I was in high school when The Breakfast Club came out. I remember watching Dead Poet's Society and slouching down in the seat because I didn't want anybody to see me crying. And I also remember the first time I saw Lean on Me. It wasn't until I started teaching at the college level that I really began to consider how popular films shape people's views of teaching and learning, sometimes more-so than their own experiences in school.
Whenever I teach the foundations class I teach, I make sure that we talk about some of the movies out there and how they portray teachers and students. I try to remind students over and over again, that that what they see in the movies are caricatures, even when they are still vaguely based on reality. And still, students are more likely to say that Ditto from the movie Teachers is more the reality than the character Nick Nolte played (n.b. I can't remember the name-- how funny is that?).
As an urban educator, I am always concerned at how the thing that I am most passionat about is portrayed to outsiders. I am the first person to say that there are some horrible teachers working in urban schools. There are some pretty bad ones in other places as well (I know, I had a few of them). The difference is that bad teachers combined with other less-than-optimal circumstances up the chance for failure. There are also some... well, I'll say it... really bad kids in urban schools. Some of them are downright mean. And there are the same type of students in other communities as well.
The issue is, whenever a story about a bad teacher or bad kid from an urban community comes up, it's expected. It's a shock if the individual is from a suburb. Violence in schools has been an issue for years. It too Columbine for people to pay attention.
So what do the movies have to do with all of this? Well, the truth is, they don't necessarily convey what should be viewed as the truth (there are some people who believe they are truth). They do, however, reinforce what people to believe is true. It takes a lone teacher (usually white) who defies the inept administration to do what's best for the kids. And the kids are wild. And the poorer and darker they are, the more wild they are. So, while it may just be a movie, it does send a message. And it's one that bugs me.
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Bulman's article reminded me greatly of my own personal naivety to the history of the Vietnam War through the lens of Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and Hamburger Hill... These movies, without thinking about it, governed my understanding of this conflict (it seemed suspicious also that we never quite made it that far in our history text). It wasn't until I took a Vietnam War class that I realized what went down- how it wasn't actually our war... or even a war in general, but a conflict... how we were foreign policeman, protecting our economic interest in Indo-China... and how it tore apart the morality of our "noble cause" nation and yet strengthened the resolve of domestic revolution. I never learned these things from Mr. Hollywood. All I knew before this was that American soldiers loved killing "gooks" and having sex with Vietnamese hookers while stoned on opium.
ReplyDeleteToday I watched "The Ron Clark Story" with Chandler Bing... I mean Matthew Perry. I kept in consideration the assumptions and stereotypes of urban education inherent in Hollywood's portrayal of the inspirational teacher genre. Have I been misled with Urban education just I had been with the Vietnam War? Depicting reality through fiction. What a concept.
It was harder to pick up on the hasty generalizations than I thought it would be... The things I suspected were semi-obvious blunders. But I kept asking myself if they were perhaps "reality" as I know it- internalized through 20-plus years of Hollywood education! I couldn't help but think that Mr. Clark's unbridled enthusiasm for kids who didn't initially give a shit about him or school was completely benign. Was he haphazardly hopeful or just detached from the reality of this urban environment. Do kids in Urban schools try to push out their new teachers before they get to know them?
Obviously, expectedly- he is able to turn this class around, in a complete 180, from basically nothing- to beating out the honors class in state test scores. This has to happen in Hollywood movies. The movie-script ending... How often does that really happen? I also considered that it was a movie based on real events of a real man... But I couldn't decide whether or not I should feel misled or invigorated to act in a similar manner...
Growing up I have watch the movies with the teacher-hero status, and I used to think it was the coolest thing and thats how I wanted my teachers to be. Now I've seen the reality, it makes me think as a future teacher that there are times where I may not be a teacher hero to my students. The media such as movies, do portrayed a postitive roles of being a teacher but forget to show the viewers that it takes time and effort to become a good teacher.
ReplyDeleteI, too, had the experience of having bad teachers. I had teachers who told their students that they will never amount to anything and rememeber i went to school in the suburbs; however I did have a few teachers who tried to be a good teachers and did an excellent job.
For example. a good movie I have seen on local television was the story of "Ron Clark." He had his own style of teaching his students. Based on a true story, his teaching technique still continue today.
Its time to start paying more attention to the teachers in the suburb environment and see how their students are learning from them.