FINDING FORRESTER (2000)
Reflection:
What expectations did William Forrester, Dr. Crawford, and Clarie hold for Jamal? What social factors influenced these expectations? Did they change throughout the film? Why or why not?
How would you describe a successful student? A successful athlete? Did you picture this student as male or female? As a person of color, or White? Now imagine that your successful student (and successful athlete) is the opposite sex or another race. Did your description change? What values are embedded in your answer?
As a teacher, how will you confront cheating and plagiarism in your classroom?
What lessons in character did Forrester and Jamal learn from each other?
Follow-up Activity: As part of a character education program, create an Honor Code to help students learn about academic integrity. You may want to consider the following questions:
Is your Code a teacher’s solo creation or a teacher-student partnership?
What aspects of school life (such as bullying, lying, and punctuality) are included in the Code?
Who will enforce the Code, and what are the rewards and punishments?
What values will students learn from following (or breaking) the Honor Code?
OR:
THE EMPEROR’S CLUB (2002)
Reflection:
Based on what you have seen in the movie, what do you feel are a teacher’s ethical obligations to their students? What are the students’ ethical obligations to a teacher? To each other?
Based on your answers to question #1, how well do you think Hundert met his ethical duties to his students? How well did his students meet their ethical duties to him? Be sure to provide examples in your discussion.
What sort of ethical dilemmas did Hundert face in dealing with Sedgewick? Do you feel that Hundert resolved these dilemmas well? Why or why not?
If you were the teacher, how do you think you would handle a student like Sedgewick? What would you do differently than Hundert? Explain the rationale behind your answers.
Follow-up Activity: The National Education Association (NEA) has a Code of Ethics for teachers (find via Google).
When do you consider Hundert’s actions towards his students, which standards do you think he upheld particularly well?
Which standards might he have violated? Be sure to explain why you chose the answers you did.
