Babel

I recently got the enjoyment of being able to watch the movie "Babel". This film is a wonderful portrayal of the connection that exits within our world market. It is often hard to look at people all over the world and try to explain how they are connected, "Babel" was able to successfully do this.

This movie can easily be connected to education. It is important to realize that all cultures are connected. That one thing can affect a larger group. I think especially in the United States, we often forget that this is the case. We are not the beginning and end of everything. What one person does can greatly affect what other people do. How I choose to teach students in the future may have an affect on the global community. Now, what i teach someone may not cause someone to get shot, but what I say and do can affect someone and so on. Choices are like a snowball effect. When decisions are made, they affect more than one person. They affect everyone that I am connected to, everyone they are connected to etc.

My problem with today's society is that we often forget that all the decisions we make do not help someone else. Something that may affect us positively may affect someone else negatively. A poignant example of this in the movie was when the Japanese man gave a gun to the Moroccan man, who in turn let his sons use, who in turn ended up shooting someone. Although the Japanese man gave the gun out of gratitude, and the gun was a wonderful gift for short while, the affect that it had on the women from the United States was potentially fatal. We often forget that it is important to look at the common good of not just ourselves.

I guess this is the job I feel that I need to take on as a teacher. I need to teach students to be mindful of the choices they make and the affects that they may have on a society as a whole.