Posting for Sunday, June 14:

"Have the movies mystified as well as illuminated the teaching profession and life in schools? "

Movies often need to rely on compact storytelling, so while a realistic portrayal of a teacher at work would show him or her spending countless hours planning lessons and grading papers, this probably wouldn’t be a very interesting movie to watch. Also, mainstream films are tied to a three act structure which usually goes something like this in films about education: Act 1) Teacher faces difficult/impossible students, Act 2) Teacher and students (and/or the administration) butt heads, but overcome obstacles, Act 3) The teacher prevails and education wins! As Joe Deckenbach noted in our chat this week, most Hollywood movies set unrealistically high expectations for teachers. These teachers are usually nothing short of pedagogical geniuses (and often employ highly unconventional methods). Also, the most difficult students always come around and "see the light" concerning the importance of education.

Hollywood movies rely on a certain amount of magical, uplifting storytelling, and realism is not usually a priority. During my group’s online chat last week we started talking about how hilarious a reality show about teachers (maybe just first year teachers) might be. Perhaps the kids would get to vote off teachers? Or maybe their parents would? I don’t know about the rest of America, but I bet everyone in 5150 would love it!

School of Rock
Jack Black seems to be portrayed as a “savior” of the students in the film, but not in a typical fashion. As opposed to a more stereotypical teacher story that might involve saving students from a bleak future (i.e. on the streets, lacking a desire for further education etc), Jack black is saving them from a monotonous, rock and roll free existence. The Velvet Underground line, “I was saved by Rock & Roll,” could very well have inspired this film. As opposed to a bunch of rebellious roughnecks, these kids are picture perfect and squeaky clean. Jack Black, on the other hand, is not the typical inspirational teacher.

The film portrays popular music as something that must be snuck into the classroom; there are even students who are in charge of making sure that no one else finds out what they are doing. It's portrayed as something that they very clearly should not be doing at this very “prestigious” school. However, we see students who actively learn and who become more sure of themselves and their abilities to achieve. The keyboard player thinks that he’s too big of a nerd to be in a band and gains self-confidence. The girl who is the manager impresses the adults at the rock club with her savvy professional manner. When one considers these portrayals, and the fact that these students are making connections to their lives and are able to apply skills to real world situations, Jack Black has succeeded as an educator.

I also think that issues of classroom management as portrayed in films are often interesting. Now granted, this was not a “typical” group of students, but rather a precocious, gifted lot, but still, Jack Black was able to walk into the room and all of the students were immediately attentive and engaged. Once he begins his Rock and Roll curriculum, he faces little difficulty in actually teaching...he makes it look easy. Now, even though he is an expert in the content, how is he so effortlessly able to teach the material to these kids? There is very little struggle involved. All he really needed to do was put the instruments in the kids hands and wah-lah...they're a rock band!

I did find it interesting (and contradictory) that at the end of the movie Jack Black has started an after school program for rock music. It almost undermines the entire message of the movie (that pop music DOES belong in the classroom, for a multitude of reasons), by saying that while yes, music is important, it is not a subject that is appropriate for the "academic" classroom setting.