My School Teacher is a Movie Star!

Image a world without school teachers. How will our youth learn, who will stand by them, who will fight for them, who else would care for them but most of all, who will be their voice? These are all the attributes that have been associated with teachers in our society today. Shannon and Crawford have pointed out that Hollywood has taken the lead on romanticizing teachers, school and teacher-student relationships. Because of the portrayal of teachers in movies they are now viewed by society as being: caretakers, a savior, drillmasters, keepers of wisdom, technicians and most importantly agents of change. A perfect example of this is the 2003 movie release of “School of Rock” featuring Jack Black. 

School of rock is about a guy named Dewey Finn who frauds the school system by becoming a substitute teacher. Dewey is an aspiring dead end rock star who mooches off of his roommate Ned Schneebly who is a substitute teacher. Given an ultimatum by Ned to either come up with the rent money by the end of the week or get out, Dewey decides pretend to be Ned when a school calls requesting him to come and sub. Dewey’s initial thoughts on teachers are that they are Babysitters (you can find this in the beginning scene where he is debating with his roommate) and that is exactly the way he approached the position. For the first Day and a half, Dewey didn’t want to interact with the kids; he didn’t want to attempt to teach them. He wanted to sit, make sure they were alive (and I doubt that he even cared about that) and get to the end of the day. His only suggested thoughts were to keep them occupied (like most baby sitters) by telling them to go to recess. After spying on the kids in their music class, Dewey has found a way to connect with the kids and teach what he loves to do “music.”

 Initially, Dewey wants to teach the kids rock & roll to develop them into a band to play with him at the Battle of the Bands contest to win money but he soon begins to do more than just teach. During this process Dewey transforms from being “a babysitter” to what Shannon and Crawford calls a “facilitator.” Dewey takes what each individual kid is good at and helps to further develop their skills while teaching them life lessons. He took one guy who could only play the cymbals in music class to molding him into a percussionist on the drums. He takes a guitar and bass player and teaches them with the electric guitar and bass. He takes a pianist and develops him on the electric keyboard. He finds singers and uses them as well. Not only does he help their musical skills but also helped others furthered their skills with computers, design creative expression and even helps build a girl's managerial skills. Like I mentioned before, he also teaches the kids life lessons through his “stick it to the man” philosophy. He helps build confidence, self-worth, self –esteem and resiliency by teaching them not to give up and never take no for an answer. In the end, like in most movies, the kids display what they have learned by encouraging him in his time of despair. Then all ends well with your traditional happy ending. He becomes somewhat successful by booking gigs with the school of rock band and the kids get to continue to learn from him and further enhance their skills.

In an article on the “Top Ten Picks for Great Teachers Flicks,” teachers explore the impact these movies have on teachers and society.  Some of the teachers say that these types of movies show how important teachers are to society. Others say they are great recruiting tools and that’s why they decided to become teachers. The teachers say that movies such as: Mr. Holland’s Opus, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, October Sky, The Blackboard Jungle, Dangerous Minds, Dead Poets Society, To Sir with Love and Up the Down Stairs all speak to the heart of teaching. They say that these movies touch on three things: Teachers have tremendous positive impacts on students; everyone can learn and if the system doesn’t work for students, change it.

By Hollywood romanticizing the profession of teaching and the student teacher relationship, I believe personally that it sets up false hope. For one, I have never had a teacher like the ones that are in the movies. Not to say that my teachers were not outstanding, they just didn’t put in the extra work like those in the movies. Second, people see these movies and decide to go into teaching but quickly realize that real life is not like them movies. Yes every now and then teachers will be able to make an impact on the students they are working with. But most of the time it does not happen that way and as they years past, it puts more wear and tear on the teachers. That is why you have some teachers who initially began teaching so they can become the agents of change that they see in the movies but get worn down to the point wear they dread going to work. They go from attempting to save the world to just doing the minimum to get by. I will agree that these types of movies are very entertaining and they are good for making one feel like they can change the world. But if you don’t want to be disappointed I would take it with a grain of salt.