Akeelah is an eleven-year-old African American girl who lives in a low-income area in California with her family. Her economic status is poverty and she realizes quickly that she is made fun of by the kids in her school for being smart. She lives with her mother and she has two brothers and one sister. Her father passed away, leaving her mother alone to raise the children. Her mother works in a hospital and life seems to be a struggle for her. The movie “Akeelah and the Bee” is about an eleven-year-old girl who is raised in poor areas, her father died when she was six years old.
She has an older brother who is in the Army and he encourages Akeelah to compete in the spelling bee. Her other brother seems to be in trouble a lot and her older sister has a baby of her own. Akeelah’s mother is a nurse and appears to be depressed over losing her husband, raising the kids on her own, and life in general. She does not encourage Akeelah in the beginning. You find out later that her mother is very intelligent and received a scholarship, but she didn’t believe in herself. The movie reveals how everyone is affected by this eleven-year-old girl.
Their opinions and outlook start to go in a more positive direction and everyone is cheering for Akeelah to win.
Girls and boys are different when it comes to bullying. Girls tend to make fun and laugh at others which are forms of bullying. Boys are usually more physical. For example, when Akeelah was trying out for the spelling bee, the two girls in the back of the room openly mocked her and made fun of her in front of everyone.
The most influential system in developing a self-concept and self-control in early childhood is having a supportive family and parents. Parents help children grow socially, physically, emotionally, and intellectually by engaging in fun activities and playing together and assisting their children in developing self-concept and self-control (William, D., Hart, D. 1988).
The importance of peers for development is significant. This is a time when young children are very susceptible to pressure from others and often give in to it. They want to be part of the group, or they want to avoid being made fun of and being bullied. In Akeelah’s case, she was able to overcome peer pressure because she had a positive role model who taught her it is ok to be great and never be afraid of greatness. He would accept no less than he knew she was capable of and by believing in her, she began to believe in herself. Dr. Larabee helped her ignore peer pressure and achieve greatness.
Early in the movie, Akeelah’s mother Tanya exhibited an uninvolved parenting style. She was not very responsive or demanding. It appeared as if she rejected ideas of greatness from her children and was not encouraging. However, by the end of the movie, she became more of an authoritative parent by becoming responsive to Akeelah’s needs, and she became encouraging.
Four basic ingredients of positive parenting child interactions are respect, love, encouragement, and shared enjoyment. Akeelah’s mother did not show any of the four basic ingredients of parenting at the beginning of the movie. She loved her children but she did not show it. It did not appear that she respected, encouraged, or shared enjoyment with them. By the end of the movie, these basic ingredients were reflected in her parenting style. She was suddenly encouraging, loving, respectful, and it appears that she was also enjoying spending time with her children again.
According to Piaget’s cognitive growth chart, Akeelah would be in the stage of the Concrete Operations state. This stage is for children between the ages of 7-12 years old. These children are capable of concrete problem-solving. Akeelah will soon be entering the stage of Formal Operations which includes children between the age of 12 years and older. For this stage, children typically have the ability to generate multiple hypotheses and their possible outcome is evident. Thinking becomes less tied to concrete reality.
Some examples of Kolberg’s moral reasoning theory at the first stage include a person’s moral judgment which is avoiding breaking any rules which could result in punishment. At stage two there is moral reciprocity which basically means if you help me, I will help you. Stage three is awareness of shard feelings, agreements, and expectations. People at this stage define what is right in terms of what is expected by people. Relationships will have trust, loyalty, respect, and gratitude. Stage four is role expectations regarding laws and the social system. Stage five is the rejection of a uniform application of a rule or norm. Stage six is the last level of moral judgment including ethical fairness principles. The concepts of Kolberg’s reasoning theory tie into the movie by showing the various stages of the characters and how they may change. For example, Akeelah’s friend and sister are invited to the birthday party. When arriving they see that the majority of the guests are white children. They feel out of place so they decide not to stay. Akeelah sets a good example by getting out of the car and not caring what they do, she wants to attend her friend’s party. They end up coming back and enjoy being at the party with Akeelah. This is an example of stage four. They felt certain expectations or laws of the social system, but because Akeelah broke those “laws”, they followed her lead and made new friends. Another example is stage three when Akeelah was going to lose the competition on purpose for her new friend. He realized what she was doing and he missed the next word on purpose. They both decided to continue the competition by doing their best.
According to Erikson, each life stage provokes a psychosocial dilemma. Akeelah’s mother is at stage 8 which is Integrity vs. Despair. Her husband was murdered so she has feelings of despair due to the loss of a partner. Dr. Larabee was at stage 7 or stagnation since his daughter passed away. However, he appears to be moving towards generativity since he is planning on teaching again and living life again. Lev Vygotsky’s social-cultural theory suggests that social interaction leads to continuous changes in thoughts and behavior.
This can vary between different cultures. Development can depend on interaction with people which can be passed from one person to another through imitative learning, instructions, and collaborative learning. In the next five years, Akeelah will be successful and she will be able to move forward with her education. Her community will also be in a better place. They were able to learn from each other and this experience taught them they to go out of their comfort zone and to reach their goals.
Because of zone proximal development (ZPD), Akeelah was able to achieve a task she could not do alone, and with the help of her community, family, and friends she was able to achieve her goal. Akeelah has many strengths which include her social interactions, her private speech, and because of her cognitive development. Akeelah’s private speech was doubtful at first, but she learned to have a more positive private speech which was encouraging. Her social interactions, in the beginning, were to follow and fit in. This changed to follow her heart and not be afraid to be great.
Having a safe and harmonious home is important during middle childhood because this is the time when children are developing their social skills and this can be a complicated time for children. They need to know there is a place where they are safe while they learn positive social skills. The phrase “it takes a community to raise one child” and the movie both correspond with Vygotsky’s social learning theory because the theory states how important it is for everyone in the community to come together in order to provide and teach others.
When the community works together more can be done in terms of successful children. Akeelah went from having one coach to 50 coaches. What the movie meant by that was that she had many people in the community willing to help her.
What struck me most about the film was the fact that Akeelah and her friends never dreamed of being intelligent, they never dreamed of venturing out of their own neighborhood to be friends with people who were different from them, they felt they didn’t belong anywhere else.
What they found was that those other communities and people were not so different than them and they were welcome. They realized they were intelligent and it was ok to be smart.
Regarding the poem read in the movie the place I am small in my own life is doing community service. This is something I would like to do but feel uncomfortable in some of the situation donating my time. At times I do feel I shrink so others will not feel insecure around me especially if someone points out my greatness.
To fear that we are powerful beyond measure means acknowledging your greatness and allowing your greatness to shine through. By allowing our own light to shine others will realize it is ok to do their best and they will follow our lead.
References
- William, D. & Hart, D. (1988). Self Understanding in Childhood and Adolescence. New York: Cambridge University Press, retrieved from http://social.jrank. org/pages/554/Self-Concept.html
