Extra Cred- The Class

Students and Teachers have different agendas when going to school. The problem seems to arise when the teacher's agenda clashes with the students. The students at 14 and 15 are trying to find out who they are. But everyone is trying to protect their egos, the roles that they have made for themselves and when they feel that being threatened or challenged they lash out to protect the persona they've developed. The teachers are like the judges and give commentary on the students on what they have to work on and its only one way in the film. The school wants discipline, the teacher wants respect, and the students want their respect as well as the respect of their peers, but the teacher doesn't really give respect to the students. Maybe because his role as a teacher places him as a higher authority and because his goal is to "tame" the students. He thinks that he needs to teach them but only views it as a one way thing. Its like when he called the girls skanks he defends himself and tries to say he didn't say it like that because it looks bad for his ego.

"Teachers can complain about us and vise versa, right?"
"No, It doesn't work both ways."

It seems a bit hypothecritical to me and in Mr. Marin's mind, it shows where the distribution of power is in school. So it kind of culminates in resentment from the students because they're kind of looked down upon, they're not treated as equals. Its always a power struggle between the students and the teachers. Thats because the students know that their role in the system is very little and they try to get power in any form they can. "It's always the same" and they know that any form of power given to them by the system is a facade because they can't really do anything with it.

"Whenever we talk, you yell."

I think that's because Marin feels threatened when the students have a voice cause he's afraid that means he has less of one. The students need to respect the teachers but the same doesn't hold true in the system for the teachers, and the students lash out to have some semblence of power (like the beginning of the film with Khoumba and Mr. Marin and Khoumba leaves him a letter saying that). I think that's the basis of it, or at least part of it. The idealistic approach would address this, to start from treating the students as individuals and respecting them as one. Maybe its still possible to have discipline without looking down on the students and the students will reciprocate that respect. Part of it is listening the students and of course the same goes for students. Just go from there.

I think the teachers do want to help the students because at the end with Souleymane, Mr. Marin is trying not to get the disciplinary hearing, the route they usually take, which 12/12 will leads to an expulsion because he doesn't want to risk Souleymane being sent back to Mali. Everyone's human and everyone makes mistakes, so I think that Souleymane should be held accountable but at the same time Mr. Marin trying to help him is right too because it might be in his power to do so. We always have to try, or attempt to so even if it doesn't work out, we know we did try to do something and made an effort.