I had never felt so deeply that my soul was so far away from me, and that my existence was so dependent on the world. —Albert Camus
Embedded in the beginning of this film, Albert Camus's few strokes have another meaning, revealing not only the infinite entanglement of reality and self, but also representing the gap between education and the future that seems to be irreparable.
<h1>Deadpool-like school</h1>
Henry, a longtime teacher of marginal teenagers, came to the new school as a substitute teacher.
At first glance, this school is no different from ordinary high schools, but it is actually in the middle of the mud, because it brings together the worst students in the whole district, and the educators and school principals who were originally beloved are also in a situation of dismissal because they cannot improve the overall performance level of students.
But none of this has anything to do with Henry, who is just a substitute teacher for only a month. In his own words, he didn't have to deliberately impart knowledge, all he had to do was to maintain order in the classroom, as long as he ensured that there would be no murder in the classroom and a smooth transition to the next lesson.
And he himself has experience in educating marginal teenagers, so it is even easier to deal with those tricky students.
But in the campus environment where the situation was frequent, his original idea of ignoring it collapsed little by little.
In this school, violence such as fighting and fighting is the norm, verbal abuse is commonplace, and even bloody and cruel phenomena such as animal cruelty occur.
The students here spit at the teacher and use all the dirty words to insult the teacher, and so do the parents of the students.
They make unreasonable trouble, they never admit the mistake of their children and their own lack of responsibility, and they put all the responsibility on the teacher.
On the day of the school's parent-teacher conference, the whole campus fell into a dead silence, and only a few waiting teachers teased each other in exchange for a little comfort.
Like every teacher, Henry, who has the professional ethics of a teacher, faces this group of children who do not care about his future, and his attitude unconsciously changes from "trying to be a substitute teacher" to "trying to do something for the students, trying to change something".
But even so, his efforts are like every teacher,and in the end there is only disappointment. Of course, in addition to the outside world's disappointment in the profession of teachers, there is more of their own disappointment in themselves.
Perhaps in their eyes, if teachers do not preach and teach to solve problems, and do not guide students to a bright future, then they have no value to exist.
What could be more terrible in this world than the absence of existential value?
<h1>Unfortunate children, become the best parents</h1>
Henry's childhood and upbringing were unfortunate, and he had little impression of his departed father. Henry lived in a family with his mother and grandfather as a child, and recalled the good times of his childhood, probably only the days he spent with his mother—playing snowballs and building snowmen in the snow in winter.
This period of time, which seems to ordinary people, seems to Henry as a luxury, because in Henry's memory, it is more of a scene of his mother's pain and decadence, continuous drunkenness, and later, he witnessed his mother's suicide.
The mother in front of her held the spilled medicine bottle in her hand, lying motionless on the wooden floor, and could no longer play with him in the snow, or even drink heavily with tears.
The death of the mother and the grandfather are also inextricably linked. He didn't know what was going on between his mother and grandpa, and he thought his mother had been protecting him in her own way—when he was still young, his mother told him to lock the door at night when he slept.
From an adult's point of view, it is self-evident what Grandpa did.
When Henry became an adult, his grandfather suffered from Alzheimer's disease, constantly tormented by guilt, but also eager for companionship and love, although Henry tried his best to take care of him, it is undeniable that his attitude towards his grandfather was extremely complicated.
It was this experience that formed Henry's complex personality.
He acted emotionless and overly rational on campus, and on the way home to visit his grandfather, he cried uncontrollably on the bus.
Also on the bus was another girl who, as a sex worker, had just been slapped by Laipi's "customer." Faced with a mouth full of blood, she did not show much emotion herself, as if she had become accustomed to all this.
At this time, Henry did not stand up for the girl as he did in class to defend the teased Meredith, he did not even notice the girl, and he did not show the slightest sympathy when confronting the girl later.
No one expected that Henry, who seemed cold-blooded, would later take her in.
He asks Erica to abandon dirty things that don't match her age, he takes Erica to the hospital for a physical examination, he teaches Erica how to live a healthy life, and he makes Erica form the habit of writing.
Henry turns Erica's life around by bringing a non-adult sex worker back to the light and allowing Erica to return to the normal life that a child her age should have.
