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INTRODUCTION
It's so heartwarming it would make a penguin take off his tuxedo in the middle of an
Antarctic winter said Hinckley (2011) in New York Daily News. So, Beyond the Blackboard
is such a great inspired story not just for teachers but everyone around the world. Generally,
this story offers an idea that an ordinary teacher no need to have a lot of experience and
money to change the life of a child, build and empower a family and improve a community,
but by having a lot of love, trust and patient is more than enough.
So, in this movie, Emily VanCamp plays a newly hired teacher as Stacey Bess who
shows up on the first day of class in the 1980s to discover that her school is at a homeless
shelter, far from any civilization where everything is valuable. It's a filthy "school with no
name". She has no desks, no books. Her students are suspicious, sullen and abusive, and
so are their parents. And you thought your job was tough. Most of us would have quit after
one day. In fact, I was getting stressed out just watching. But this teacher, Stacey Bess, not
only went back to the Salt Lake City homeless shelter, afraid to admit failure; she fought for
her students, transformed their attitudes and helped them get the educations they deserved.
Bit by bit, shedding tears everyday just to create a place called school for the homeless
students. Care about the students by herself would not make any difference if none of the
parents stand up by her side.
There are too many challenges faced by Stacey Bess. In her first week of class, a
couple of crackheads steal the television she was using, out of desperation, to play
videotapes to "babysit" the kids. She and her family end up with head lice and the job
required her to take a shot since the neighborhood is unpredictable. And her immediate
supervisor, who shuns her phone calls, essentially tells her: Like it or leave it. A guy that
would not care even a bit about the students when he himself sitting comfortably in an office.
Still, she presses on, and slowly she gains the support of the students, their parents, and the
school district itself. Her sacrifices are big enough to make one sheds tears. Her
perseverance and sacrifice attract the attention of an administrator played by Treat Williams,
and it's a turning point in the life of the school. A moment that will be cherish by her and
definitely by the homeless students. The moment they have been waiting for so long, the
moment that other people look at them as a community that deserve to be treated as a
human being.
Thus, in this movie review it will cover how Ms Bess bring educations to the
homeless children in details related to political, economic, and social as well as culture
context. This review also will emphasize on how these four aspects affect the education
system and then how they are similar and different with the education system in Malaysia.
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1. POLITICAL CONTEXT THAT AFFECT EDUCATION

Politics and education are interdependent and education always follows the politics.
Politicians offer a vision of the sort of society they want, and education has been one of the
major means of achieving it. Politic is expected to play an important role in helping education
to be effective and efficient. Within the movie itself, politic has taken its place by giving
impact to education system in both positive and negative ways.
For positive effect, we could see that from the beginning of the movie, politic has taken
its place to make story rolling when a new schooling program for homeless children is
established. This effort shows that politic enables every child in the country get equal access
to an education regardless of their economic status.
Other than that, positive effect of politic towards education can be highlighted in the
movie is where towards the end of the movie, the politic still affecting the education system
in that shelter. Government begin to be serious in playing its role for the homeless students
education. It starts to care about the schools and students as well as take into account their
need to learn in comfortable setting. For examples build up a proper school building,
provides learning suppliers like textbooks, desk and chair; make sure the school has a
proper organization like principal, teachers and custodian; and establish curriculum and
proper syllabus for all grades. Thus, the students can enjoy learning and at the same time
teachers enjoy teaching.
In addition, not only the right for the homeless school has been fulfilled, but also for the
children itself. The politics enforced a new legislation. The law enable the homeless students
easier to register at any regular school in the district. Before this, the students cannot get the
opportunity to learn in regular school as they are having no records needed by the
government that enable or permit them to be enrolled in the school.
For negative effect, firstly, the politic has taken its place by playing only half-way roles in
education of the homeless school. This can be seen at the beginning of the movie. They do
establish a school for the homeless students but left it without any resources and suppliers
even without a name. Thus makes the so called school as a babysitting area like what the
previous teacher said Im a teacher and this is not teaching, but babysitting, not as a place
to deliver and gain knowledge. This shows that, the prime reason the teacher there is not
teaching or educating the children but just to make sure the children is safe by keeping them
off the streets. As long as all children are there while their parents work, that is all that
counts. Thus, this issue is a big problem to the teachers as they cannot do their true
responsibility which is teaching.

