"The Class" is a wonderful, true lesson of expectations

A year in the life of a French teacher and her diverse group of students.



"The Class," the wonderful story of Paris classroom that won the Palme d'Or in Cannes last year, has a different title at home. In France, it is called "Between the Walls", suggesting the pressure within the environment that Mr. Marin (François Bégaudeau) tries to teach his unruly, diverse students.

It also means that educators believe they can close students of the society in general. Director Laurent Cantet's film is a subtle lesson in the true development of more realistic expectations.

After a quick gulp of coffee, Marin begins the first day of the semester, breaking the ice with his new crop of 13 years of age, and interactions are not brilliantly. Children do not accept their authority, mulishly resist his efforts to draw them with questions. Marin, the job is to teach children of various French, but also to socialize at the established culture.

Many of them are not having it. One wonders if gay Marin. Answer "no" and tries to turn the joke at a time to teach the lesson but died in the air. When you write the grammar lessons on the blackboard, using the traditional names, a student asked why his choice of "Whitey names." Marin said that if they use names that represent each fund in the class "that would never end."

A good point, but Marin normal vision of French identity is out of sync with the ethnic, religious and economic life of their students. Children are really outlined. They can be rude, but actions are not juvenile delinquents. Everyone has problems at home that affect them in class, parents who expect perfection academic problems with immigration authorities.