Movies that remind me of schools

Schools commonly appear in movies. I don't want to go into details about every reminder that I have ever encountered about what my school years were like. There have been scenes in several movies, not always intentionally, that have seriously tapped into my memories of my years trapped in the system.

In Divergent, there is an early scene portraying high school graduation. Actually, they don't refer to it as a graduation. It’s hard to imagine something that close not being inspired by a graduation ceremony. The question is whether or not the resemblance is intentional.

In this movie, people of a certain age group go one by one in front of the entire audience to celebrate moving on to their next phase in life. Each individual is expected to commit to a faction, which essentially starts as a training program similar to college. Their choice is influenced heavily by a non-binding career aptitude test similar to what I was forced to take when I was in school, although they rename the test and take a drastically different approach to administration of the test.

One movie that was clearly intentional in its similarities to real-world schooling was Accepted. A heavy push for everyone to go to college regardless of suitability of those colleges created their own college, South Harmon. Near the end, the co-founders and students pushed for accreditation. This included a moment where all students stood when the faculty was asked to stand. It appears that somebody actually gets it. There was also a speech about how the pretentious Harmon could stick to their flawed traditions while South Harmon could do things in a way that works for their students.

Accepted had its share of problems. South Harmon was portrayed as too much of a party school. Justin Long was not a good choice for the lead actor. I also felt that the school was slipping into a more conventional model in the end. Despite its problems, the movie had some of the best feel-good moments that I have seen from an educational rights perspective.

Another movie that I wanted to bring up is Armageddon. I'm sure that what I saw in this movie was unintentional. The movie actually includes some pro-schooling propaganda. At one point, they push the narrative that GPA is a valid measure of practical ability. That's obviously not the scene that I wanted to focus on.

It turned out that an astronaut was provided with a chart showing times and expected drilling depths. This matches very well with how schools view children and learning expectations. We have this idea of what children should know at specific ages as though expectations should be a constant among all children. If we miss our depth... I mean if a child is below grade level, we panic. The problem is that being a little behind schedule does not mean that the job won't get done. Much like the portrayal of drilling, children can be slower at times and faster at others.

Of course, the schools are worse than the drilling. Schools set multiple criteria, and they are all relatively shallow. Use of skills in real life situations are seriously diminished in favor of quick test answers. Most mental development is completely neglected due to difficulties in measuring. These expectations are also set intentionally low to maximize attainability.

This is obviously a partial list. I am not going to go through every movie that I have watched to establish how they remind me of the darkest years of my life. Hopefully, anyone reading this is fine with just the three examples I have provided.