PART TWO
ANALYSIS OF THE FILM
A Kindergarten Class in Bethel
This class was taught
by Miss Kinderbelle, an older woman who had a long career in Alaska schools
(Collier, 1973: 87; Connelly, private communication).
The film opens with the class, seated in two long rows, facing one
side of the room where an Eskimo youth is playing an electric guitar.
Seven boys
are
seated together in front of a long table, and eight girls are seated
behind the table. There is an eighth boy in the class, but he is
separated from
the rest of the class and does not seem to participate. The class
is all Eskimo
except for one boy who was reported to be part Eskimo (Collier, private
communication). The teacher sits to the right of the table. As the
film
coverage begins,
a boy is “dancing” in front of the class while the teacher
and (ideally) the children clap time. The teacher’s movements
are aggressive as she claps, but the children are lackadaisical and
totally out of sequence. The
boy in front of the class has almost the exact position that the small
boy in Mr. Principal’s ESL lesson had in front of that particular
class. The boy extends his hands in front of himself, and his body
is rigid. He lifts
his feet perhaps half-an-inch and too slowly to carry out the dancer’s
role (Illus. 74).
74
After a time, he is replaced by another boy who
is somewhat more active; but not, as it develops, in the style
preferred by the teacher. She rises abruptly
(it takes her one second to get from her seat to the boy eight feet away),
grabs the boy by the upper arms, and moves him around into various positions
which she thinks are correct for the dance motions. These involve turning
one way, then another, and moving around the floor in the process. Both this
boy
and the previous one had remained in one spot. The whole process, from
the time she rises from her seat until she is seated again, covers no more
than
eight seconds; her movements throughout are quick and forceful. The boy’s
response to this sudden manipulation is passive; he is moved by her and
does not move with her. At all points in the movements he is lagging behind
her
movements, and his body is subtly out of balance (Illus. 75-79).
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After the
teacher returns to her seat, he continues his dance somewhat in the
manner she demonstrated but in very awkward form. When he finishes
he
is rewarded
by a piece of candy (as each dancer was) and quickly sits down. The
sequence is a clear illustration of lack of flow between teacher and student.
Performances
in front of the class continue, first by two girls and then
by two boys. In both cases the behavior is the same; they stand in
one place and
move their feet up and down an inch or two while holding rigid body
positions. As with the children in prefirst, they appear to be quite uncomfortable
and embarrassed; they hold their hands close to their sides except
for
occasional
covering of the face and some nervous movements to the mouth. Throughout
this time the rest of the class dutifully claps in perfect dissynchrony
while their
attention wanders all over. They look at the camera a great deal.
In my experience, this often indicates distraction and lack of interest
in the classroom activity
of the moment (Illus. 80-82).
This session of the class ends with
the group dancing around the table. The students, while more active and
relaxed in their movements,
are as
discordant
as a group as were the individuals. In preparation for recess
the teacher lines the students up in two lines adjacent to the door
and turns away
to get her
coat from the closet. Her back is turned less than five seconds,
and in that interval two of the girls start a spontaneous dance.
They hold
hands and
dance around in a circle, bouncing up and down, with fluidity
and enthusiasm which
contrasts totally from the attempted dancing at the direction
of the teacher. There was no flow in the movements and interactions
of the earlier
dancing
but now there is; movements are well synchronized and smooth
(Illus. 83-88).
The teacher turns back and stills this “disruption” with
a smile and a firm gesture. However, the immobility of the regular
class
session has
been broken and the girls bunny-hop out the door. It is clear
that the children have the ability to dance; why were they so
frozen and
awkward
earlier? Something
in the teacher-student relationship was affecting their behavior.
She made them feel awkward.
The next scene on the film shows students
gathered in a semi-circle on the floor. Two boys are holding up a very large
reader. The
teacher is
not with
this group, but is seated off to one side with another student.
Using a long stick as a marker, each student points out and
reads a word.
Pace is slow
and unsynchronized. There are no sustained interactions among
the students. They
are lackadaisical, and occasionally smile; their attention
wanders a great deal. There is no group-wide focus or network of movements.
Next,
the students sit scattered around the room while they work on worksheets
handed out by the teacher. As in the reading
session,
there is little
interaction and no concentration. The students spend a great
deal of time just looking
around the room while slowly working with their papers. The
major point of focus in the room seems to be the camera.
Everyone looks
at it once
in a
while. Because the students are widely scattered and rarely
interact, there are few
opportunities for interpersonal flow to develop. The few
occasions when it does are too brief for any clear description of it
to be made.
The next section of film shows the class washing
up for a snack and then eating it. The snack is peanut butter on pilot
biscuits
and
milk. Most
of the class
sit idly looking around the room or making brief unsustained
conversation with their neighbors. But one group of six
girls (all but two of
the girls in the
class) is more involved and animated. They are involved
in a very fluid and flowing series of interactions which start
with
them
all seated and
in apparent
conversation. Three of them stand and confront each other
in an intense physical and verbal fashion; the purpose
seems to
be to
find out
who is taller. There is animation and laughter(Illus. 89-91).
Unfortunately,
the camera does not follow this episode to its conclusion but cuts to the
rest of the class who are behaving much as before
with no
sustained
interaction. The camera then swings back to the six girls who are now busy
toasting each other with their milk. This process is carried out with great
glee and is very smooth and flowing. After they finish their milk and make
their last toast they get up and leave the table (Illus. 92-94)
Again the
film record has shown the children operating as a group, fluid and hooked
together, with a great deal of zest and interest in their
activities. This energy potential was not reflected in the organized
sessions of the class. The teacher could not tap it, and indeed seemed to
destroy these interrelationships by her very presence.
The film coverage ends
with a short session of the children working with
worksheets. For the most part, behavior is the same as earlier except
that a number of
the girls are now working together. The only new feature is that
several students approach the teacher for assistance, and the brief interactions
which follow
show her to be more fluid and the students more relaxed than in the
earlier portions of the film. The significant difference may be that these
represent
private one-on-one communications rather than individual interactions
with the teacher in front of the whole class. Again, unfortunately,
the camera
does not record these interactions in detail and the sequence as
a
whole is too
short for any patterns to be observed.
While the film record of this
class is in many respects less complete than that of the mixed prefirst and
second grade class in Kwethluk,
it seems that
here, too, the teacher cut across the interaction patterns of the
children and was generally unable to achieve smooth communication
with them. Certainly
many factors are involved, but the differences in pace and movement,
so clear in the dance sequence, were certainly part of the reason
that she was unable
to make the complete contact with the children.
