Monday's Assignment- Urban, Suburban, and Rural Education in the Media

Movies

URBAN: Dangerous Minds

Dangerous Minds takes place in a high school in urban Los Angeles. It represents the perception of urban education because the movie deals with a lot of the issues that we all referenced on our first day of class like student motivation, self-esteem, under-funding, poverty, gangs, and apathy on the part of most of the educators, with exception to Michelle Pfeifer’s character. The other teachers and the principal in the school system seem to do just the bare minimum to help the students. The students lack motivation and drive to engage in schoolwork and the classroom is rife with behavioral issues and roadblocks that prevent Pfeifer’s character from teaching the class. This movie shapes the perception of education in the urban environment as a situation where the effort is not worth the product, wherein the teacher wants to help a group of students that doesn’t want help. However, by refocusing her efforts, Pfeifer does reach these students, so it does communicate the perception that it is possible to reach students in an urban environment where everything else is against you, but that it is not easy.

SUBURBAN: Mean Girls

This example of suburban teachers, students, and schools is just too good to pass up. There are tons of examples of suburban schools in film, but this film fits the public perception very well in that it encapsulates the influence of cliques, sexual discovery, alcohol, partying and bullying have on the suburban school environment. Education is still enforced, but amid a very tangible social influence. Mean Girls also includes stereotypes like The Math Nerd, the Good Girl, the Jock, the Misfit, the Blonde, the Goth, and the Closeted Gay Teenager all into one film, similar to movies like The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Better Off Dead, and Fast Times At Ridgemont High that started the genre. The perception of suburban schools is perpetuated in Mean Girls because, as far as depicting what it's like to be a girl in high school, it's dead on. It explains and furthers the perception of "girl world" by suggesting that female high schoolers lack confidence, both in schoolwork (as in Lohan's character denying she's a math ace to fit in) and in their ability to stand up to high school cliques who make them feel inferior. It also furthers the perception of suburban teachers and their connection to their jobs by driving home that teachers are members of the community, role models first and real people second. The scene where Lohan and her friends see Tina Fey's character outside of school is hilarious because it's true. Any suburban teacher who has worked in a close knit school system knows how embarrassing and strange it is to run into students OUTSIDE of school. It also furthers the perception that suburban teachers don't make good money and choose a career where they can impact the child, but are berated by their students behind their backs.

RURAL: Dead Poet’s Society

There are other movies that take place at private schools in rural areas, like School Ties, and Outside, Providence. But, Dead Poet’s Society is set in a more rural, New England-type environment where the students have little else to engage them other than difficult schoolwork prescribed by rigid, pompous instructors. Since the environment is so rigid and the rural area is so commonplace that Mr. Keating is a major figure in their lives, perhaps enhancing the perception that rural education lends itself more to actual learning, discussing, and furthering of one's own education because there is less to distract the student like in urban or suburban schools.


Music

URBAN: KRS-ONE and Human Education Against Lies - Heal Yourself

While choosing hip hop is definitely a stereotypical example, I tried to find hip hop music/groups that were preaching change in the educational system and the youth reaction to education and school in general. In the early 90’s, hip hop artists communicated social change by empowering young children and encouraging them to back the best of their surroundings, protect themselves, and get an education. The beginning of the song shapes the common perception of urban education as the first verse is about the availability of drugs in city schools. However, as with film centered on urban education, the main idea of the song is that the teacher and the student can make the best of the environment, especially in MC Lyte and KRS One’s verses below:
In Elementary, Lyte had the Jordache look
Like me and any other kid who cared about books
But then I got wise and I begin to listen
To the wack teachers and the wick-wack system
And there is where I learned black history
And how to be the best that I can be
I went back and now the school is closed
There is nowhere for black youth to go


Human Education Against Lies tries
To open the eyes of humanity before it dies
Black and white ain't the real fight
That's the only thing the media hypes
The real fight are these major corporations
Holding back on real education
Before you're a color, first you're human
Teaching humanity is what we're doing

SUBURBAN: Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall

This song shapes the perception of suburban teachers and students more so than suburban schools. It shapes the perception of suburban students because it could give a window into the opinion of the students, especially when chanting "We don't need no education" and "We don't need no thought control," which is perhaps similar to the apathetic, "so what?" that suburban students have of their teachers in a suburban school. The commonly accepted view by high school age children in that school is a waste of time. This song shapes the perception of suburban teachers during the dialogue at the end of the song (Wrong, do it again, wrong, do it again. If you don't eat your meat,etc.) in that it demonstrates suburban teachers sticklers that tell their students that they can't get good grades without work.

