My five examples of how Chalk ......

My five examples of how chalk illustrates the charges Freire, Gatto level against education.

1. The student-teacher relationship: In the film Chalk, Mr. Lowery is a new teacher, his subject history. He has no connection with his students and does not begin to connect until the end of school. He also has no passion for history. Passion is what gives us our drive and enthusiasm, which then gets passed on to our students. Freire talks about this extensively in Chapter 2 of his book "The Banking Concept". The first five paragraphs of this chapter really describe this school very well. Especially the first line of the second paragraph "The teacher talks about reality as it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable". This statement reminds me of Mr. Lowery in almost every scene before spring break.
2. Gatto talks about boredom a lot in his article "Against School: How Public Education Cripples our kids, and why".  In the second paragraph of Gatto's article he states "Boredom is the common condition of school teachers". This school represented in the mockumentary, Chalk, was boring from the Principal down, everything about it was boring. The teachers rarely asked the students what their interest were or picked subjects that would peak their interest. For example: when the gym teacher, coach Webb, had her students doing yoga in what looked like a closet or cramped hallway. Yoga might be great stretching technique after a fun activity or before, and in the gym or outside, not in a cramped room.
3. Coach Webb had a very controlling nature about her. She was a person who played by the book and followed the rules. in one scene a student was a few seconds late and the teacher did not discipline him for this action. Coach Webb is the hall monitor and felt that the teachers were setting a bad example and should follow the rules. I thought it connected with the Gatto's "The reason for school" a)To make good people. b)To make good citizens. c)To make each person his or her personal best.
4. Problem-posing method: I thought the scene in the end when Mr. Lowery was rapping with the kids was a great example of this. Freire states that "Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with student-teachers."  Freire goes on to state that "The teacher no longer merely the one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who is in turn teach while being taught". This is a perfect example of this process.
5. The banking process: This process was presented quite often through the movie. For example how Mr. Lowery would write everything on the bored and then had the kids read it with him.