Monday, January 16, 2012

Movie Observation

I was watching To Sir with Love yesterday and had an interesting realization. Don't get me wrong, it is a great movie (and I REALLY love the theme song), but I started thinking that all the movies out there about "teachers" that come in a make a huge impression on the kids' lives are all about people who never wanted to be teachers in the first place and the people in these movies who are teachers and set out to be teachers are shown to be almost buffoonish. I mean, think about it:
To Sir with Love - He was an out of work Engineer.
Stand and Deliver - Again, not his first choice.
Dangerous Minds - Former marine. Teaching was kinda something she came into.
Mr. Holland's Opus - Wanted to be a composer and not a teacher.
Freedom Writers - Okay, so she wanted to be a teach.
School of Rock - Yeah, this is sort of a joke, but the main character fell into being a teacher when he really wanted to be a rocker.

So, here's my question, with my mom and sister both being teachers, is the educational system so screwed up that the only way the movie industry thinks it can be fixed is by bringing in people from outside who never even wanted to be teachers? Maybe, just maybe we should think about diverting some of the huge expense that goes into the making of movies into our education system and maybe actually pay teachers for teaching our children and actually ALLOWING them to teach them and not just pandering to some test that they have to get their students to pass in order to get some funding. Okay, now I'm ranting...

3 comments:

Sara said...

you forgot to reference Bad Teacher.... lol :)

sadness... although the movie industry has a completely messed up view on cops, too

Jaye said...

Rant on, MacDuff!!!!!!

Jane said...

Love this political stance