Illumination

Ideological Criticism - Final Project

INTRODUCTION

            Everyone always has a choice; too many don’t recognize that fact.  In this artifact these students deserve the chance to reach their greatest potential, if they choose correctly.   However, to select the preeminent path requires knowledge, which is often derived through formal education.

            I believe the greatest asset for a child is a dedicated parent(s) that has unending vision and purpose to instill knowledge.   In today’s society, with single parent households, working parents, language challenges, ethnic diversities, often staggering economic disparity; a passionate teacher may be the only lifeline for a child’s basic survival or chance to find knowledge and real purpose in life.  The parental, academic, and social hegemony that governs youth ideology, must work in harmony for a youth today to succeed. 

            In the late 1960’s I attended three high schools in California.  LA High School, which was over ninety-percent minority, mostly African American, then Fairfax High School, with an over ninety-nine percent student body of the Jewish faith, and finally University High School, which was a conglomerate of all ethnicities California had to offer, as well as diverse social economic conditions.  Some students arrived by chauffeured driven limousines, some drove Corvettes, while others were bused in from outlying ghettoes.   My view of the challenges faced by students to achieve an education has been diverse and extensive.  The 1960’s was also the preamble for rebellion against most forms of organized hegemonic ideology and the inauguration of social freedom and independence.

            In 1984 my first child was lottery selected to be bused thirty minutes away to Carson Elementary to start kindergarten.  A school located in a low-income Hispanic community that I would not let my wife drive through even during daylight hours.   Not because of prejudice, but because of safety and common sense.  Whereas a perfect school I had selected for my child was only one block away from my home, my son was commanded to be bused to Carson City, California.  I fought and lost a battle with the State of California over this issue.  So before school started I uprooted our lives and moved my family to Utah.  I exercised a choice.

            I have observed throughout life the inequality of ethnic and social injustices, without finding many solutions.   The one elucidation I have come to know is the only semblance of equality lies in knowledge, but that simply becomes a catch phrase for education.  Education is not enlightenment.  Enlightenment is when someone “gets it” for themselves.  Enlightenment is when they discover a purpose and drive to reach their own potential to deduce unique choices.   That is a time when a parent, or more likely a teacher, has turned on the light of illumination in the mind of a person where they can see choices or a future beyond their own existence, often for the first time.

            In this artifact, a vignette of the movie Dangerous Minds, I propose this teacher, Miss Johnson, stumbles on a way to illuminate student paradigms, providing a gateway to overcome their ethnic, geographic and/or social hegemonic conditions.   

INTERPRETATION & CONTEXT

          Dangerous Minds is a movie based on the novel My Posse Don’t Do Homework, by LouAnne Johnson (http://www.louannejohnson.com/bio.htm).  The movie is a rendition of Miss Johnson’s life during her tenure as a teacher at Carlmont High School, located in northern California in the early 1990’s.  Johnson was a former Navy journalist and Marine Corps Officer who uses her education and experiences to teach high school subjects to bused-in-minorities, mostly Hispanic and African-American students.   She attempts to open stubborn minds in this artifact.

            Since the 1960’s when bussing students in California became one solution to equalizing education throughout the state, many successes and failures occurred.  There are still questions today as to the effectiveness of bussing students to other schools.  This artifact exposes the audience to a conversation between a dedicated teacher and, what many would call, typical students in the challenge of enlightening closed minds.  

            From a physical and temporal aspect, since all students are co-mingled together in a common institution, it should represent equality for all.  However, if students are classified by ethnicity, ability, or some other classification within sub-groups for class structure, then this equality is lost.  Are students really homogenized just because of physical location or temporal conditions?  If oil and water never mix, but are within the same container, do they become one?  The answer, of course, is no.  Therefore, the question that should be asked is how you can equalize the learning process for all students, if not by equal opportunity through location.

            One answer is to throw more money at the education system, to create equality.   Yet, money does not address the psychological and cultural differences between the students.  How does an educational system address the students that have been bused from poverty into temporary prosperity for a few hours and told to learn like the wealthy kids, then bused back to poverty, gangs, drugs and despair for the majority of their day?  The mental conflicts would overwhelm the most stable individual. 

            There are two elements to this artifact we’ll explore in this rhetorical analysis.  First, we will look at the students and their perceptions of why they are attending this high school.  The artifact suggests they are there because they have no other choice.  Many, if not all, really don’t want to be there nor want to engage in the process of learning.  Observe their non-verbal communication in class of twirling a pen, sitting on desks or with bowed heads.  In fact, the students have a grievance with the second element to this artifact, the teacher Miss Johnson.   They believe she ratted-out one of their own fellow students, and for that treachery she will receive only disrespect. 

