Claireece (''Precious'') Jones is an overweight 16-year-old girl who is pregnant for the second time with her father's child. Her first born has Down syndrome. Claireece’s mother abuses her, and, partially because of this, she is illiterate. After she is transferred to an alternative school by her first school's principal (after a non-productive talk of the principal and Mary, Claireece's mother), she meets Ms. Blu Rain, a teacher who encourages her to learn the alphabet, write, become mindful of her life, and start taking responsibility for herself and for her children.
Teacher empathy is the ability to express concern and take the perspective of a student, and it involves cognitive and affective domains of empathy.
In case of Precious, Ms. Rain clearly possesses high empathetic intelligence. She is a diamond within educators, able to imagine herself in Claireece's position, not just once, as one insight, but multiple times. For example, she understands the girl's need for love and support, and she helps her in times of need when there is no one else to expect help from. At the same time, she remains a professional. For instance, she does not offer Precious to stay in her house, she simply does whatever it takes to relocate the girl. Thus, one can assume that her empathy is one of an educator, not just an emotional response of an affectionate person who empathizes by an association (being an open lesbian in the eighties, she surely has suffered from the lack of understanding from others). Ms. Rain also recognizes Claireece's potential as a student, thus demonstrating that she can connect with the girl intellectually. It can be presumed that this skill is supported by her habitual attitude towards students, since she said that, “everybody is good at something.” Moreover, as an educator, she believes that learning to read and write are of ultimate importance. Thus, she begins the process of uncovering students' potential by assuring that they have a necessary set of mental tools, like reading and writing.
Barr's argument made me rethink my perception of American education system as being exemplary – even though it does foster cases similar to that of Ms. Rain's – Claireece relationship, they are random and practically impossible to predict. It would be much more beneficial to certain students who lived in conditions of poverty and abuse as well as for the society in general. It is especially important if the fate of students whose situation is similar to that of Claireece did not depend on the effort of a single person but was rather improved by the characteristics of the system itself. For example, if the school principal was aware how to analyze situation from a student’s perspective, her effort to improve the girl's life would be more successful and less stressful for the girl. Claireece's life was changed by Ms. Rain while in the perfect world it should have been changed by fact of entering the school system itself, starting from her first school, the regular one. In the first school, the environment made Precious think that instructors and school could not help her. From this perspective, the film can be viewed as a criticism of an American school, not its praise.
Moreover, as parents are essentially the first educators, they should be taught empathy as well. Ms. Rain is forced to play a semi-motherly role for Precious, mostly because her real mother is failing at the task. The story of Precious is a further, albeit fictional, proof of Rodriguez' findings. Mary, Claireece's mother, would clearly belong to the second group of mothers (the ones who scored low on the test). She could not see that her daughter was unhappy in her first school. She could not understand that she needed protection from her own father. Besides, she was unaware that the girl could not perform well at school, because she was taking her child's confidence away by constant abuse. Most importantly, she viewed Precious' behavior as malicious and deliberate. Mary claimed that Claireece ''took her man.'' She also blamed her daughter for being ''dumb'' and for not being able to learn anything, remaining blind to her own role in this. Ms. Rain played the role of a therapist for Claireece, reviving her after her childhood trauma.
As a final note, I would like to highlight the final scene with Mary, when she appeals to empathy of a social worker through emotional reasoning, and does not receive it. In a different movie, in a different story told through the lens of another person's experience, Mary could be the main character and the victim. Yet, her voice remains unheard in this story's universe even though the director (judging from the zoom in-zoom out camera moves) is moved by her personal tragedy.
In conclusion, the whole story can be perceived as a tragedy triggered by the lack of empathy from those and for those who need it most, which gets a triumphant solution by its demonstration in a persuasive case of Ms. Rain. I believe that it teaches people that there is much room for improvement in the school system for an individual, for parents, and teachers as a whole.
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