12 Angry Men

First of all, BRILLIANT movie. I haven actually sat down and updated my blog in ages. I had a lot to actually write over the last few days, but i guess its all old news now and not exactly interesting.

Anyway, the movie is easily one of the best i have seen. It deals with the jury in a murder trial. It is a brilliant character sketch of the various biases and prejudices of the jury and how they operate. The movie has an all male cast with probably only 13 actors or so.

This movie got me thinking. The various prejudices and biases of people who evaluate us. The brilliant teachers who have complete autnomy over our grades, and our lives. So what about their biases? Is it right to give such great autonomy to teachers when they can hide the basis for their evaluation and decide to either mark arbitrarily or keeping the name list next to them. There was once a teacher who specifically told us he would let the "class participation" decide the marks in projects and vivas. Another announces in open class that he keeps the names next to papers while correcting them. Maybe someone should sit down with these teachers and tell them exactly in what ways their past affects our futures.