            Miss Johnson is there because she wants to make a difference, but can she relate to students from a totally different ethnic and socially-economic background.  If she can overcome this obstacle, she still must learn how to reach the minds of these students.   Miss Johnson introduces a poem with lyrics that might as well be Greek to this class.   Initially, it is not the words of the poem that creates the learning experience; it is the conflict between these two cultures.   The fact that Miss Johnson is thought to have ratted one of their fellow classmates, has created a teaching opportunity for enlightenment.   That event isn’t the issue; it is the circumstances of the students’ ideologies preventing the learning process.  The students vent and the teacher challenges, “Then leave… There are no victims in this class room!”  Instead of leaving, they are enlightened.

            So what then is accomplished in this classroom?  Through this rhetorical analysis can we establish what parts of this artifact were effective and why.  If we discover the impetus of success in this artifact, we might have a tool for other similar situations. 

DESCRIPTION OF ANALYSIS

            This artifact is well suited for a hegemonic ideological analysis.  There are many hegemony forces in play affecting the students’ ability to independently learn and develop rational thoughts.  There are distinct elements within this artifact affecting the students’ outcome, the school system, teacher, and foremost the student with their own hegemony paradigms from parents, gangs, peers and society.   Hegemonic ideoloy defines the power and advantages enjoyed by one group of people over another group.  This usually is a result of social or economic dominance and or coercion over a less powerful faction, which helps us to understand why groups function in certain ways. 

             The concept of hegemony was postulated by the Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci in the 20^th-century.    His theory of cultural hegemony is that one social class can dominate over another diverse group through the manipulation of that group’s values, perceptions and beliefs, whereby that ideology becomes the norm in that society, to the benefit to the ruling class.  In this artifact we will primarily focus on the hegemony that affects the students’ ability to learn and think for themselves. 

FINDINGS & ANALYSIS

          Hegemony says that one group, by their own self election, has power to coerce another groups ideology, most often through social controls.   This is at the core of the students in Miss Johnson’s class, and what I believe this artifact is portraying.

 

            These minority students from birth have been told by one group or another exactly what to do, and what the consequences are if they don’t.   Parental hegemony is telling these kids to ignore the street gangs, the drug dealers and pimps.  Get an education and get out of this ghetto condition and make something of their life.  Gang hegemony is telling these kids go ahead and try to escape, but you’ll be back because this is the only way to survive when society knocks you down.  Societal hegemony tells them they will do everything possible to make a bridge for them to escape; they will provide busses to good schools, with great teachers who care, so they can learn the skills to elevate themselves. 

 

            What they think is reality sets in, when they assume Miss Johnson has ratted out a classmate.  Sitting there in self-pity for what life is really about, the hegemony of their street life foretold what is happening.  No matter what they do, getting up early to catch the bus really doesn’t make any difference, they have no choice.   The ideology established by their surroundings at home, in their real world, always takes precedent.

 

            Without the challenge by Miss Johnson “Well, if you all feel that strongly about it, leave the room,” some might not have gotten on the bus the next day.  Thus, making a choice they didn’t know they could, yet not understanding that choice is always an option. 

 

            Hegemonic control is so strong it causes people to ignore the choices that are readily in front of them.  This peer-pressure dictates our actions to the point where we stop thinking and analyzing our options. 

 

            What is fundamental in this artifact is that Miss Johnson also represents the hegemony group known as educators.  It is in her interest, and her group’s interest, to coerce these same students to her agenda of opening the doors of enlightenment.  She wants these students to break away from the street gangs hegemonic bonds tying these kids to future poverty and less productive lives.   She opens their eyes when she states, “What do they choose to do?”  Miss Johnson explains simply they have a choice to get on the bus, come to school and learn or stay home and sell drugs and kill people, but it is a choice.

 

            The moment I found most profound is when one student asks, “Read it again.”  That student had just made a decision to really try and understand a different perspective from an opposing faction to his normal core.  In that instant while analyzing that phrase from a poem, the synapses took place where neurons fired in his brain for the first time that opened new roadways of never before conjured thoughts.  That was the initial spark, in this class, for further enlightenment.   A switch had been turned-on in darkness, thus light could flow to see new paths for these students.   This group had broken hegemonic chains, and was on a path to illumination.

          They could choose for themselves, “When I go to my grave… My head will be high.”  As one student surmise, by making your own choices, “You’re gonna die with pride.”
 

            I wonder if in this class is a future President like Barrack Obama, someone who has been enlightened to his own potential, an individual that has escaped the hegemonic dominance of oppressive groups that might someday rise to the highest stature in this land.   If a single spark can start a forest fire, can a single neuron ignite a brilliant mind? 

INSIGHTS

          America is deteriorating in its responsibility to adequately educate our young people and preparing them for the future.  There is significant evidence that families in the worst economic conditions, along with many minorities, often face the worst challenges when it comes to securing an acceptable education.  Sadly, this isn’t a money issue.  As a nation we have substantially increased funds to education, yet the rewards for that investment fail to show significant results.

