Are we "Alike"?

Amongst all the topics seen at class, one which especially caught our attention and was worthy to praise, was the video titled “Alike”. This award-winning short film tells the story of a kid and his father, who live in a boring and monotonous society. It is impressive how this film is able to give us goosebumps without the necessity of words and where the location is not a flat in a cosmopolitan city such as New York, but an universal place, where colour is not a racial distinctive feature but a mirror of the characters’ feelings. 

Such an accurate title for this short film, the word “alike” means very similar, similarity which is found between dad’s and child’s environments, work and school, respectively. At first glance, you can easily be mistaken into thinking that these two worlds are rather different, but nothing further from the truth, this dichotomy offers us a wide range of ideas to be discussed.

While the sun rises to start a new day, some people may not notice this marvelous moment because they are subsumed in our society’s dynamism, where there is not room for things such as art. Some people may wonder why there isn’t room for art, the answer is TIME!, all of us  have turned into the White Rabbit from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland".

“Alike” can be interpreted as a symbolic vindication to the arts and to freedom itself to express our own passion in life. The child acquires colour (i.e. happiness) thanks to the music of a violinist, to his creative drawings at class, to the opportunity of expressing himself through art, as the father feels restored with the simple gesture of his child’s hug. However, there is a turning point in the story where the child doesn’t rebel to norms but in doing so he/she loses his/her bliss, his/her yearning to play, to be curious, to experiment, and he/she ends up being in a world totally identical to the world of adults.

All of these dichotomies provide several relevant reflections concerning to our current education that we, as future teachers, will have to consider. Furthermore, this film has been the idoneous first step to gather some key ideas for our journey, some of them are; imagination and education are not opposites, the feature of adapting to our student’s profile is vital, motivation is everything for achieving great things, we should be a source of inspiration and overall when motivation and inspiration are difficult to achieve, we should be able to offer a rainbow of alternatives.

 LET’S START THIS ADVENTURE! :D