The Teacher Movie Genre

Do These Films Put Unfair Pressure on Teachers?

Feb 21, 2009 Nicholas Buglione

Some experts say "teacher films" unfairly suggest success in inner-city schools is based on the determination of educators and not social factors outside their control.

The titles alone conjure uplifting images of what dedicated teachers can accomplish in poor urban schools if they only put their minds to it: Stand and Deliver. Lean on Me. Freedom Writers.

But as good as these films make audiences feel, some education and film scholars question if they perpetuate an unfair myth.

Misleading Movies

“The pernicious influence of movies is that they mythologize experiences,” said Charles Merzbacher, a film professor at Boston University said in a phone interview on May 16, 2008. “They can reinforce false notions about all kinds of institutions, including teaching.”

Merzbacher believes films about inner-city schools constitute their own genre, since they share common settings, characters and themes. In these movies, one teacher’s charisma and compassion helps a class overcome great social hurdles, such as drug abuse, absenteeism and teenage pregnancy, to achieve surprising academic success, Merzbacher said.

Dr. Robert Helfenbein, an education professor at Indiana University who specializes in urban education issues, believes these films trivialize the learning process and present an erroneously simple solution to what’s really a far more complex problem: Closing the achievement gap in inner-city schools.

“They put the responsibility totally on the teacher, but teaching and learning is a collaborative effort,” Helfenbein said in a phone interview on May 8, 2008. “You may have a lot of charisma and want to be a teacher, but you walk into an urban school with 42 kids in a classroom and you’re limited with what you can do.”

The Challenge of Teaching Inner-City Kids

Studies have shown a correlation between social and economic background and student achievement.

A May 2007 study by the Citizens’ Committee for Children, a New York City-based child advocacy organization, found that 91.3 percent of students met state math standards in the New York City suburb of Bayside, Queens, where the median household income is $65,000 a year. Yet less than 44 percent of kids met state math standards in the Bronx neighborhood of Mott Haven, where the median household income is $17,040 and 55 percent of the families live below the poverty line.

Students in poorer neighborhoods face bigger challenges in the classroom than their more affluent counterparts because poverty breeds a host of problems that disrupt the learning process, said Rachel Lotan, director of the secondary education program at Stanford University, in an interview on May 6, 2008.

“Kids who come to school hungry have a harder time learning,” she said. “Kids who are exposed to violence have a harder time learning.”

National PTA President Jan Harp Domene believes that good teachers are merely a starting point at closing the achievement gap in urban schools.

“It’s like saying all we ever need to do to stop crime is hire Bruce Willis or another Dirty Harry,” she said in a phone interview on May 27, 2008. “When did we decide that teachers are the ones to raise our kids? It takes everybody within a community to make sure schools are successful. What we need is for somebody to make a good movie about that.”

Though teacher films are intended as heart-warming, feel-good entertainment, some educators believe they do more harm than good – leading audiences to conclude that success in schools is within all teachers' grasp if they just tried harder. Sometimes the answer is not that simple.

The copyright of the article The Teacher Movie Genre in Educational Issues is owned by Nicholas Buglione. Permission to republish The Teacher Movie Genre in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

A Scene from Freedom Writers

A Scene from Freedom Writers

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Apr 11, 2009 9:56 AM

Guest :

This article is a little tough on movies. They are movies, not training videos. Anyone who thinks they can walk into any classroom and teach based on what they saw in a movie has a problem and hasn’t paid attention in their methods classes (if they had any—but that’s another conversation). The first priority of any inspiring “teacher” movie is to entertain. What I get as an aspiring teacher from a movie like “Freedom Writers,” besides entertainment, is not that I can through my own determination and dedication solely close the achievement gap in poor, urban schools, but rather that the determination and dedication are a necessary part of the learning process that are missing from a lot of classrooms. Another take-away can be that the environment and the composition of the classroom must be part of the teaching strategy. A lesson plan in the $65,000 average-household-income school may not work in a classroom where students are sleep deprived and live with violence. The students must be able to connect new information to something they already know in order to learn. What they already know is different in each classroom. Miss Gruwell learned that she needed to make connections to the students’ lives and background knowledge, which meant she had to learn what knowledge her students were bringing with them, which meant she had to get to know them. She learned that because she paid attention to her students. She paid attention to her students because she was dedicated and determined to teach. Though the movie’s purpose was to entertain, the story behind it is true and has some valid lessons to teach if you know what to look for.

Apr 11, 2009 6:54 PM

Nicholas Buglione :

Thanks for your comments. The article certainly isn't intended to imply that teachers shouldn't be dedicated and determined. And it certainly doesn't suggest anywhere that these movies are training videos or are even perceived as such. It also wasn't my intention to impugn the achievements of hardworking educators like Erin Gruwell, Jaime Escalante or Joe Clark. Your comments validly highlight these films' intended, positive effect--to make people feel good and want to work harder to succeed. The point of this article, however, was to highlight the unitended, negative byproduct some professionals believe these films create--which is the notion that success in failing schools is dependently solely on teacher performance. Various studies have shown, however, that success in schools isn't that simple. A number of factors outside a teacher's control factor into the equation. As a dedicated, hardworking teacher in an urban school district, I've seen it firsthand. When you become a teacher, you will too. Either way, America needs good teachers in its classrooms. These professionals were simply expressing a different take on a particular genre of film. Thanks for reading and offering yours.

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