Matching Paired Opposites

(This was a handout Sean McFarland used to initiate discussion in his English class after students had seen the film.)

MATCH THE PAIRED OPPOSITES

(Each quote can be paired with another that suggests an opposite point of view)

1. James: Without reading, you’re not going to be able to get though stuff.  But there’s ways to get around it. Like I said, I’d much rather have the teachers give more visual or more listening stuff, instead of the reading.

2. Bio Student: I have pretty much given up going to teachers. And that’s not just because of the college experience—teachers in general I have found aren’t as helpful as I would like.

3. Carla:  My idea, I have to have the textbook…. I read every book I get.

4. Christian:  I remember one time my teacher told me about a student, like “No matter how long you knock, they won’t answer”.  I said, “Eventually they’ll have to answer if you just keep knocking”.  But you don’t know how much time the teacher has to keep knocking.

5. Liz: You have to go up to your teacher and say, “Hey, you know,  I have a learning disability”. You don’t like, go into a class and fuck up a whole paper and just be like, “Oh, Shit.” You have to go up. You have to communicate. You have to have good communication.

6. Melissa: I hate to say this, cause everyone else will disagree, but a good teacher assigns lots of reading.  In order to understand the material, you can’t just skate through your education, just getting by and being like. “Oh I can just get little pieces of information”. You have to get the whole picture, and in order to do that, you have to put the work into reading.

7. Michael:  I will respect them. I’ll do what they need to do. I’ll help um’ out as long as they help me out. But if they like kinda like, kinda try to force me to do somethin’ then it’s like come on now, (Laugh), you gotta calm down. Like I. I’d be reluctant to like, you feel me, mess with them a little bit. Like I shy away from everything they doin’. I won’t really care about what they sayin’.

8.Claire:  I didn’t buy my biology book and I passed the class with an A. And I’ve done that so many times, where I’ve just floated through and gotten an A, and I haven’t even touched the book once. I didn’t even buy the book.

9. Lydia:  I think every teacher, whether or not they see the student and they think that they don’t want to do it, they should treat them like they do.  Even if they’re 100% sure the student is slacking off and doesn’t care, I think that they should treat them like they do.   

10. Jennifer- They’ve [the teachers] put in all this work and effort and stuff and I’m not pulling my weight and it’s like you wanna make your teacher proud, I guess?