Scene from the French film 'Everything begins today' by Bertrand Tavernier.
We are talking today about another film related to education, it is about “Today everything begins (Ça commence aujourd'hui)” by Bertrand Tavernier (In the center of the storm). A 1999 French film, which was well received by critics and audiences in France, which stars: Dominique Sampiero, Tiffany Tavernier and Bertrand Tavernier himself.
In 'Today everything begins' We will meet Daniel, 40, a teacher and director of a nursery school in a depressed town in northern France. He is a sensitive and tenacious man who is passionate about his work, but finds himself trapped in a hierarchy that does not allow him to exceed his duties as an educator, being forced to follow the basic rules of teaching while his students go to school literally dead from hungry and in rags. Despite the obstacles, Daniel will not give up and will enlist the support of the entire community.
The story of Tavernier, very real, tells us that there is much to tell, and it does so truthfully and without haste, but without pauses, undoubtedly in a dose of reality, which tells us that the current society has arrived to a very difficult situation, but what there will always be people with the courage, patience and courage to try to fight to improve things.
The school of "Today starts all" is in a poor neighborhood and shows us the situation of the children, their family environment (with alcoholism, a lot of unemployment, mistreatment, juvenile delinquency ...) and how the school principal has no choice but to get involved in these matters. Facing the educational system and the bureaucracy of political administrations (and social services) that is not exactly helping the teacher.
The teacher often denounces that he finds himself alone before the problems that arise from these characters (mistreatment, integration of immigrants, poverty, children with problems, etc.), since the support, endowments, or help provided by the Consellería is null (one thing is what the educational laws say and another what happens in the reality), thus remaining for the resolution of these problems simply the posture that the teacher adopts before them ... pulling the chestnuts out of the fire, with courage ... like the teacher of the film. And he does it like him, for children, for sensitivity and tenderness towards them who are oblivious to the hostile world in which they grow up and the reality in which they live.
Another idea that I find interesting is the one made by one of the school's oldest teachers, when she says that Before, I had 45 students in class and in poor conditions (as currently) and they were very disciplined, whereas now I was 30 and they were not disciplined. She attributes this to the fact that children are alone, mothers no longer take care of their children and they do not know who to talk to.
I think that we should reflect on our conscience about what is happening and about the importance of a word in the profession we are studying: Courage. The teacher's life, far from the clichés that "they are better than they want" as heard on the street, is crude, and if the teacher has the necessary and desirable vocation, it must be one of continuous struggle to improve the situation, as in the film by the French director Tavernier.
More information - Trailer of the movie "In the center of the storm"
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