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Ashley White
Drs. Belgrad Scott and Wakefield
December 3, 2006
Cinema Paper Part I
In America, media ones peers as well as teachers and ones parents play a large
role in their development. In this assignment we were asked to watch a movie from a
given list of movies and relate the presented topics or issues to developmental theories
and domains. The movie I choose to watch was “Thirteen”, a drama about a young girl,
Tracy, who starts out with the right crowd and ends up with the bad one. At the start of
the movie she has a, what seems to be, good relationship with her mother and everything
was good. Like every other child Tracy had some family problems that changed the
positive outlook that shoe had on life. Her mom was dating a drug addict that was living
in their house which created more problems in their mother and daughter relationship
that, in the end you will see, change Tracy’s outlook on life. Many of the developmental
theories and domains learned in lectures are present in this movie for example;
Behaviorism and social learning theories, Psychodynamic theories, and the three
developmental domains are all present in this movie.
Behaviorism and social learning theories focuses on “ environmental stimuli
and learning processes that lead to behavioral change”. Within this theory children realize
and experience the consequences that result from their actions. When children grow up
they begin to realize that what they do always has a consequence and making bad choices
will result in an unwanted result. In “Thirteen” Tracy make choices that all result in her
being held back in the seventh grade, becoming sexually active, drinking, doing drugs, as
well as the relationship with her family and old friends becoming flawed and
problematic. Throughout the movie all of these different problems where forming and
coming to be as a result of her actions, however she didn’t know and she was completely
oblivious. Tracy was unaware of how her newfound relationship with Evie was affecting
her relationship with her family at home as well as her relationships with her old friends.
Not until her whole life was fully destructed, did she comprehend that the decisions that
she was making all along were wrong. When Mel, Tracy’s mom, welcomed Evie into her
home she did not see that she was going to ruin her family as a while and corrupt her
daughter. Before Tracy met Evie she was doing good in school, she did not drink, do
drugs, and she was not sexually active. After Evie came into their home and began to take
part in their family activities everything started to go down hill. For example, Tracy
started to loss respect for her mother as well as her person morals and values. This was
evident in the fact that she started to shop lift clothing that she would never have been to
afford. The bad thing about I was that her mother knew that she was stealing the clothes
that she was getting, but she was did no want to believe that her daughter would do that.
Normally they were a family that never had any extra money to spend on un-needed
luxuries such as the sixty-dollar pair of jeans with the leopard print on the side of them.
Even though they could not afford those pants Mel went out of her way to give her
daughter what she wanted by making her a pair of jeans that resembled the pair that she
wanted. But little did she know Tracy had gone and stolen them. The old Tracy would
have been very thankful for what her mother had done for her. However, the new Tracy,
with the influence of Evie, only saw the bad in it. She complained that her mother had
entered her room without her permission, and that she had ruined her favorite pair of
pants. This particular scene in the movie was one that represented the behaviorism and
social learning theories that are represented by theorists like Skinner and Bandura. Tracy,
throughout this scene, was learning from her social setting and her behavior was
changing for the worst. If she were not present in this type of setting she would not have
been like this. When things happen in the earlier parts of a child life it can affect them in
the future, usually for the bad. This particular situation represents another developmental
theories of child development, called the Psychodynamic theory. This theory “focuses on
how early experiences and internal conflicts affect social and personality development.”
In the movie Tracy is affected by past family problems, which are present in many
families. For one, Tracy’s mom and biological father where separated, and parental
separation can play a very big role in the development of a child. Two, she witnesses her
step dad using drugs as well as her mother letting him come back into their family. As a
result Tracy is anorexic, she cuts, uses drugs, and drinks. All of these behaviors may have
been a result of what happened earlier in her life.
