Young Plato Review: great teaching means more than just academics

With Young Plato, Neasa Ní Chianáin continues her cinematic exploration — which began with In Loco Parentis (School Life) — of exceptional Irish teachers and the children whose lives they change. Young Plato screened at DOCNYC in 2021.

Young Plato is one of the 20 Best Films of 2022 so far.

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With Young Plato, Neasa Ní Chianáin continues her cinematic exploration — which began with In Loco Parentis (School Life) — of exceptional Irish teachers and the children whose lives they change. In School Life, which she co-directed with David Rane (who serves as a producer, though not a director, on Young Plato), Ní Chianáin followed two teachers at an Irish boarding school, married couple Amanda Leyden and John Leyden, to show how these teachers took care of the children’s emotional and intellectual needs.

In Young Plato, this time co-directed with Declan McGrath, Ní Chianáín (also serving as cinematographer) trains her camera on teacher Kevin McArevey, who teaches philosophy as a way to help boys process their emotions and find better ways of dealing with their anger. Both films keenly depict how great teachers who value critical thinking can be an important route to social change — but they can’t always entirely counteract the influence of wider society.

Young Plato is set at an all-boys Catholic primary school in Belfast’s Ardoyne, a place at the centre of the Troubles where “Peace Walls” have been installed all over town to physically separate Catholics and Protestants. In the film’s opening, Ní Chianáin offers drone footage of the area, which grounds the story in a very specific place and its needs, even if McArevey’s methods could be more widely applied. Next, editor Philippe Ravoet expertly juxtaposes images of police in riot gear amidst violent crowds (which include children) with footage of parents taking their children to school — each on the same street corners. It’s a reminder that violence, anger, and hatred are deeply rooted in the community’s life, which makes combatting it at school all the more urgent and necessary.

In one of the first philosophy classes of the year, McArevey asks the boys to consider the question, “Is it OK to take out your anger on someone else?”. Students toss around a ball, possession of which grants them access to take the floor and express their opinions. McArevey encourages them to listen to each other, and often change their point of view in the process. McArevey facilitates the conversation, but like Socrates to his Young Platos, never opines. He only asks for clarification to make sure everyone has understood the point. As the boys discuss their arguments, more of them side against it being OK to take out your anger on others. They collectively come up with alternative solutions, like a punching bag. 

“Philosophy board” in Young Plato

When the boys misbehave and get into scrapes — usually taking out their anger on someone else — the punishment isn’t detention but ‘philosophy board’. They spend their lunch hour with McArevey instead of playing outside. Here, they must articulate, by writing on a white board, their feelings that led to the altercation. Then, they brainstorm strategies for dealing with a similar problem should it arise in future.

Along the way, McArevey congratulates the boys on their thinking. He always looks at incidents as one-time events rather than a commentary on the boys’ characters. He helps correct their grammar and spelling mistakes on the whiteboard like any other lesson. Whether discussing a theoretical idea in class or dealign with the aftermath of a real event, McArevey uses the same philosophical principles to get the boys thinking. He’s not just asking questions but teaching the boys a methodology for working out their own issues.

The school’s scaffolding extends beyond McArevey

It would be easy to make out McAverey as the lone saviour in a school full of backwards thinkers. But this is not the case. Chianáin and McGrath take pains to show the support system that scaffolds his work. Head of Special Needs Jan-Marie Reel emerges as a key player in how the school treats boys’ emotions seriously. For her, her job is partly about helping them learn to manage their emotions.

In one scene, a misbehaving boy goes to talk to Jan-Marie about what’s angering and annoying him. Her method is to make a list. If she can get him to articulate what’s wrong, she can figure out how the school can help the boy. She doesn’t push or judge him, only expresses interest in understanding what’s wrong so she can help where possible. His recent diagnosis of diabetes tops the list, but he also says he’s lonely and without friends. Keeping that in mind, Jan-Marie works to reinforce the support that he does have. When multiple teachers interrupt their meeting to check on the boy, she asks him how he got so popular.  

Young Plato is full of incredible sequences like this, each crisply edited down into digestible segments. The boys inevitably get into scrapes, surface anger, or misbehave. Instead of slapping them on the wrist, the teachers at Holy Cross extend empathy. They note that this behaviour is not acceptable, but more importantly, they get to the heart of the problem. Teaching doesn’t end here; it continues. The teachers offer the boys the tools for understanding and dealing with their emotions. At the same time, this lets the boys know that their emotions matter.

McAvery dealt firsthand with the trauma of the Northern Ireland conflict and is in recovery from alcohol abuse. This makes him uniquely equipped to understand the need to give the boys tools to manage their anger, anxiety, and aggression. These are crucial for them to have a happy and successful life as individuals. High suicide rates currently plague both Ardoyne and Northern Ireland as a whole. He wants to help create a world where this is no longer the case.

McGrath and Ní Chianáin on Young Plato

As McGrath notes in his director’s statement, “Scientists now believe that not only can post-conflict trauma adversely affect a society but also that such trauma can be passed on through generations. The effects of conflict can cruelly afflict children who have had no direct experience of a war that was waged before they were born by their parents and grandparents. It is a vicious and unjust cycle of suffering that becomes hard to break.”

Ní Chianáin adds in her statement, “The head of Special Needs, Jan Marie Reel, explained to me that often the kids who struggled with academia were the very kids who were targeted by the dissidents, the drug dealers and organized crime. In a community where unemployment is high and opportunities scarce, kids who can’t use education as a route to a better future are often targeted by the unscrupulous. Making the right choices can easily become a matter of life and death in a community like Ardoyne. Learning to think for oneself, to reflect, analyse and plan, quickly becomes an essential life skill.”

Teaching empathy for a better world

Young Plato argues that teaching empathy to young children is necessary to help resolve societal and personal problems. The film comes after the Cannes premiere of two very thoughtful fiction films about children and the limits (and importance) of empathy: Laura Wadel’s Playground and Eskil Vogt’s The Innocents.  Both films also highlighted the general lack of communication between children and adults.

In Playground, shot from the children’s perspective, Wadel depicts a primary school playground as akin to a prison ground. So much physical and mental abuse happens between children that it’s impossible for well-intentioned teachers to police. And not all of them are that well-intentioned. In The Innocents, also shot from the children’s perspective, Vogt depicts the gap between children’s experiences and adults’ understanding. The Innocents also shows how a lack of empathy can be dangerous because children hurt others without intending to. But learning empathy can change that. 

Young Plato feels like a response to the problems affecting children which Playground and The Innocents highlight. It offers a way forward for how children and adults can better communicate. Young Plato suggests that children need to learn how to articulate their feelings. The children in McArevey’s class brainstorm strategies for managing their anger and anxiety. They serve as an exemplar for similar approaches that could be taken elsewhere. Perhaps, most importantly, Young Plato shows that school can’t end where recess begins. What happens in the classroom affects what happens outside of it. It’s the teacher’s responsibility to help make that outside world safer for everyone.

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