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Secondly, the politic in this movie is too rules or dictate the education system. Politics
has taken control of the school systems entirely. It can be seen when the politic can simply
assign whoever they want to be a teacher for the homeless school. This can be seen when
the School District's HR Representative, Dr Ross uses his political power to simply assign
Ms Bess to the experimental school for the homeless students when she has no any other
experiences in teaching according to syllabus in proper school. Moreover, politic has power
to prevent enrolment of the children to regular school.
Thirdly, aligned with the political stance that is too dictate, thus, in this movie the politic
has not given the chance for changes to occur even though the changes can bring
betterment for the education system. For example, everything that relates to education in
school in the country must follow protocol and needs approval by the higher administration.
Because of protocol system, politic is the one that make the homeless school unable to
receive proper aid. At the beginning of the movie, Ms Bess cannot wait for the protocol
because it may affect her teaching. Because of that, Ms Bess is asked about protocol idea
when she is too eager in getting the resources and learning supplies for her school. Thus
showing up that, in the movie everything needs to be brought up in the meeting with the
higher ups in order for the applications to be approved or deny. Unfortunately the meeting is
time consuming thus force Ms Bess to go to ministry many times just to fight for the right.
Lastly, we could see that the political aspect within the government body itself has many
flaws especially when Ms Bess give the head counts for students every morning and asks
for financial help, Dr Ross gives excuse that the head counts is only for food department
which has no connection with HR even though both department is linked because any
reports must go through HR. From this situation, we can see that every department in the
government are not working together for the sake of the education especially for the
homeless students. There is no cooperation between them. They are just hands off their
responsibility to other department about taking care about the childrens issue as they see
homeless school is not as important as regular schools in the district.
COMPARISON WITH EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA
Thus, they are similarities and differences between both Malaysia and in the movie
countries. For similarity, politic in Malaysia also provides equal access to every child in the
country to get the education (Maysia Blue Print 2014-2025). They do established many kinds
of schools for all children. But the difference is in Malaysia, the politic is very taking care
about the equality and equity aspects. The government show their responsible and effort to
all schools in terms of funding, setting of goals and direction, curriculum design, teacher
training and management, student assessment and management, as well as administering
and managing other aspects of education. Regardless of the location of the schools; urban,
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sub-urban or rural, all schools get the same opportunity and helps from the government
including schools in Sabah and Sarawak. From the beginning, all school established have
their existing organization, syllabus and etc to make sure that the administration of the new
school can run smoothly. In addition, Malaysia politic also emphasize that everything that
related to school education system must follow the protocol. This is similar with the movie.
But in Malaysia, the point of a protocol is to have an in-depth, insightful conversation about
teaching and learning, not to do a perfect protocol. Not only that, to hire a new teachers
many procedure need to be take into account like Medsi examination and interview, not just
simply use veto power. This to ensure the teachers to be hire is quality enough to educate
the students. Other than that, changes can be done but still follow the protocol is
compulsory. In Malaysia, the government have different department that will play its own role
but is interconnected with each other.
The current educational atmosphere in Malaysia schools also has affected our teachers,
students and good administrators in a negative way. If in the movie the children are losing
the joy of learning and teachers are losing the joy of teaching due to lack of support from the
politic. But in Malaysia, the support is just too enough to make the teachers burn out. The
expertise of our teachers has been handcuffed by more bureaucracy, paperwork and any
other non-related teaching work. Educating our children has become the secondary issue
and meeting the standards has become the prime reason why teachers are expected to
teach.
2. ECONOMIC CONTEXT THAT AFFECT EDUCATION
Like politic, economic context also provide a great impact to the education system in the
movie. The story is happen during economic crisis where poverty is everywhere. But this
economic crisis has changed school education at the shelter in both negative and positive
ways. The effect of economic stress is on families as parents lose jobs and homes thus, the
children need to move from place to place with their families for much of their life. Many of
their parents are not taking care of and put enough love to their children as well as not spent
even little money for the children. Thus, the children become emotionally neglected with no
homes and little hope to l live. Pertaining to that, because of their lifelong circumstances,
they have a little self-esteem to learn and live. But there is a brighter side to the problem
they are facing just because they get the love, care and knowledge from Ms Bess. By her
efforts, Ms Bess able to reach the children that is previously been labelled unteachable.
In addition, the homeless school gets lack of budget from government especially for the
equipment, books and any other learning aids. The students just get the food which is from
the food department. At this time it challenges the teacher to teach one, by using zero
technology, two, lack of experience to handle one to six students concurrently and three to
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fulfilled the needs by using own money. In the movie, Ms Bess also has problem in money
by looking at how her family cannot afford the nursery if she quit from the job. But she
manages to spend her own money in order to make the classroom interesting and the bellies
of her students are not empty while learning. But, due to lack of technology, it helps Ms Bess
in a positive way. This condition encourages Ms Bess to be creative in her teaching. For
example the way she teaches music and mathematics like fractions.