In child development and development as a whole there are three domains that
play a role in how people in general develop and grow. In the movie it is illustrated that
all three of the domains; physical, cognitive, and social are all present and relate to one
another in one way or another. In this movie the developmental domains found in Tracy’s
character all revolve around one another while in attendance. For example, Tracy’s
relationship with Evie, and loss of respect for herself as well as her mother fall under the
socio-emotional development. From her relationship with Evie and the loss of her respect
for her mother as well as her self, she grew cognitively. While hanging around Evie and
not hanging around her mother as much, Tracy learned the bad things in life. For
example, she learned about drugs, sex, stealing and drinking. She would stay out late
smoking, come home drunk or high and become disrespectful and destructive, just to
name a few. From learning how to do all of these behaviors she also grew physically. She
becomes more aware of her body and how it looks. Even though it seems like it could be
a good thing, in this case it was actually bad. She because anorexic because she formed a
bad body image of herself like many children do and she stopped eating to prevent
herself from becoming ugly of fat in her eyes. She also started to want attention from
male colleagues, and she learned that to get that certain attention she had to act like the
“cool” kids did. Therefore, she started to dress more provocatively. She got her tongue as
well as her belly button pierced, and began to wear certain clothing that would reveal her
body, undergarments, as well as her piercings. By hanging out with Evie, Tracy’s brain
was developing which was promoting cognitive growth and her ability to look at
situations in different ways, which then improve her social skills. Which is all along what
she wanted to become socially accepted. However, being socially accepted was not
always the best thing for her, as she later finds out. The choices that she mad to skip
school to go shop lift, to do drugs, and to sneak out at night and drink, all resulted in a
worse end result. Throughout the film the character that is most comparable to the three
domains of development is Tracy. The developmental domains that are most apparent in
hr character traits are social and definitely behavioral development. Socially she
developed in a negative way, however it made her develop cognitively in a good way.
Because Tracy allowed herself to get in with the good crowd and behave the way that she
did, she actually learned and saw that the actions that she was taking and the things she
was doing for fun where actually hurting her. By the time she was failing the seventh
grade and did not have any friends, she realizes that what she was doing was ruining her
life.
Cinema Paper Part II
Just as people have individual learning styles, teachers have teaching styles that
works best for them. It is important to know and understand which types of learning
styles are best for your students and best for you as the teacher as well. In the movie in
which I choose to relate this to, “Take The Lead”, a teaching style is present that allows
both the teacher as well as the students to learn from one another. The movie is about a
well-known ballroom dancer that is brought into another neighborhood, New York, and
was challenged to teach a group of teenagers how to dance. In this particular movie a
teaching style that combines both facilitating and demonstrating styles is present.
Teachers who have a demonstrator model teaching style tend to run teachercentered class with an emphasis on demonstration and modeling. In the movie Pierre
exhibits this type of teaching strategy in such a way that he know how to ballroom dance
and this is what he was hired to do. He was hired to teach children from a public school
in New York how to dance. The teacher acts as a role model by demonstrating the
dancing skill and then coaching and guiding his student on how to do it properly. Not
only did he teach the kids how to ballroom dance, he also taught them how to be
accepting to other ways and ideas that are not what they are used to. Being a good teacher
to me is one that teaches their students what they are there to teach them, but skills that
they can also use outside of the classroom as well. For example, in America being
accepting to another persons beliefs and thoughts is a skill that when learned is very
helpful to our society. Although it was hard for Pierre to teach to these children because
of their non-acceptance to his ideas and ways of dancing as well as types of music, he
still was able to exhibit good teaching habits and positively affect his students.
The other type of teaching that is present in that of Pierre is a facilitator teaching
style, which tends to focus on the students activities and is most often centered on the
students and what they want and how they are most comfortable. If a student is
comfortable in their environment they will be able to learn easier and more affectively.
This type of teaching is also another why in which teachers enhance students and work to
get them ready to be a productive member in our society. It allows student to make their
own decisions and practice independent learning techniques. They are able to take what
they are given and turn it into an individual learning technique. This type of teaching
style is one that I also agree with and favor because in life in general everything is not
always going to be handed to you and while in school if you learn to make choices on
your own it will again help students in the long run.
Throughout the movie many teaching styles were brought to my attention, all of
which I liked and would use when I become a teacher. Allowing children to be active
learners instead of passive learners is a great way to get them ready for the real world. In
the movie there were many times where the students had to make choices for themselves
and that is a good thing. Having everything hand fed to you disables students from
becoming independent and learning individually. Another thing that this type of teaching
will aid in is when the students actual are old enough to become active additives to our
society, life as adults know it will not come as such a shock to them because they will
already be used to making well thought out decisions for themselves. This movie also
shows that being an effective teacher is a good thing and in the long run students learn to
appreciate you as a teacher and respect you for what they did not see in the beginning, but
now what they see at the end.