Akeelah and The Bee

When watching this movie, I see the expectations the people have on African-American students. They were not expected to be educated and the students also feel they could not go beyond society’s expectation. When one of them get good grades, instead of praise or admiration he or she would be scorned. I think the teacher knew this, that’s why she pretended that Akeelah did not do well in front of the class. The one who initiated this low expectation was the community and therefore created a self-fulfilling prophecy among the youths. Since no one truly believes in them, they did not feel the need to strive harder for improvement or success. This is an implication on teaching because we teachers should not have a preconceived notion of our students. Students are not dumb, they can sense when a teacher and even the people around them are looking down upon them. This does not motivate them at all.

The main character, Akeelah, set a great model for her people. By joining the spelling bee competition and succeed in it gave hope to her community. When she was qualified to the finals, people from her community praised her and had high hopes on her because she represents their hopes for their children and to prove that underprivileged people can also succeed.

However, having such high expectation can also bring a lot of pressure on students as well. In the movie, Dylan Chiu was constantly put on a pedestal and his father is very strict towards his training. This caused Dylan to feel miserable and constrained by his father’s ambition. Even the privileged can feel the pressure to be the best in society since it has high expectation and these students tend to strive for perfection. To have high expectation can be a good thing but excessive ones can cause unnecessary stress on the child.

Dr. Joshua Larabee is a good coach. He rejected Akeelah’s use of “street talk” and demanded her to speak proper English. This, I think, is the first step in improving one’s fluency in the language. But, his method in teaching is considered to be conventional because all he asked of her was memorizing at the beginning of her training. As the training progressed, he used a jump rope to help Akeelah focus on her spelling. When he stopped his coaching, Akeelah was lost momentarily but got some help from her community and her family. This is one of the most touching moment in the film. Her brother who strayed away from home became closer to her and even helped her in training. The community that shunned Akeelah encouraged her to strive harder. It is amazing to see a young girl had united her community.

Last but not least, Akeelah and Dylan both won the championship and that is the most amazing moment of the movie. This goes to show with dedication, hard work, love, and support can help one to succeed in whatever he or she wants to achieve.