Chinese Movie Review—I Not Stupid

This movie is a Singaporean movie which reflects Asian educational philosophy and Singaporean educational system as well as the unique political situation in Singapore. It is a sweet and bitter movie with hilarious dialogues reflecting some students’ frustration within this educational system.
The story is about three Singaporean students who have low academic achievement and are considered as hopeless ones by their parents, some teachers in the school, and other people in the society. Therefore, they don’t have self-confidence and self-esteem at all. However, each of them has ones own unique talent and character that help them to earn people’s respect and to build up their confidence after they went through a lot of incidents. This movie reminds me all the time that as a teacher I should not label any child and should give all students equal opportunities to succeed. Any positive encouragement we give to students may impact their learning or even their lives.
This movie is the most popular one among all my students in the Chinese classes from grade 6 all the way to seniors in the high school. Somehow they all find a way to relate this movie to their real lives. After watching the movie, many Asian students told me that their parents are very like the parents in the movie. Many students of other ethnics compared and contrasted the Asian educational system to our educational system in the US. A lot of them were curious about my educational background in Taiwan and also asked me questions about the educational system in China. This movie increased students’ interests and curiosity in learning more about Asian education and a great class discussion arose after watching this movie. Therefore, I highly recommend teachers to watch this movie and let your students to watch it too.