Comparing Blackboard Jungle 'And Dangerous Minds'

I was surprised to believe that as a whole, a significant portion of students came from low-income families, experienced homelessness at some point, were hungry, or suffered from trauma. For one student to experience any of these problems requires a number of resources for a school, but when the majority of students are facing these issues, schools need to be particularly well equipped. Adding to this the fact that Chicago public schools are seriously underfunded, this is a tragedy. Schools are forced to cut social workers, psychologists, and clinicians from their services and ultimately, students are left without help. In my Introduction to Poverty Studies class, we learned that in order to alleviate systemic poverty, part of the solution lies in focusing on children and providing them all the resources so that can be as well equipped for life as possible. Much of this responsibility falls on public schools, but without funds, this task is

Seeing a drastic shift of teenage culture within a decade is mesmerizing. After watching these two movies I believe that there is a clear difference in how the teenage culture has shifted within a small amount of time. The similarities between Blackboard Jungle and Rebel Without a Cause were that in both movies the teenagers fit the stereotype of acting out of line. The difference is the, type of sound track, different take on the youth movement. In Blackboard Jungle the sound track portrays a type of rebellion mentality while in the movie Rebel Without a Cause there is an unknown type of mentality. A contemporary example of these movies that have been made in recent years would be Step Up 2 The Streets.

Blackboard Jungle is about the challenges a new teacher, named Richard Dadier, faces in the midst of an inner city all boys’ school. Mr. Dadier faces violence and anti-social issues from his stubborn students. Throughout the movie he tries to step outside of the normal school disciplinary actions, which are not evident, and take action. In return, the students lash out. This starts to effect his home life. Yet, in the end the students see Mr. Dadiers dedication, and even after a very eventful fight, they resign to his authority.

Is your opinion (positive or negative) offered on the issue? Yes, I do feel that when a child lives in poverty it does have an impact on their behavior and education at school. Unless the parent is more involved in the child’s life and less consumed in theirs.

Children may have to attend a school that is associated with their religion. It is always possible that this gives the child a different quality/balance of education. They may struggle to understand other people‘s religion or lifestyle choices. They may become confused or isolated and

and support them in 1:1 situations. In order to achieve this you must appreciate that every child is

They tend to learn about their ‘rules’ from their community. They absorb the behaviors around them first hand, that hard work, might not pay off. They learn that if they don’t want to go to school, they don’t have to. If they don’t want to do their homework, that’s okay too. They learn that no matter how hard they work, it may get them nowhere, so you may as well have fun doing what you want, and not what teachers or authority wants. I feel that our school does a fairly good job at teaching our students that no matter where their lives are in this period of their life, it can change for the better in the blink of an eye. We have the same high expectations for students living in poverty or ELL, than we do with our middle class students. The biggest difference is that the teachers are working hard every day to level that playing field for them. We remind them that working hard, will take some effort, but you will be recognized and we will help them to be successful! Academic achievement is encouraged for all of our students.

Our culture in America puts a huge emphasis on the value of education. However, not all children in America receive the same benefits from school. Jonathan Kozol, author of The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, explores the feelings of those in lower-income districts and the inequality they feel. Kozol focuses on how younger children, elementary schoolers, look around and see richer schools while their own school is run-down and falling apart. People are very aware of the score gap between rich schools and poor schools. Despite our awareness, we miss the main point by trying to close the “word gap”. This gap will only grow larger as poor school districts are economically disenfranchised repeatedly,

There is more to the situation than that these students need to work harder and value school more to become successful. One major cause that contributes to perpetuating urban poverty is the lack of funding that the school systems get. Funding for schools is based on property taxes in the area of the school. If a school is in a poor urban community that can not afford to have high property taxes, there is not as much money going to the schools. This means that students may not have access to the same books, computers, and many other materials that are important for a successful learning environment. Poverty in general also affects students achievements academically because these students may have poor nutrition, a lack of housing or a poor housing environment, and overall most likely live in a stressful environment where they have to worry day to day about getting evicted from their homes or not having enough food to eat. All of these things distract from the time that these students could be learning and make for a difficult at home learning environment. In the movie Dangerous Minds, white savior teacher Ms. Johnson tells the students that their success is up to them and that if they want to they can choose to be successful in life. What this movie does not consider is that there are other things holding these students back

Not only are impoverished children suffering from a late start in education, it is known that the neediest schools are the schools who's students are below the poverty line. The students with the greatest needs receive the least funding and resources. In New York the average poor student will receive about $1,000 year in resources at public school; whereas the school's with the least amount of poor children receive around $3,000 per student in public schools. Not necessarily the same number wise but this is the case in at least 37 of our 50 states (Schemo). Inadequate education for impoverished children only worsens their chances of making it out of poverty.

In today’s society it is hard to be a teacher; especially, in a secular school. The students in this setting need Christian teachers more than anything. The children today need to have a teacher that has biblical values and understands just how important it is to live by these values. Before stepping foot into a classroom, a teacher really needs to understand that each child’s worldview will make a difference as to how the teacher leads her instruction and how the students processes the instruction that is given to them. We are there to encourage our students to take a good look at them self and really examine what they believe their worldview is. This being said, we really need to understand what a worldview is, why integrating our worldview into the classroom is so important, what it really means when someone talk about integrating, and how a teacher can begin to develop worldview integrative activities in a secular and Christian school environment.

It's also important for Christians to remember them in prayer. That they may be healed of the emotional scars with which they now suffer. One organization, everyschool.com allows Christians to adopt a high school, committing to personally pray over the kids, teachers and faculty that walk its halls each day.

Introduce them to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit who can empower them to be life changers. There is so much potential in the youth that is being wasted because they aren’t taught how to adequately defend and share their faith. That is why I want to go a faith-based Christian college who are building up leaders. I want to become one of the leaders that drastically reduces this statistic. To become the great leader that I want to be, I am going to need to go to a great Christian college to further my education in the Christian faith. I want to learn how to more effectively build up other Christian leaders. The church is always one generation away from dying out. If there aren’t leaders who can strengthen the youth, the church is in big trouble. If the church is in trouble, the whole world

Children, have always had a special place in my heart. There is something about the glow in a child’s eyes that makes me want to help them in any way I can. I have always heard about God moving in people’s lives, however after babysitting teacher’s children afterschool when I was in elementary school, to helping teaches a little girl we homeschooled a while back, I had not seen Him move that much in the lives of children’s I came in contact with.

When it comes to the education of children, there are numerous fundamental factors, to mention a few: parents, teachers, the student himself, curriculum, methodology, culture, and the Holy Spirit. Students must first take responsibility for their own education and desire to learn. Even though this key educational factor is not a prerequisite for learning, all students must eventually hunger for learning or it will never take root in their lives. Responsible teachers must use responsible materials and methodology in order for purposeful education to have a lasting impact. Teachers must use their divine calling and materials that “are not sugar-coated, censored, vacuous and dry, nor merely politically correct” (Holtrop) to challenge this current generation of students. While secular humanism views children as inherently good, we know that scripture teaches that all mankind to be innately evil, a