Craig Robinson will be playing a music teacher in a new NBC show, “Mr. Robinson.” If it were a movie, this is what the voiceover would sound like. Cue the deep, authoritative “In a World . . .” voice.
“Craig Robinson. He fought off the apocalypse with his friends, James Franco. Seth Rogen. Jonah Hill. Jay Baruchel. . . . But does he have what it takes to face a classroom filled with [deep, ominous voice] REBELLIOUS. HYPER-ACTIVE. OVER-GLANDULAR TEENAGERS? A-L-O-O-O-N-E?”
(Hollywood promo guys, this one’s on the house, no charge. But if you want more, contact me through the Weekly.)
Readers, I need your help. I want the name of every TV show or movie that either has a teacher in a lead role or in a reasonably prominent secondary role. As many as you can think of, as far back as you can go (“Our Miss Brooks” with Eve Arden, anyone?).
Let me tell you my hypothesis about the changes in the way teachers have been portrayed since the 1950s. First there were the workaday, cut-above-the-average teachers of core subjects. Think “Room 222.” Next came the Superteachers who could leap tall curriculum assignments in a single class period — with poor, underprivileged kids, no less — and change the lives of everyone they came in contact with. Think “Stand and Deliver.” The next step was the incompetent teacher who was ridiculed and often didn’t give a damn. Think, of course, “Bad Teacher.” Now, when we see teachers, they’re sports coaches or music teachers who don’t teach those essential, No Child Left Behind core classes. Think, a TV show like “Glee” or a movie like “McFarland, USA.”
The best way to prove, disprove or alter a hypothesis is to put it to a real world test. So help me out. The more examples, the better.
This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 5, 2015.
James Clavell’s 1967 film To Sir, with Love.
There’s an excellent Danish dramedy series, ‘Rita,’ that is the closest thing to a real-life simulation of teaching. I saw it on Netflix.
Matthew Broderick in “Election.” A fringe benefit is the (dark) commentary on the political process. (When we’re talking about education these days — including how teachers are portrayed and what degree of respect they enjoy among the general population — politics and propaganda play far too large a role. David no doubt has this fact well in view as he meditates on what to say in the upcoming article. He is an accomplished propagandist / politico himself.)
Another good one is Maggie Smith as Miss Jean Brodie in the 1969 British film based on Muriel Spark’s novel, “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.”
Both of these deal with MOTIVES and ETHICS in the way teachers interact with students — areas where some school systems have better grounding than others, in my humble opinion.
Mr. Feeny from Boy Meets World! Walter White in Breaking Bad! Ooh—Tina Fey’s character in Mean Girls. Mrs. Karbapple in the Simpsons!
Great start! I’d forgotten “Election.” It’s a perfect “Bad Teacher” movie if I remember it correctly.
Keep ’em coming! Feel free to throw jabs at me like “Two Suggestions” did. This time you’ll be sure I’ll read them carefully, since I’ll be looking for more titles. (Do I usually read negative comments? Ah, you’ll never know.)
David – It seems like you’re missing an opportunity to understand the range of opinions locally on subjects you care about if you don’t read what you term the “negative” comments. (However, I don’t get the impression that it matters to MOST commenters here whether you read what they write. Mainly, they seem interested in dialogue with other commenters and / or the opportunity that the comment streams provide to reach the general public.)
RE “Election.” It’s funny that you remember it is a “bad teacher” film. I don’t think we’re supposed to see the Broderick character as a bad teacher, though his friend on the teaching staff is definitely a weak and corruptible teacher. Any criticism leveled by the film seemed to me to be directed at the Reese Witherspoon character and at the potential within our political system for subversion of the democratic process to serve selfish ambition rather than the common good….but different people see the same events (and the same films) very differently.
Looking forward to reading your article on how teachers are portrayed by the media. It’s an interesting and important topic. I don’t always agree with you (and I pretty much never agree with you when you write on TUSD), but I generally find your commentary worth reading, and, on some topics, worth responding to. On the whole, I think you should not be offended. What’s wrong with being perceived as a “worthy adversary” on certain important local issues?
(And if it’s the term “propagandist” in my above post that you took to be a “jibe,” I suggest one of two remedies: 1) stop writing about TUSD, or 2) spend a lot more time than you currently do on the sites. If it seemed to me that your writing reflected the realities students experience in the district, I wouldn’t have used the term. Remember Orwell: “…one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.” To be a “windowpane,” you have to get a very clear picture of what should be visible to those on the other side of the glass, the general public. Otherwise you end up being what Orwell abhors, writers like “cuttlefish spurting out ink,” obscuring the facts rather than making them clear to the reader.)
David, you have asked about a very interesting topic because the list is almost endless–especially if you count the portrayal of teachers in books, such as Tom Sawyer.
With regard to movies, some of which are based on books, such as Up the Down Staircase and The Blackboard Jungle. The latter is such an interesting movie based on the ethnic makeup of the class in an inner city high school in 1950s. What about Good-bye Mr. Chips by James Hilton, which was later an awarding winning film.
Then there is the play the Miracle Worker, which is about Helen Keller and her one-on-one teacher, Anne Sullivan. Another play that comes to mind is the Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman, and deals with a lying student who eventually destroys the reputation of the teachers and the school.
With regard to movies: Kindergarten Cop, Ferris Buller’s Day Off, Dead Poet’s Society, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Renaissance Man (love it when Danny DiVito is told he can teach because he has a master’s degree). Then there are the following: Dangerous Minds (which later became a TV show), Good Will Hunting, and how can one forget that famous line from Annie Hall about teaching: “Those who can’t do, teach. And those who can’t teach, teach gym.”
You may want to examine further the Freedom Writers , which is actually based on a teacher’s diary.
With regard to TV, there was also Mr. Novak and Welcome Back, Kotter. Then there was Head of the Class.
There is a book entitled, The Hollywood Curriculum: Teachers in the Movies by Mary Dalton, which may be of interest. There are other books about the topic as well.
But it is certainly a mixed bag with regard to the portrayal of not just teachers, but of the place of school in society.
Conrack & Boy’s Town
Two Suggestions: I’m sorry if you took my off-the-cuff quip as a criticism. Some people who are critical of what I write wonder if I read their comments. Rat T and I have gone around about the subject occasionally — good-naturedly, I think. I said to Rat T, I read the beginning of every comment, but I can’t guarantee I’ll read them beginning to end, especially the longer ones, even the ones that agree with what I wrote. That’s true. Just like readers can stop reading what I write halfway through, I reserve the same right for myself.
Honestly, I wasn’t bothered by anything you wrote and rarely take offense at comments from anyone. It’s all part of the back-and-forth. Keep commenting, pro or con, and holding my feet to the fire whenever you think I’m wrong about something.
That’s ridiculous.(:*)
How Green Was My Valley, Goodbye Mr. Chips, the one with Julia Roberts playing a teacher in a girls’ school whose name I can’t recall, Andy Griffith, The Spelling Bee, a relatively recent one about a classics teacher who reruns a competition as part of a reunion, Saved By the Bell, Fame, The Paper Chase. There are so very many! I know it is necessary for a drama, but it always bugs me that all of the high school teachers have only one class with which to interact and only a small group of students. And I always really hate the mean and bad teachers!