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Fear And Learning At Hoover Elementary: Film Analysis

Decent Essays

The film Fear and Learning at Hoover Elementary had a large impact on myself for several reasons. The first was the scene in which the children were debating with the librarian over the increase of trash on the street in the city of Los Angeles. This scene stood out for the reason that the children while quite younger than the elderly gentleman were willing to stand their ground in defense of fact that they themselves as well as their fellow immigrants were not responsible for this trash problem as the elderly gentleman had so blatantly suggested. The reason this stood out so much is due to my own experience in low income childhood. There was always a very clear divide between child and adult and it was not common for a child to be able to …show more content…

The film does a great job of portraying the complexity of the situation by comparing two teachers that work at Hoover, Third-grade teacher Dianne Lee and First-grade teacher Arcelia Hernandez whose approach towards ELL students differs tremendously. Dianne Lee takes the English only approach with her students, hoping they will learn the language through immersion. Dianne is approaching her students in a way that is forcing them to give up their culture, even quoted saying “to become American, you have to be willing to give something up” pointing to her grandparents who immigrated from Russia and strove to Americanize themselves and their family. What Dianne most likely did not realize that more dropouts come from students who are placed in English only instruction where their primary language is suppressed (Freeman, p. 159). While showcasing another approach is Arcelia Hernandez who uses Latino culture and language that she shares with her students in order to help them learn both Spanish and English. Arcelia even puts an extra twenty hours a week in the parent center to further help the community for those parents looking for extra help. The reason for the complexity in teaching ELL students is that while these two teachers showcase completely different approaches they are only two

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