the necessity of experimentation

The school’s experimentation with an all male first grade class is very interesting. The first thing that strikes me is that the class is designed only for boys. I believe there is a lot of value in that, particularly when it comes to discussing and learning life issues and matters related to their experience and environment. If many of these young men come from single parent homes, which I assume for the majority of the cases is a single mother, having a role model and mentor, one that you stick with for several years as these children will do, is incredibly value. Also, males often act different among females and I think this is true even at a young age. As we see, the class takes on a Freirian critical pedagogy when a comment that a student makes is turned into a discussion and probing of the tenets of racism and behavior, of being black in a white America. Rather than taking the experiences of these kids and shunning them or blowing them off, these issues become the central concern of the class for a segment and the teacher guides and facilitates a discussion. For some reason, this class is well-behaved in both segments of the film in which they appear. Is this skillful editing or is there an incredible respect for the teacher, a black man from the community (I assume this from when he says he group up with one of the child’s family) who shows them love and helps build their self-esteem. When it is stated that this class had some of the best test scores, I wonder why such an experiment is not expanded and more classrooms take on such a design. I don’t think that the real issue is a lack of financial assistance as much as being stuck in a schooling structure that waits for no one, that leaves many children behind with no hope. If we take an approach to learning from Vygotsky and Berger and Luckman, we could say that these students are bringing a wealth of habits and experiences that shape their reality into the schools for which they are punished for. A useful education demands a new structure if we view learning from this angle and schooling not as a place to instill discipline in the manner Foucault describes.