Educator, a cinematic challenge

Every time we watch a movie, even if it's for entertainment and leisure, we encounter stories that portray challenging situations, dramas to be overcome, and lessons to be learned. Cinema, since its inception, has depicted realities to be experienced, even when the film is fiction, something that isn't "so real." Rarely will we watch a film where we don't identify lessons and questions for our own lives within its content.

These are family dramas, dramas between friends, situations that depict the search for identity and happiness, various difficulties, and the indecision in the choices and attitudes that must be taken to reach a happy ending. In fact, in every film, that is the central question: to reach a happy ending.

Looking at our lives and reflecting briefly, we can often see ourselves in the movie we're watching, we can imagine ourselves living the situations in the characters' place, as well as putting ourselves in their shoes, reflecting on what our attitude would be if we were going through a particular situation, drama, or challenge.

Other times, the characters and their challenging dramas are so real that they resemble us and our own lives, and from their stories, we find answers, comfort, and often solutions for our own story. Just like in the movies, we fight for a happy ending, even though life is made up of many endings and new beginnings.

As an educator, I encounter stories worthy of a movie in the classroom every day. In fact, every teacher or education professional could write a real film script, since we experience a cinematic challenge every day.

Upon entering the gates of a school, we find children who are victims of their own existence. Students who are victims of social neglect, violence, even victims of their own families. These are children who grow up every day witnessing, with wide-open eyes, all the chaos established in a society that is losing the values ​​of love, family, and education each day. Children who, still so young, have already lost their innocence and whose identity is being violated.

In the classroom, I've experienced stories of various genres, I've been a spectator of stories that are true comedies; the children fill our eyes with joy and surprise us with their spontaneity, creating situations that make us laugh. Children are surprising, like movies; they are inspiring and engaging beings. I wish I could write that I've never seen a drama or a horror film in a classroom, but unfortunately, even though they are so young, they already have enough baggage in their lives for a drama film and, often, even a horror film.

And we arrive at the common theme of a film: how to achieve a happy ending? Is that even possible? Or do happy endings only happen in movies? How can someone, as an educator, contribute to guiding their students' lives towards an ending that will earn a standing ovation? How can we collaborate on the "script" of these students' lives? What can an educator do to "direct" the lives of these little "protagonists" to a happy ending worthy of a movie? How can we make our students' lives a spectacle?

The film "Freedom Writers" (USA/Germany 2007) tells the true story of teacher Erin Gruwell, a fantastic and inspiring life story that shows us how words can liberate people and how education, culture, encouragement, dedication, and knowledge are the foundations for a better world to happen and truly take root.

Professor Erin Gruwell had to fight great battles for her students, challenging the system, battling prejudice, and when everyone looked at her students as young people without a future, she swam against the current and challenged herself to fulfill her role and give her students the happiness of a successful life. From her classroom experience came the book that later became a film; and much more than that, today "Freedom Writers" is a foundation that supports various educational projects, all based on the process experienced by the professor.

Perhaps by watching this film we will find some answers, not only for ourselves as educators, but also as human beings, as parents, as children, as friends. We can take as a life lesson the strength that the teacher has in fighting for what she believes in, the patience and understanding to face difficulties and differences, the commitment to giving herself entirely so that her students could feel, in some way, that she believed in them and wanted to offer them a quality education.

Being an educator is a cinematic challenge, a true story full of emotions, comedy, drama, terror, adventure, and above all, plenty of action. In fact, that's exactly the genre that should be the driving force in an educator's life: action. We will only see a happy ending if there is action. It's time for the educator to act. If there is anyone who can make a difference in the lives of our children, it is us, educators. We can correct the scripts, "delete" the scenes that ruined their lives and remake them, we can change the soundtrack and improve the editing, bring knowledge, encouragement, strength, joy, and motivation so that our students achieve their happy ending.

The life of every educator is a cinematic challenge, but the advantage is that we will produce many happy endings. Each person who passes through our classroom can be a work of art if we do our part, which is to do more than just what is expected of us. Thus, we will applaud many happy endings, including that of our own life.

*Júnior Silveira is an educator with a degree in Performing Arts; he works as a Film and Theater Training Facilitator for the company Planeta Educação (www.planetaeducacao.com.br) in the city of Votorantim, São Paulo.