The Class

I believe that there was some learning going on in the class, but much of it was being interrupted or disturbed because of the methods being used and the relationship between the students and/or the teacher. I feel the variety of cultures and the cultural clashes that occurred within the class were some major reasons the learning was constrained. The teacher, Francois, came from a different cultural background than many of his students, and the students came from a variety of backgrounds themselves.

One of the first times I noticed this conflict was when Francois wrote a sentence using the name ‘Bill’, and Khoumba and Esmeralda asked why the teacher always chose ‘honky’ names. I believe that even though the girls used a somewhat disrespectful tone towards the teacher, it was good for them to point out that they did not feel represented in any of the examples he offered the class. I believe this situation ended up constraining the learning process when Francois said something like  ‘the process would be never-ending if we had to consider names from everyone’s culture’. While Francois thought he was acting neutrally by using names he felt were common, he was actually exhibiting ethnocentric tendencies by using names which are primarily Anglo. His response showed the class that he was unable to see from their point of view or understand the significance of their cultures.

I also saw the significance of culture in Wei’s story. In one scene, Wei discussed how young people don’t have any shame anymore. The way he spoke and thought about shame reminded me of many of my friends who come from Chinese or other Asian backgrounds, except that many of my friends don’t necessarily agree with their parent’s perspectives. Many Asian cultures emphasize characteristics such as humility much more then Western cultures do. The other students’ responses within this scene seemed to show how Wei’s cultural beliefs might be a reason for him to be made an outcast or be made fun of by the other students.

Wei’s cultural differences were also made apparent when he read a portion of his self-portrait. He said that he did not have strong French skills, which made it difficult for him to communicate with others; because he could not communicate with his peers, he spent much of his time alone, playing video games. Language is such a significant part of a culture, that because Wei did not feel he could use the French language proficiently, he seemed to feel ostracized from the culture as well.

I feel that Wei’s learning experience was constrained because he was put into an environment where his culture wasn’t respected which made it difficult to respect or be interested in the cultures of others. While Wei was always described as and intelligent and strong academic student, learning was made more difficult for him because of the cultural differences he had to face.
I believe that this disrespect for culture interrupting the learning process can be said for many (if not all) the students in the class.  Consider the boy who wrote his self-portrait on being 'goth' and the constant jeering and taunting he had to face, or the moment when one of the boys referred to Carl as a "Caribbean fag", or the heated debate regarding the Moroccan and Mali soccer teams. Students were being labeled by their cultural differences in all of these instances, and these labels often lead to conflicts and/or segregation. Due to this constant fear of being berated, students were unable to feel comfortable in their learning environment, and thus the learning process was constrained.