Chalk in Comparison to Freire, Gatto and Rose

In Freire's "The Banking Concept on Education," he discusses the one-sided relationship between student and teacher. He claims that students are expected to simply listen to the teacher narrate and never question it or go beyond what is taught. In the film Chalk, Mr. Stroop asks his students to dumb themselves down because he believes it compromises his authority to have students who know more than him or use more refined language.

Gatto claims in his "Against School: How School Cripples our Kids," that students and teachers suffer from boredom. This can be seen in nearly every seen of Chalk. The students are portrayed as ignorant and equally uninterested in the curriculum. Many of the teachers also seem to have given up. Although Mr. Lowery turns things around before the end of the film, in the first scene he see to be uninterested with the subject he is teaching and therefore, so are the students.

Similar to Gatto, Rose claims that students need to be more engaged in their education. Mr. Stoop, in Chalk, is great at engaging students, but not in the subject he is teaching. Lowery seems to know a lot about the subject he is teaching, but is not very good at engaging his students. When Lowery begins to relax, the students begin to respect him more. Lowery stops trying to stick to a strict lesson plan and the students become more engaged and want to learn.