Cinema Reflection

CO Teaching and Remember the Titans Remember the Titans as an example of CoTeaching Creating a collaborative and cooperative environment can prove to be difficult at times, especially within an educational setting. Conflict within an educational setting, specifically athletics, is evident in Remember the Titans (2000). In the film, coach Herman Boone, played by Denzel Washington, must teach fellow staff members and students to overcome their social differences and preconceived notions of race in order to become a successful and "perfect" football team.

Remember the Titans (2000) is set in 1971 Virginia in the recently desegregated T.C. Williams High School. The central conflicts between T.C. Williams High School's former football head coaches, primarily coach Bill Yoast whom Boone is replacing, and black and white football players that are combined into a single football team instead of separate, segregated teams, center on issues of race. Coach Boone had several obstacles that he needed to overcome in order to be a successful educator.

First, Boone had to overcome the tensions between himself and former head coach Yoast, which were not only rooted in race but also in power and politics. Boone was able to overcome his issues with Yoast by offering Yoast the opportunity to be in charge of coordinating the team's defensive strategy. While Yoast is an adult, the concept of coteaching is applicable in his case. Eileen M.

Bowers (2004) argues "the goal of the coteaching or inclusive classroom is to make all children feel as though they belong and are as capable as everyone else" (p. 33). It is very important for Boone and Yoast to be able to work together if they are to successfully coach a team that is as divided as they are/once were. Additionally, coach Boone must find a way to successfully integrate black and white football players and have them work together, as a team, to become football champions.

As each group of players had someone they looked up to, creating an environment of inclusion was not only dependent on coach Boone, but also on Gerry Bertier, the captain of the formerly segregated white football team, and Julius Campbell, the captain of the black football team (Remember the Titans, 2000). While tensions between these opposing players continues to increase, coach Boone resorts to forcing them to realize how petty their reasons for refusing to collaborate with each other by taking them on a training run to Gettysburg.

Coach Boone forces the players to recognized that they are not only fighting the same fight as people during the Civil War, but also that they have a common goal. By taking his football players to Gettysburg, coach Boone provided them with background of the dangers of conflicts rooted in race. Coach Boone was able to create familiarity with the issue by not only lecturing about it, but also by taking the team to see the tangible evidence of the consequences of the conflict.

This helped to "some familiarity about the content before encountering it at a challenging level," that is, before they could overcome their differences and work as one (Wormeli, 2001, p. 17). This exercise helped the different leaders -- Yoast, Bertier, and Campbell -- fully recognize the implications of their actions and work towards collaboration with each other and coach Boone, a collaboration that would lead them to.