After seeing the movie Accepted

Course Title: Film Appreciation
Name: 岑忻巧
Class: 200902
Date of Writing: September 7, 2010
Accepted –Instructed
After seeing the movie Accepted, I feel greatly honored and proud for this brave young man –Barnaby Gaines, for the movie itself is thought-provoking and instructive.
I have thought many times about the function of education, which means a process of teaching, training and learning, especially in schools or colleges, to improve knowledge and develop skills in the dictionary. I don’t know when the word “education” came into being, but I believe that education had already existed before people invented this word.
The idea which I stick fast to is that the only purpose of education is to tell people how to develop, and I classified this kind of development into three aspects. What education brings to us is not only development in one’s life, development in one’s spirit, but also development in one’s physical aspect.
It may sound ridiculous, but education does teach you how to become a human from an ap e. Let’s see from primitive time. At the very beginning, there was no knowing how to keep one alive. But gradually, people picked wild plants, hunted animals and even learned how to use fire. Home came into being, and so did countries.
In this process, it was the nature what taught us how to live. Then, let’s see from our daily life. Gaining the experience of living, we knew how could we get more food, how to keep us warm, how could we escape from the attacks of animals, how could we make use of nature resources. Technologies, arts, religion, science, philosophy, they were all the results of developments. With the help of them, humans are being admitted by this world. The first and everlasting teacher is our nature.
While we are developing in life, we are also developing in spirit. I have been told a story that the Black’s music, for example, Blues was generated from working. In the middle age, the main power to move ships was humans’ labor. And when the Black were regarded as the lowest class and pulled ships to shore, they would shout like “hey, ha, hey, ha…” Later, it became a rhythm, which was Blues. It’s also a kind of education from experience. It passes down and people gained another life –positive and full of music. Education brings us a sense of self awareness. Without education, we don’t know what the world is, how others live and what is ideal. Plato said the aim of the education is know yourself. Shakespeare said “To be or not to be, it is a question”. Education is like a bridge between to be or not to be. Even though one’s body exist, but without soul, it’s just a body –a talking machine without personalities. How pathetic!
Last but not least, education strengthens our body and makes us healthy. Believe it or not, when we are learning something, our body is more active, according to a science survey. When we are having physical classes and doing sports, our bodies change. We grow from teens to tycoons. We grow from little boys and little girls to
big men and women. It’s the power of education that we can’t deny.
But we can’t deny that some of the forms of education have changed the essence of education. They are no longer student-centered, and they have no sense of innovation. They no longer obey the development rule. For my part, Chinese education is one of them, may be worse than American education. Students should always have a chance to say their needs out. And it is the true education. If there is one form of education which suppress students creativity rather than cultivate it, if there is one form of education which says no to students’ freedom, if there is one form of education goes against students’needs, if there is one form of education runs counter to the rule of development, it’s NOT education. I hold a sense of jealousy, for American students have a chance to say what they want out loud and have a chance to go to the court and fight for their rights. I have to ask, how many Chinese students failed because of not having such a just environment? Anyway, we hope everything will go as we want.
We can’t continue life which is of no nutrition. Definitely, education is the process from which we gain nutrition.
It is obvious that this is an American comedy, for it is with a heavy American accent, which is expressed both in intonation and liaison, which is totally different from English accent.
In most cases, while pronouncing American words, we are likely to roll our tongues. As a result, we sound mellow and full while pronouncing with English accent is not. Secondly, while pronouncing words in American accent, our mouth is
more exaggerate. Take the word God for example, in America; it was pronounced gad while in English it is god. In America, more often than not, the letter T is always pronounced D. It sounds casual, but it’s also native. The most important thing is liaison. As for this, Americans would run the words together, and quite often. However, English doesn’t have this character. English is famous for its traditional while America is famous for its open. This kind of culture can also be figure out from the way they talk.
As for the question of differences between idiom and slang, it is quite simple. Idiom is a manner of speaking that is natural to native speakers of a language while slang is an informal language consisting of words and expressions that are not considered appropriate for formal occasions. Slang is casual spoken language which differs from dialectical speech and jargon as well as formal speech. Some linguists think of slang as the sprinkles of color in a language, since slang is often unique, unusual, and sometimes startling. Idioms are words, phrases, or expressions that cannot be taken literally. In other words, when used in everyday language.
This movie is education too. Not only in the aspect of cultural, but also life philosophy. I do admire Barnaby Gaines, for his courage creativity and wisdom. He is a true student who deserves to be a college student.。