Movies About Teaching...Which Are Your Favorite? Least Favorite? (educators, assessment, schools)

[maf763]

Originally Posted by nana053

While in some ways the film is an inspiration, it is not realistic to think it can be done everywhere. To many of us who taught math, the idea that you must give up your personal life to teach this way is discouraging. If this is the only way that we can improve our math education in the inner cities, it is NOT going to happen.

It also took quite a few Hollywood liberties. The events depicted in the movie took place after Escalante had been teaching for almost 10 years, not when he was a new teacher like the movie suggests. That always bothered me about the movie.

[jmgg]

I liked High School High. Very inspirational and realistic

[nana053]

Dead Poets Society.

[pobre]

Originally Posted by jzcrandall

Are you sure you're not thinking of Teachers? Another brilliant movie BTW.

You are right, I'm getting my 80's movies mixed up!


Also to add to the list:

Mr. Holland's Opus

Dead Poet's Society

[jps-teacher]

Originally Posted by M3 Mitch

Goodbye, Mr. Chips was pretty good.

While it is a TV series and not just about the classroom, DeGrassi Junior High was always entertaining and interesting to me - having written that, I am somewhat at a loss for why, exactly, I found it so - but I did.

Which version of Mr. Chips did you like?

[jps-teacher]

I was not as big a fan of Dead Poet Society as many folks are, because I found Mr. Keating in the end to be just as manipulative of the students as anybody - walking in during that class was purely disruptive.

And the "triumphant" moment of the students' standing on their chairs, pronouncing "Oh, Captain, my Captain" when they no longer had anything to lose, nothing at risk, was an incredibly hollow moment for me, rather than a moving tribute to their beloved instructor.

[jps-teacher]

To Sir, With Love and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (the Peter O'Toole version) - movies and books, both - were major influences in my deciding to become a teacher. As noted, I have never looked back and regretted that decision.

The Miracle Worker and Finding Forrester were two movies about non-traditional teachers that I very much appreciated, one a long time ago and the other a tad more recent. Mr. Holland's Opus and Music of the Heart were wonderful, though the treatment of Mr. Holland's program makes it a more mixed message, differently from the way Mr. Chipping's career path went.

I agree that Teachers was a wonderful movie, if a tad hard on the professional in the field! Up the Down Staircase never grabbed me the way others did, nor Blackboard Jungle.

I would add Fame to this list, I think. There were amazing teachers in that film and, later, the series.

Children of a Lesser God belongs on this list,as well - an amazing movie with important messages. And two more non-traditional pieces: The Wave and A Class Divided are both about bigotry and hatred, coming from very different perspectives. The Wave has a teacher seeking to teach about WWII and the Nazis. A Class Divided was a non-fiction Frontline television production about Iowa teacher Jane Elliott's efforts to teach her children about prejudice in post-MLK assassination America.

[TabulaRasa]

I also really liked The Great Debaters, and, don't laugh, but School of Rock always seriously makes me smile.

[DewDropInn]

Originally Posted by maf763

It also took quite a few Hollywood liberties. The events depicted in the movie took place after Escalante had been teaching for almost 10 years, not when he was a new teacher like the movie suggests. That always bothered me about the movie.

Hollywood always takes liberties. Between production costs and people not wanting to sit through a boring-to-tears nine hour film that's just the way it works.

Escalante said the film was 90% accurate. For Hollywood that's an achievement. (It was also do to Olmos insisting the production be as accurate as possible.)

I'll add a vote to The Miracle Worker as well.

[jasper12]

I always liked "Conrack", about a white male, from an Ivy League school, he goes and teaches in a very poor black community in the south...I liked the whole premise of Socratic method, and enriching their lives with Homer....and analogies to their lives...and expanding their minds to include learning about classical music and art....of course....he was fired....just too modern. They wanted reading, writing and math....