            I believe this artifact demonstrates for education to succeed, the student must have a dynamic reason to learn.  Someone has to turn on their lights.  This someone is a teacher.  It takes a passionate effective educator with intuitive perception to break barriers in these difficult teaching situations.  The wisdom offered by this analysis is that, illumination of a student’s mind is not about money, location, administration, facilities, or programs; it is about connecting and effective communication that stimulates student thought.  Granted, these other issues have purpose and necessity, but the true value of an education is solely in the hands of the student and the teacher.  Without focus by either, enlightenment will never occur.   That puts a great burden upon the shoulders of every teacher, for they must supply the spark to ignite students.

            Miss Johnson stated she does not teach for the money.  Therefore, the question for society is to find out what ignites a teacher and motivates them to achieve this kind of success in the classroom.  This artifact has shown how motivation and enlightenment works for students even under adverse conditions.  One nugget of wisdom left to discover in the future is what will motivate teachers not to give up that inner spark that brought them to this career.  What makes some teachers rise to this level of accomplishment?  Can we as a society look beyond the traditional solutions for education of throwing more money, programs and administration at this bottomless pit, and discover what motivates a Miss Johnson or simply how to hire more just like her. 

            This artifact took place over twenty years ago, and the challenges today are even greater.  In these cyberspace times with internet, I-pads, cell phones, and facebook, without question a new cyber hegemony has been created.  We need more than just teachers today; we must find passionate motivational educational entertainers.  The future will require “Edutainers” for teachers if we are to break through and illuminate students.    

 

Words to the script for this segment of the movie:  

Color Codes for Script:

Words of the poem

Miss Johnson (Michelle Phiffer) speaking

Students speaking

Illumination

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"I will not go down underground because somebody tells me that death's comin round"
Okay, this is another Dylan poem.
Now, is that a code, or does that just mean what it says?
"And I will not carry myself down to die
When I go to my grave my head will be high"
"My head will be high."
What does that mean?
Anybody
Nobody
Is there something I should know?

Yeah. I'll tell you.

You ratted on Raul, Gusmaro and Emilio.
Yeah. You got Emilio put into detention.
It wasn't none of your business, chismosa,
And you got Rauland, Gusmaro suspended.
Now they're gonna get their fuckin' asses kicked.
And you got Emilio

Hey, I didn't rat on anybody.

Wasn't none of your business anyway, you chismosa.

Bullshit.
Let this..
Told you she was full of shit.
Snitches get stitches, bitch.

Do you wanna talk about this?

 On you, shit.

Whatever floats your boat, teach.
We don't have no choices in this room.

Well, if you all feel that strongly about it, leave the room.

What?
Hey, listen.
Nobody's forcing you to be here.
You have a choice.
You can stay, or you can leave.

Lady, why are you playin' this game?

We don't have a choice.

You don't have a choice?
You don't have a choice on whether or not you're here?

No. lf we leave, we don't get to graduate.

If we stay, we gotta put up with you.

Well, that's a choice, isn't it?

You have a choice.
You either don't graduate or you have to put up with me.
It may not be a choice you like, but it is a choice.

Man, you don't understand nothing.

I mean, you don't come from where we live.
You-You're not bussed here.

 Do you have a choice to get on that bus?

Man, you come and live in my neighborhood for one week and then you tell me if you got a choice.

There are a lot of people who live in your neighborhood who choose not to get on that bus.

What do they choose to do?
They choose to go out and sell drugs.
They choose to go out and kill people.
They choose to do a lot of other things.
But they choose not to get on that bus.
The people who choose to get on that bus, which are you, are the people who are saying, "I will not carry myself down to die… When I go to my grave… My head will be high"
That is a choice.
There are no victims in this class room!

Why do you care anyway?

You just here for the money.

Because I make a choice to care.

And, honey, the money ain't that good.

Whatever.

Read it again, Miss Johnson.

What? 

Read those lines you just read again.

 "I will not go down underground... Because somebody tells me that death's comin' 'round"

Does that mean just what it says?

No, it don't mean just what it says.
Because you wouldn't go under the ground if someone told you death was comin'.
But you would go into the ground if you were already dead.

Do the rest of you agree with that?

Well, I kinda agree with it, but I think it just means that he ain't gonna help death out, you know?

It's not like he's just gonna lay down and wait for it.
I think he's gonna choose- No, I think he's gonna make the choice to die hard.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I agree with that.
Yeah, me too.
That's what it sounds like to me.

Okay.

Well, what about, uh, the rest of it?
Um "When I go to my grave… My head will be high"
"Head will be high."  What does that mean?

You're gonna die with pride.

Right?



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