Tonight,
I went to the viewing of Girl Rising
at the UC Auditorium. The film is
a documentary chronicling the lives of nine young girls from various countries
around the world, and each girl’s struggle to receive a decent education and
chance at success. The film was
touching at moments, brutal at others, and inspirational throughout. Following are three points from the
film that I found interesting and which stood out to me.
1. The film served to remind me that
school is not free for children in every country. One girl in the film, Wadley from Haiti, had been enrolled
in a local elementary school but, following the major earthquake that
devastated the country in 2010, was turned away from the school when her mother
could not afford the tuition. Keep
in mind, this was no college or university, but an elementary school with a
tuition many citizens like Wadley could not afford. Wadley would not stand for this, however, and she returned
again and again to the school, and was turned away again and again until
finally the teacher, realizing Wadley’s persistence to receive an education,
allowed her to stay. Wadley’s
desire for an education was inspiring, especially when compared to the millions
of children in America that take their education for granted, and that express
hatred toward school and learning.
2. I was surprised by the threat of
violence many young girls in other countries receive when they express a desire
to learn. For instance, during one
act of the film, a girl from Afghanistan had to hide her true identity because,
she claimed, if her husband, father, brother, or any of her fellow countrymen
learned about her desire to receive an education, they would kill her without
remorse. Why do some men in other
nations feel so threatened by the idea of a woman receiving an education? Perhaps, in my last question, I should
not have left out our own country.
Even in America, many men still hold ideas regarding where women “belong”
in society. American men don’t necessarily
feel threatened by women going to school, but they do feel threatened when
women try to advance in their careers, possibly eclipsing their male
co-workers. What is so threatening
about a woman wishing to better herself?
3. The one aspect of this film that I want
to talk about in-depth is a reaction a teacher had toward an inattentive
student in her classroom, as I think this moment may have been the most
pertinent to our Educational Psychology class. During one scene in the film, a young girl from India was
shown doodling in a notebook while her teacher instructed a math lesson. When the teacher discovered what the
young girl was doing, I was shocked by the educator’s response. The teacher, in a scolding tone, called
the girl to the front of the room and made her confess what she was doing. After the girl confessed, the teacher
verbally humiliated her, then dismissed her from the school for the remainder
of the day. I believe this
teacher, based on her actions, subscribed to an aggressive behaviorist learning
theory. When she noticed that the
young girl was exhibiting an undesired behavior (not paying attention to the
math lesson), she introduced extremely humiliating and, in my opinion,
inappropriate positive punishment (public verbal castigation) and negative
punishment (asking the girl to leave the school for the rest of the day). I suppose teaching theories in other
countries are different from those many educators in America subscribe to, but
I believe the educator’s response to the inattentive girl was disgusting. How can an educator believe that he or
she is doing right by a student when they humiliate them and send them away
from the classroom? The last thing
an educator should do when wishing to instill knowledge in a student is to
exile them from the one place where they can attain such knowledge. Perhaps, when I become an educator, I
should keep such cultural differences in mind when teaching students from
different cultures and backgrounds; I will try to foster an accepting an
inclusive learning atmosphere.
This was an interesting synopsis. I've heard that Indian teachers can be pretty bad--their pay is so low that many of them do not actively teach. It is interesting to think about how some countries barely have schools--that's the first step in a long line of potential improvements. With edpsych, really we're focused on some relatively fine tweaks in comparison to having or not having desks in a classroom! :)
ReplyDeleteIf you focus on some of the more inspiring moments, what kind of motivational theory do you think could explain the girls' behavior?
I think it's safe to say that the girls, like Wadley, who did anything they could to attend school were intrinsically motivated to learn and receive an education. In Wadley's situation, there were definitely no extrinsic motivations prodding her to learn; in fact, if she did try to learn she received verbal positive punishment from her teacher. And, for the girl I discussed in my second point above, she received no extrinsic rewards for learning, but rather the threat of terrible violence. But the girls continued to try to learn, perhaps because they had a general belief that they are good and capable individuals, a belief Ormrod calls "self-worth" (2011). Or, maybe, their desire to learn stemmed from a "need for arousal" (Ormrod, 2011); if Wadley had not attended the elementary school, she would simply have to lounge around her refuge camp site with her mother, doing nothing particularly stimulating.
ReplyDeleteGood point--the alternative may have been boring! I think the self-worth idea is a good one.
ReplyDelete