UE reflection 3 - Urban Education Reflection#3 Movie...

Urban Education Reflection #3: Movie Critique ( Dangerous Minds)
Dangerous Minds , a film released in 1995, is about a retired U.S. marine, LouAnne
Johnson, who takes an impromptu full-time job offer at Parkmont High School in East
Palo Alto, California. She is placed in “the academy”, a class for “special kids”. The class
is made up of almost entirely minority students who are bussed into the school from the
poorer urban areas of the city. She is nicknamed “white bread” by the students, but
decides to accept the challenge of earning their respect by means of unconventional
methods she thinks will reach her students, such as teaching the students karate, cursing
in the classroom, and using Bob Dylan lyrics to teach poetry. As rewards, LouAnne offers
her class candy bars, fancy dinners and a trip to a theme park. She continues her
relationship with some students beyond the classroom and visits the homes of some of the
teens who get into fights at school and fail to show up to class daily, and that of one girl
who is pregnant. Although in the final scenes of the movie, Ms. Johnson is planning to
leave the job, the students quote Bob Dylan lyrics and refer to her as their “light” and beg
her to stay. The closing scene contains many hugs between Ms. Johnson and students, and
she decides to remain in her position at Parkmont High School.
The viewer sees through the eyes of LouAnne Johnson, heroically taking time out of her
evenings to visit her students’ homes, and talk to their parents. In one case concerning a
student, Raul, Ms. Johnson makes a house call and praises him as a student and
nonchalantly tells his parents that they “must be very proud.” Tears fill Raul’s eyes, and
the viewer is filled with emotion and admiration for Ms. Johnson, who somehow in a