To Sir, With Love

Here is a neat, little article on teacher portrayal in the media: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/seve0113/ci5472/2010/06/teacher-portrayal-by-the-media.html

I finished watching To Sir, With Love after we saw a bit of it on Monday. Dope movie, I recommend it for y'all who haven't seen it. I didn't think it was as good as the only other Sidney Poitier film I know exists, In the Heat of the Night, but it does open up discussion on how portrayal of teaches has changed in the media. The focus of this movie was interesting because, instead of a teacher "coming down" to the students' level, he brought them up to his. The script calls his level "being an adult." Not to say that Poitier didn't empathize or try to understand the backgrounds of the students, he did that as well as bringing sophistication and manners to the rough students in the East End of London. Of course, something may have been lost in translation (so to speak) coming across the pond with having manners is seen with holding a higher social status in the United Kingdom among other things that American audiences wouldn't pick up on. Another culture, another set of values and background. However, what does translate explicitly is the impact a good teacher can have on the right students. It's not like the Poitier's character had much investment in teaching other than a paycheck at the start either. To him, teaching was simply a holdover until he found a better job, which he does. Then, in a dramatic moment he tears up the offer he got in the mail when he sees his "real" work ahead of him. What I liked most about this movie and scene is the demonstration that not only those with a passion can be good teachers and having a passion for teaching is not the only thing that makes a good teacher. I'm sure some of the other, nihilistic teachers that were just getting by were once starry-eyed about changing lives (much like the teacher in Won't Back Down, which I haven't gotten to just yet but it does show how optimism for teaching can be taken out of you if you let it and lose sight of why you are doing it in the first place). Anything more taken from the movie would be wish fulfillment and grasping at what the characters were and are, but that's what makes the movie so great: it inspires, opens up ideas, and creates discussion on what a good teacher is, what the role of a teacher can be, and (especially for those of us with teaching in our future) a reminder to keep what's important in mind in spite of an environment that may wither your standing.