A Shove – Gentle and In the Right Direction, of Course.
The school sat in extreme disrepair. Walls were marked by graffiti and halls ran by drug dealers with brutal efficiency made the school seem more like a battle zone than one that’s purpose was to educate the children of East Side High. The school was on the verge of being taken by the state and the students needed a miracle. Luckily enough for them, that miracle arrived in the form of Joe Clark, who went in and took care of business and along the way, taught life lessons and learned a few him self. In the movie, Lean on Me, Principal Clark delivers a heartfelt speech that motivated the students in such a manner that the percentage of passing students would rise enough to meet the standard
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75% of the student body needed to show that they were in possession of basic skills. In the scene of the movie that I have chosen, Clark is giving a speech to the student body that will be taking a very important test in an hour. The state of the school is resting on the results from that particular test. Previously, only 33% had been able to show a satisfactory score on the exam. Clark, the principal played by Morgan Freeman, had somewhat given up on the student body and the school itself in the past. 20 years beforehand, he had been a teacher there at that very school. The faculty had been in the process of seeking a higher salary. His colleagues negotiated to have a higher pay raise but they had to go along with the transfer of Clark to another school in the district. See, he was too radical for what was then, a school that exceeded all expectation academically and happened to be predominately white. Oddly enough, it was those very same colleagues that sold him out, that were in need of his expertise and help this time. Mr. Clark had gained a formidable reputation as possessing the talent to get things in order and making it so that they stayed that way. He weeded through the students that were not at the school to procure their education. Those that were left were serious about doing their best. Some were hungry for a little direction and guidance. Some had parents or a parent that also needed help getting their life on track. His words and actions affected many people in this movie. Principal Clark went on to use ethos and logos very effectively and roused the student body’s morale such much so that they would do their very best on the very important exam, which would determine the future of their school. This would doubtlessly go on and
Surprisingly, Blackfish is more Pathos while Race to Nowhere is Ethos. Blackfish highlights pathos by makings us feel emotions for the whales in captivity. As Race to Nowhere highlights ethos by giving us facts on how horrible school assignments are and how stressful they can really be. Proving that both films present a way of hooking us in by the lighting, the music and color, and our thoughts and feelings. Pathos is used in blackfish to make us feel sorry for the orcas.
When Mr. Clark originally taught at Eastside High School, the culture seemed very competitive and full of high standards. The students seemed very eager to learn and at a pretty high level for their age. Twenty years later, the culture flips dramatically. The school quickly goes from pristine to a graffiti-infested playground. The teachers are the prey and the students (mainly the ‘hoodlums’) pretty much do as they please. Education is a small goal for any of the students, and the students that do want to do well fear those “hoodlums.” Mr. Clark identifies this immediately when returning to Eastside High. During his first assembly, Mr. Clark let the entire school know that he was the HNIC. He gathered up all the trouble makers and sent them home, expelling them from school. Most were drug dealers, 5th year students, or drug abusers that were dulling the spark of the other students.
Crazy Joe, the man who had changed the lives of both the students and the teachers of Eastside High School against all odds. Chaining up doors, calling out teachers, and show both teachers and students who’s in charge, even though he uses military-like teaching methods, Joe Clark was able to flip the school upside down transforming both students and staff into people to look up to. On arriving at the school Joe Clark had found out that this school was in dire need of change from both the students and staff in which he had decided to use unorthodox methods to change the school. Being set on changing East Side High School from a school full of drug dealers and miscreants, Joe Clark had used methods of discipline in the right
Clark continues to empower and motivate the students with- “You are NOT inferior! [pause] Your grades may be. [pause] You school may have been. [pause] But YOU can turn that around and make liars out of those bastards in exactly one hour when you take that test and pass it and WIN!” Not only his words, but his voice inflections are inspiring. The use of foul language in his speech proves to the students that he does not view them as children, but as young men and women that can handle such language and honesty. This was not a speech read from an outline; Clark spoke from the heart with stern honesty. He had already won over the school which provided
Clark frequently uses his position as school principal to convince the students and teachers to work hard. In his first speech, he starts it by telling the students to behave and put down their cigarettes. This would establish his authority as the principal. His audience would then listen to him more because he has established his authority as the head of the school, which is someone that everyone would respect and obey. Clark also uses ethos when he instructs the teachers to set up extra reading courses on Saturday. When a teacher asks how that will be done, Clark instructs them to come in to the student’s homes and get their parents to let their children come, or even come with them. By solving the problem and giving a clear plan of what to do, Clark would show he is someone who knows what he is doing. People usually follow the instructions of qualified people, and the Eastside High teachers and students are no different. They would listen to Clark’s calls on what to do and to work harder because they know he sees the big picture and knows what everyone should do. Finally, Clark throughout all his speeches frequently brings up the fact that the students will end up failing and locked out of the American dream if they do not put in effort to succeed. In those moments, Clark shows that he is someone who knows a lot about life. A person who has experience about life choices would be a person that people would listen to for advice on decisions and
In the movie Lean On Me, Joe Clark persuades the staff and students that hard work is necessary in order to be successful through the use of ethos, logos and pathos.
