10 Basic Principles of Our School System, Part 2: Class Tests, Tests and Exams

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10 Basic Principles of Our School System, Part 2: Class Tests, Tests and Exams

Teachers always have an ace up their sleeves, the ultimate threat to make students shut up and pay attention. “You know we write a class test soon, so maybe you should listen, if you don’t want to fail!” It often works, even the worst students at least pretend to listen now because they know they ought to. Sometimes “good” students remind others of the impending class tests, to get them to their senses, unable to understand how you can’t take it more seriously. The more effective tactic is to just threaten with a surprise test to keep everyone in check. If that makes teaching sound like training dogs not to bite, then that’s what some teachers make it sound like. And class tests and tests, written examinations in general, are the standard methods of authority in school, accepted and expected.

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Jonas (2011)

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Jonas (2011)

(no real spoilers)

Jonas is an unusual and unique movie that is hard to categorize. It is a German movie, first of all (which I have been trying to catch up with a little bit more), but it only features one real actor in a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. Christian Ulmen is put into a real situation, acting as a student in a school, surrounded by real students and teachers and seeing what happens. To me, it mostly worked because of the fascination with his character and how much you can learn about school from it. Still, the problem is that the movie never really lets you know how much is orchestrated and how much is spontaneous. Maybe it doesn’t matter, but there is an uncanny feeling that remains. Still, Ulmen’s acting is really amazing, especially since he does not turn it into a caricature (apart from the silly love story which is not really working).

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