the skills that knowledge can bring you are translated into choices that you can make in your own life than the concept might be easier to grasp for someone who does not come from a family where education is highly valued.

            I really appreciated that the film makers showed examples of Ms. Johnson not being able to win certain battles. Although a bit modified, this was a type of white savior film in which the authority figure was attempting to challenge the norms of the institution that he or she worked for while they were symbolically pushing against the society that created that institution. The story with the two brothers being pulled out of school and Emilio being killed despite her efforts to challenge the norms send the message that one teacher helping a few students is not enough. As I have discussed in other blogs, I do believe that school systems in any given area are a microcosm of the society that created them. Therefore, it is unrealistic to assume that fixing the representation of oppression will fix the gaps that led all of those students into Ms. Johnson’s classroom. The message that higher institutions and authority figures are attempting to tackle the problems in completely wrong ways is perfectly exemplified after the death of Emilio when Ms. Johnson states, “What should I tell them? That if they don’t want to die they should remember to knock?” The moment was obviously heavily charged with emotion and summed up the intent of the director to show us that a broken system will not be fixed in one year by one teacher.