Not only has the increased amount of testing placed enormous pressure on teachers to perform, but on students as well; the pressure to do well on these assessments is causes young students to suffer from anxiety and stress. Brookside Elementary School in Norwalk, Conn., was just one of the thousands of American public schools classified as failing during the 2010-2011 school year, according to their standardized test scores (Berger). In "Raising the Curve: A Year Inside One of America’s 45,000 Failing Public Schools”, Ron Berler, a journalist who has written for The New York Times and Chicago Tribune, documents the year he spent observing students and educators at Brookside as they struggled to meet the demands of No Child Left Behind. “The
Another way that Joe Clark motivated the students and staff of Eastside to work harder is by using the appeal of Logos, or statistics and logic. A powerful example of when Mr. Clark used logos is when he had a meeting with all of the staff and made 70% of them put their hands up to signify the 70% of students who failed the exam. This really made the staff really think that they can make a big difference in these kids’ lives. Another example of when Joe Clark used logos to get the students motivated is when he made a speech before they took the exam. He made the
In the film "Lean on Me", Joe Clark, a fictional version of the real Mr. Clark who was the principal at an inner-city high school in Paterson, New Jersey, is the ultimate example of an authoritarian leader. In the movie, Clark approaches his job at a decaying academic setting with single-minded goals: to clean up the school, physically and academically, in order to help the students who have potential to graduate and to get rid of the ones who are destined to fail, according to his perceptions. Clark 's leadership style has been both widely praised as successful and a model for similar such schools, and has also been criticized for its bullying tactics. This paper will discuss Clark 's methods of leadership, his style and tactics as
On the other hand, there is an argument that the education system provides positive qualities. Some students are actually improving in the classroom and on standardized tests. In her book, Christina Fisanick found that “In Wisconsin, 87 percent of third-graders were reading at grade-level or above. This number was an all-time high, and a 13 percent increase over 2002 scores” (Fisanick, 17). Success for all is one of many purposes that come from the educational system. An education reform named No Child Left Behind signed in January of 2002 was to make sure all students were given the chance to improve. In other words, this act made educators work even harder to make sure all students were moving on and that no child was being left
In this case and in the past the people who fit that rank were that majority. Any minority group always was put in the schools that didn’t necessarily care about the wellbeing of students. And as time went on the proverbial “achievement gap” has greatly widened between the majority and minority. Nobody realizes or knows when exactly this gap began to surface or how it even did, but people do know that it is apparent. Whether it is putting the worst schools in the district where crime and violence is greater, or making all the students in one school have to use old materials. The government put the wrong people to run education in charge and everybody must cope with the fact that without a monumental change this will be the norm from now on. It is a known fact that if a student is surrounded by new material such as classrooms, textbooks, clean environment etc, they will want to do better for themselves. Later on in the article Gatto then goes on to explain his next lesson, emotional dependency. What he is saying is that without any internal motivation he feels students will never get the intrinsic gratification that they should be gaining. The certain teacher will always give sometime of incentive such as a good grade or a gift or something to the student and the student never gets the urge to work unless there is some sort of material gratification. With this in
On the other hand, there is an argument that the education system provides positive qualities. Some students are actually improving in the classroom and on standardized tests. In her book, Christina Fisanick found that “In Wisconsin, 87 percent of third-graders were reading at grade-level or above. This number was an all-time high, and a 13 percent increase over 2002 scores” (Fisanick 17). Success for all is one of many purposes that come from the educational system. An education reform named No Child Left Behind signed in January of 2002 was to make sure all students were given the chance to improve. In other words, this act made educators work even harder to make sure all students were moving on and that no child was being left behind. If a parent or guardian is unsatisfied or
The documentary Waiting for Superman uses several rhetorical strategies and appeals in order to effectively get its purpose across to the audience. The purpose of the documentary is to persuade people that public schools must be changed drastically for the better. Which would ensure that a multitude of students, if not all students, would be given better chances to succeed in life at the correct and required academic levels. This message is efficaciously relayed to the audience, which is comprised of anyone who is part of the school system, whether that be parents, students, principals, superintendents, presidents, or anyone else who can and is willing to make an effective change to the school system. The message delivered in the film is very
For some students, even though they can get high scores in exam, but that’s all they can do. They just memorize the solution and don’t try to understand and absorb the real knowledge behind the exam, for these kinds of students we can’t say that their teachers do well. Comparing with this, some students have really penetrating understanding to the knowledge, their know how to use them even though it can’t reflect on their exam scores sometimes, but their teachers still deserve higher paid. There is no doubt that we can’t tolerate keeping low-performing teachers in classrooms because it hurts everyone, but the method used to evaluate teacher performance should be sophisticated enough to consider all factors that can affect a child’s success in classroom before they can be used to as a standard to punish or award teachers. Chicago strike also evokes a debate toward salary problem. Chicago teachers have the highest average salary of any city at $76,000 a year before benefits, compared with the median household income in Chicago is $46,000 (BBC News: para 4). So many people couldn’t understand that teachers rejected a 16 percent salary increase when most occupations are not getting and raises and many people are under unemployment. There are two reasons that CTU still raise salary debate even though teachers already get enough paid. Firstly, CTU considered the law aspect. According to Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act, it is illegal for teachers to strike on all
The next school to present was Floyd C. Fretz Middle School by their principles Mrs. Slaven and Mrs Signor. Overall, Fretz scored an 84.5%. Looking over the information they received from the state, they concluded that the math program was doing well. Mrs. Slaved credited the students for their hard work. In addition to crediting the students, the principle said that the teachers have implemented a new program called HERE. HERE is a program where a teacher “adopts” a student and mentors them whether it is to improve academically or socially. The staff at Fretz feels the program works well with students who are at risk but does not do much for the advanced students. In class we discussed that middle school is a challenging time period for adolescence. I think the program they have implemented will help to greatly ease the challenges students face. In class we