EDS 200 Introduction to Education

Assignment 1: Movie Analysis

By Maksim Lisov

1. One of the main social problems the film discusses is the cultural aspect of education. In

particular, the cultural differences between the teacher, Emre Hoca, and his students. In this

context, I use the phrase ‘cultural aspect’ as an umbrella term for several issues, these being

the differences in language, life style, and the culture itself. While a teacher can manage to

learn (i.e. in the context of a regular classroom) or adapt to a certain culture or life style, the

language difference is a much serious matter to deal with. As we have seen in the film, Emre

Hoca engages in a phone conversation with his mother, saying that he would have to drift

from agenda and curriculum and focus on teaching how to read, write and speak in Turkish

this academic year. This brings about the deviation of curricula across schools, putting the

students and teachers with this “language problem” in a disadvantaged position. They either

need to catch up with their peers (colleagues) prior to starting to follow the curriculum or

work twice as hard from the very beginning.

The movie also remarkably shows how disadvantaged the students from lower economic class

are. From the very start, we see that the school had only one classroom, hence students from

every grade had to receive education in the same room and from the same teacher. Moreover,

the students did not even own a pencil and notebook. This puts a great amount of extra

pressure on both the instructor and students and prevents effective learning process.

Meanwhile we see how, for example, technology gets more and more integrated into other

schools making the instruction easier and engaging. That anecdote is a direct piece of

evidence that schools do not equalize the opportunity (at least yet).
2. I believe that education certainly has the power to diminish social inequalities; however, it

has not been doing it successfully. Looking back at the film, we see that even the presence of

a good and effective teacher does not change the fact that it is overwhelmingly difficult to

work and/or comprehend the materials in such a challenging environment. Moreover, it is

very likely that those poorly funded schools do not employ highly motivated and proficient

instructors as they receive unfairly small salaries. Keeping in mind this aspect, it is reasonable

to say that children of the higher socioeconomic background have a better opportunity to be

successful academically, which makes the ideas of critical pedagogy more appealing to me.

Perhaps, a practical way to mitigate these social inequalities could be to drastically raise the

funding of education, giving preference to the institutions of underprivileged areas (to achieve

equity). Additionally, raising the instructors’ wages and improving the pedagogical education

itself might be highly beneficial as the number of professional would become greater.

3. I think every person should try to their best to solve social issues that concern them. In the

education, it is critical to focus on what we can control. As a ministry worker, it might be a

good idea to seek how to make the education system as inclusive as possible, despite cultural,

ethnic, socioeconomic, and other differences. Similarly, we as teachers should think about

how we can contribute to equity and equality in education within the classroom. Ultimately, a

teacher should be passionate about their job and always be eager to improve. With that, we

can participate in a training on working with disabled kids and making our classroom a safe

and welcoming environment.