RURAL: Bob Dylan – Blowing In The Wind

Choosing this example is perhaps a bit of a reach as it doesn’t really explain rural education, but to me it communicates how education or “deeper thought” may be conveyed in area devoid of urban examples or urban culture. The perception of rural schools are perhaps seen as more basic and more down-to-earth and simple. Blowin’ In The Wind communicates a way of asking questions that is simple, but open-ended. I guess I see rural teachers and rural students as being similar to the above ideas.

Television

Television

URBAN: Boston Public

Boston Public takes place in an urban,diverse Boston high school and seems to deal with every instance under the sun that stereotypically may occur in a typical high school in an urban setting: violence, trouble makers, disciplinary problems, funding and policy issues, racism, bullying, rape, teenage pregnancy, etc. and therefore fits the public’s perception of what an urban school is like. Furthermore, the viewer sees the teacher’s struggle to fit in, adjust, and do their job as well as the student’s. This fits the public perception that teaching in an urban environment is difficult and the actual teaching and learning are displaced by these other issues.

SUBURBAN: The Secret Life of the American Teenager

The Secret Life of the American Teenager reinforces similar perceptions of suburban schools, teachers, and students as in Mean Girls. The plot of the show centers around a young girl who finds out she is pregnant. It reinforces the perception that suburban youth get a good education, are taught by passionate teachers, and have more resources available to them than students in an urban environment, but perhaps occasionally fall short in common sense. The show also includes aspects of suburban schools like the prevalence of sex and peer pressure, divorce, and the stress of being popular or in an "in" crowd.

RURAL : High School Confidential
High School Confidential, while essentially a reality show that follows 12 girls through high school, depicts rural education in Overland Park, Kansas. It definitely accurately depicts students growing up in a rural environment. The female students struggle with the same issues that suburban female students do. However, often times, the girls describe their towns as desolate and boring, which may or may not fuel their interest in anything that isn’t ordinary. It seems like a few of the “characters” are either stuck in a rut in their education or starved for more. The teachers in the show shape perceptions of rural education in that, though not directly interviewed, they are similar to what you would find in a rural environment in that they have been a part of the faculty, every student has had experience in a classroom setting with these teachers, and they appear to teach across the curriculum, as there seems to be little underlying issues that would cause them to change their teaching methods. The females pictured on the show also seem to fit “rural” stereotypes: Jessi, the Christian girl who survives a miscarriage, Sara, who gets married during her senior year, and other students who get pregnant during the course of the show. This show may reinforce the perception that students in rural schools don't get a quality education or access to sex education classes.

(http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2008-03-09-high-school confidential_N.htm)

News

URBAN: Monitor on Psychology: Desegregating Urban Schools
(http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep04/urban.html)

The first quote of this article furthers the common perceptions of urban schools: "Urban schools, attended by mostly low-income black and Latino students, continue to lag behind suburban, mostly middle- and high-income white schools in student achievement, studies show." The article calls for "more contextural evidence" that looks at student's lives, yet the beginning of the article establishes the perception that race is a major issue in urban schools as well as one that contributes to a majority of the problems of urban schools. The article suggests that teachers have to have an understanding of urban life to teach effectively, furthering the perception that teachers have difficulty reaching a diverse group of students.

SUBURBAN: NJ.com: 2 Suburban Schools Refuse Trips to Newark for football
(http://www.nj.com/newark/index.ssf/2008/10/2_suburban_schools_refuse_trip.html)

This article fuels the perception that suburban schools and their administration don't want to mix together with students and teachers from urban environments because they fear violence. This goes along with the idea that suburban schools do not have the same or similar issues that urban schools have and are "above" them. It also continues the perception that the students aren't tempted to join gangs or do things to fit in and that violence is not an issue within suburban high schools, even though more recent school shootings occurred in the suburban environments.

RURAL: Weak Economy Threatens Rural Schools
(http://www.truthout.org/012209EDA)

This article communicates the plight of rural schools to stay afloat in an economic crisis. It also furthers the perception that rural schools don't offer as comprehensive of an education as suburban schools while completely ignoring reasons why parents may choose to enroll their students at small, rural schools where they can individual attention. This article communicates the struggle of the small rural school and furthers the perception that rural schools don't have the same resources as suburban schools. It also reinforces the perception that rural schools aren't as important. Most people would choose to work in urban or suburban environments and ignore the benefits of rural schools entirely due to salary or location.