COMPARISON WITH MALAYSIA

In Malaysia the economic also affect the education. There are poor people in
Malaysia too but as the politic emphasized on education for all, this poverty issue is not the
big deal for the children to be enrolled in the school. Compared to the movie where the
school get lack of budget from the government, in Malaysia the budget for education is
become one of the aspects of their commitment. For example, low-income families that
would otherwise not be able to afford preschool will receive need-based financial support
from the Ministry (Preliminary report Malaysia Education blueprint ). Our Prime Minister,
Dato Sri Mohd Najib Abdul Razak (2013) emphasized in Budget 2014 that government is
committed to boost academic achievement and skill levels. To that end, a total of 54.6 billion
ringgit, or 21 percent of the total allocation in 2014 will be provided. Specifically 100 million
will be given to the National School, 50 million to the national-type Chinese, 50 million for
Tamil schools, 50 million dollars for schools, missionary, 50 million were channelled to
boarding schools, 50 million to the College Junior Science Colleges, 50 million for
government -assisted religious schools and 50 million for the School of Religious
Representatives (Najib Razak, 2013). Overall, the money is allocated not only for
administration of the schools in Malaysia, but also for construction and maintenance as well
as to improve and add for teaching and learning equipment. Due to this better aspect of
economy thus, our children mosty have no problem with self-esteem compared to the
students of Ms Bess. This is because they have plenty of it. Sometimes too much. The
developments in the computer technology and telecommunication in Malaysia bring the
teaching and learning session much better than in the movie. Thus, the economy in Malaysia
can provide a better education environment for the students.

3. SOCIAL CONTEXT THAT AFFECT EDUCATION

After having politics that are too dictate the education in the era of economic crisis, the
society around also affect the education system in both positive and negative ways. The
social context is more related to the acceptance and roles of the society in the education
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matters of the homeless children. The biggest factor is parents. At the beginning of the story,
parents of the children do not care about the school and their childrens education. But at the
end of the story, due to commitment shows by Ms Bess, she able to get the cooperation
from the parents to join the PTA meeting. In the meeting, the parents discuss and get to
know better about their children. The parents also start to cooperate in making sure their
children do homework, participate in sports and music. Means that the parents show a high
value on education and help their children do well and encourage them to learn.
COMPARISON WITH EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA
Malaysias schools also have this PTA meeting things that we called as PIBG
meeting. This association designed to create alliances between parents and teachers at the
school. It function in assists the school in various activities for the betterment of the children
studying in the school (Rohani, 2012). Parents are encouraged to assist the school in
various activities. Such collaboration is expected to develop an understanding of the duties
and responsibilities shared in order to improve the teaching quality of teachers and the
learning of students in schools and to enhance cooperation and partnership between the
school, parents, and local communities.
4. CULTURAL CONTEXT THAT AFFECT EDUCATION

In the movie, the children is come from different area before this and also consist of both
white and black students, thus, they may have their own culture that may differ from each
other. This cultural difference can give impact on the way children participate in education.
Ms Bess is the good teacher where she is full with knowledge about this culture different.
She learnt it through her experience by observing the behaviour of her students and also
hears stories shared by them. She does not misjudge the students just because of their
poorly behaved or disrespectful during the first day of her teaching. One of the culture that
can be observe from the movie is, students need to are taught to value active classroom
discussion and to look teachers directly in the eye to show respect, while their teachers view
students' participation as a sign of engagement and competence.
COMPARISON WITH EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA
As compared to Malaysia, the students are consisted of many different races. Thus, different
races have different culture need to be followed. Teachers need to expert in these cultural
differences. According to Saosa (n.d.), teacher can recognizes culture in education of the
children based on Student's learning style, the different modes of reflective learning, role of
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group collaboration and function of non-verbal behaviour. All of these can be observe during
teaching and learning session. But, in Malaysia, mostly teacher enter the class just to finish
the syllabus and teaching according to lesson plan. They do not care about this cultural
issue. Thus cause problem for example students will feel abandon by the teacher,
stereotype issue, some cultures value education very highly and parents take an active role
in ensuring that educational goals are met by their children.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, education is essential to every child in this world. No child left behind
is the best program that can be established by all countries. Political, economic, social and
culture can bring positive and negative impact to the education. Thus, supports from
government, parents and society are essential to make sure the education is happen in the
right manner, effective and efficient. All teachers must have a very high commitment and try
their best to educate the students as same as what Ms Bess did.

REFERENCES:
1. Hinckley (2011). New York Daily News. Retrieved April 19, 2014 from
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/happy-tears-guaranteed-shed-
watching-blackboard-article-1.114821

2. Najib Razak (2013). Ucapan Bajet Tahun 2014: Memperteguh Ketahanan Ekonomi,
Memperkasa Transformasi Dan Melaksana Janji. Retrieved April 19, 2014 from
http://www.1malaysia.com.my/blog/ucapan-bajet-tahun-2014-memperteguh-
ketahanan-ekonomi-memperkasa-transformasi-dan-melaksana-janji/

3. Preliminary report Malaysia Education blueprint 2013-2025 (2012). Retrieved April
19, 2014 from www.moe.gov.my/userfiles/file/PPP/Preliminary-Blueprint-Eng.pdf

4. Rohani Mat Salleh (2012). Peranan PIBG. Retrieved April 19, 2014 from
http://rosehoney13.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/peranan-pibg/

5. Saosa,D. J. (n.d.). The impact of culture on childs learning. Retrieved April 19, 2014
from www.ribghe.org0C1S2DavidSousa.pdf

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