Half-Nelson

I watched this movie, half-nelson (Ryan Gosling, from the notebook) a few weeks ago. It is about a young school teacher working in the inner city, trying to reach out to his students but being held back by his own drug addiction.
What i liked about it was, there is a scene, where one of the students insults another student. The repercussion is that the insulted student picks a topic and the insulter is forced to give an oral presentation on that topic in a few days. This may not seem like a very big deal, i am sure you may have heard of this or even had it done in your classroom. But, here is the thing. The powerful relationship the teacher has with these students. And the amount of work he can willingly get them to do. Because i can assure you, in an inner-city middle school, there are going to be many insults between peers. And it is not like he is the authority figure shaking his finger at them, once the insult is fired, the entire class erupts for a brief moment as they know the following assignment will be administered. It does not end there, the teacher joins in making suttle jokes about the insult made, regulating and neutralizing the situation. I thought it was a great way to handle an always impending and continual problem in such a setting.

I really loved that scene.