Akeelah Anderson, an eleven-year-old African-American student from the Crenshaw neighborhood of South Los Angeles, struggles to overcome the limitations of her environment to succeed in a national spelling bee competition. As our group discussed the film Akeelah and the Bee, we first wanted to examine the themes presented by the film. We initially thought about the more unaware ones, like how race and socioeconomic class play into the film. We also began to notice that the film presented an idealized vision of how one individual can transform a community. We came to an agreement that the film provides clear representations of both traditional and progressive forms of education, but neglects to do anything to address the socioeconomic issues that critical theorists focus on. privileged and traditional school. The first sign of a traditional school is the way the classrooms are designed and set up, with all desks facing frontally towards the teacher's desk and blackboard. The film begins with the teacher handing out spelling test scores and everyone except Akeelah's spelling test has a satisfactory score. The teacher has given the students words to memorize and recite on the test later that week, and focuses on basic rote memorization where all students are tested at the same level, which is common in a traditional school. The film shows how the traditional classroom setting is flawed and appears to be stagnant and does not allow for growth or a true learning experience. As he states in School and Society: “This concern is not hypothetical. Many of the specific tests are used to generate speeches and articles in the… medium of paper… to make a predominantly white, coffee-drinking consumer group feel less guilty about school-aged children in the ghetto. Although this type of environment threatens her ability to be a highly intelligent and gifted student, some people in her life realize her potential. Akeelah gets this opportunity because the district gets involved with Crenshaw, Akeelah's school, because their test scores are so low, and it will not receive the full funding it needs to provide simple supplies to their students like books and stalls for the bathroom: “The district is breathing down my back, test scores are low again.” (Akeelah and the Bee), and the principle thinks that if a student does well in the national bee, he or she will receive more attention.