Henry did not continue the misfortune to Erica, and the misfortune of childhood quietly ended on him, leaving only beauty and light left for Erica. At this point, he was no longer just a teacher, he was an absolutely qualified parent.
<h1>A group of teachers on the brink of collapse</h1>
At the beginning of the film, there is a self-statement of many people, some of whom envy the profession of teachers, but most people do not aim at the profession of teachers at the beginning, and even some people have an extremely exclusive attitude towards this profession, and they eventually become teachers, more or less forced by the helplessness of life.
In the film, the headmistress is extremely anxious and broken, as a beloved educator, she now faces the cruel situation of being dismissed at any time.
On campus, there was often a teacher clutching the iron net on the sports field, his face full of pain and despair, and no student in his class cared what he said.
The older teacher, Charlie Sibodette, seems to be humorous and funny, has his own set of students, and easily gets them done, but the humor usually ends in tragedy - he hangs on antidepressants every day.
Pat, a psychological counselor played by Liu Yuling, should have been the most rational, but he also abused students with extreme words out of control.
Madison, a young and beautiful female teacher, has a positive side of trying to tutor students, and there is also an embarrassing side of being spat on by students.
All the teachers on this campus were on the verge of an emotional breakdown, and at the beginning, they all hoped and believed that they could do something for these children, and they would be able to change something.
However, they all end up being slaves to disappointment, not only disappointed in the children who can't see a future, but more reproachful and disappointed in themselves.
They are supposed to be noble and bright figures, but here they are more helpless than any child.
<h1>Why did our children become like this? </h1>
When Henry asked the abusive student how he felt during the cat abuse, the boy said embarrassedly, "I feel like I'm trapped, like this cat." ”
It can be seen that students are also miserable.
So why do our children become like this? Could it be that they were born that way?
Not really.
The four factors that influence human development include: genetics, the environment, education, and the subjective initiative of the individual. The film highlights two of these factors, the environment and education.
Happy people are healed by childhood all their lives, and unfortunate people are curing their childhood all their lives. We cannot know what these children experienced in their original families, but the attitudes and opinions of their parents towards their teachers have an intuitive impact on their children.
Parents here do not have the slightest respect for teachers, and even weaken the importance and status of teachers, which directly leads to students not paying attention to teachers, and even rejecting and hating teachers, let alone learning to obtain knowledge from teachers.
In the case that the teacher is not accepted and trusted, even if the students have psychological trauma in the original family, there is nowhere to talk, no one to guide, and even all the emotions are depressed, and the violence on campus has become their only outlet.
In addition to this, there is a serious problem in this school, and education is completely commercialized.
The administrators of the education cause in this district are not considering whether the students have received real education and whether the students have been improved as a whole, but paying attention to the students' achievements. Only when the students' grades are high can we prove the education level of this district, and only when the education level is recognized by the public, more people will move into this district, and the real estate business in this district can rise. What is the point of linking education with interests?
Meredith, another of the film's protagonists, eventually commits suicide, and Henry witnesses a living person dying before his eyes again.
Before that, Henry had tried to save Meredith. When the fat girl was teased by the male classmates, he threw the male classmates out of the classroom, but when Meredith needed help the most, Henry pushed her away, probably because Meredith's love and embrace made him worry about being criticized, and Meredith has always lived in criticism.
Not only the students in the class, but even her parents did not like this fat girl, they advised the girl to lose weight, persuaded the girl to tidy up her hair, and persuaded the girl to shoot more and draw more bright things.
The girl's parents worry about her, thinking that they are very conscientious, but they have never respected their child, and they are unlikely to understand the child.
In Meredith's camera, most people's negative emotions are captured, and the photos are basically depressing black and white tones.
In fact, taking such depressing photos was not her intention, the reason why it was so, because she always lived in such a gloomy environment.
Also because she is in a gloomy and closed self-space that no one understands, she will finally choose to end her life.
Henry said: "Unfortunately, most people lack self-awareness. ”
As minors, these students are even more judgmental, so their consciousness cannot be immune to external influences. After experiencing the endless despair in the movie, we should also reflect on whether in the real world, society has fulfilled its responsibility to think about teenagers.
For example, have you tried to guide them not to aspire to become "Internet celebrities" with good faces and a good figure, but to pay more attention to "inner cultivation", strive to improve themselves, and become people with real social value?