The riddle of education: Why is it the last priority?

Alexandra Marshall:

ALTHOUGH it wasn't favored to win, and it didn't, "The Class" was film critics' "should win" pick for best foreign-language film. Because this deeply engaging movie addresses the subject of teaching underserved public school students, it points to the obvious larger question of why education itself so often should win, but doesn't.

In the compromised version of the economic stimulus package, it was reported by the Los Angeles Times, education spending was "one of the main sticking points" in securing the necessary votes. While protecting funds for other needs such as healthcare, housing, transportation, green energy, infrastructure, the auto industry, and even banking, why cut education? Why are teaching and learning so routinely deemed expendable when everyone agrees they shouldn't be?

In a bracingly effective way, "The Class" confronts this riddle with the vivid example of a middle school French teacher in an immigrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Paris. François Bégaudeau is this teacher as well as the author of "Entre les Murs," the acclaimed novel/memoir on which the film is closely based. Onscreen, he and his actual students make the hectic "ordinaire tragi-comique" of the book three-dimensional. And under the sly direction of Laurent Cantet, their fragmented classroom interactions yield a film celebrated as "seamless" by actor Sean Penn, who headed the jury awarding it the Cannes Festival's Palme d'Or for best picture.

Alexandra Marshall, a guest columnist, is the author of "The Court of Common Pleas" and four other novels.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at March 3, 2009 5:34 AM
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