Classroom Saviors

Lots to think about in this article from the New York Times, entitled “Classroom Distinctions.” In it, author Tom Moore, who is himself a teacher in the Bronx, discusses Hollywood’s take on teachers. According to Moore, the Hollywood version of good teaching encompasses three tasks:

1. Assemble a rough, multicultural groups of misfits
2. Assign said misfits one idealistic young teacher, usually white, often female
3. Watch as inspiring teacher’s alchemy turns misfits into scholars or some other mind-blowing young people

I’d laugh, but he’s cutting a bit close to the bone with his summation, which he calls the Myth of the Great Teacher. The Great Teacher, the hero, saves the kids. The Great Teacher is willing to sacrifice time, money, status, marriages, and even sanity for the kids. The Great Teacher, by extension, looks nothing like me or most of my colleagues.

This doesn’t mean we don’t sacrifice time, money, and status–please, do you know any teachers who aren’t stressed, broke, and demeaned by the pundits?–but it does mean that what popular culture defines as “great teaching” isn’t what you’re going to find in most classrooms. The reason we know about teachers like Erin Gruwell (Freedom Writers) and LouAnne Johnson (Dangerous Minds) and Ron Clark (The Essential 55) is because they are exceptional. Exceptional in that they are not part of the mainstream, not that they are the absolute best. Exceptional in that unlike most teachers, they don’t stay teachers for long.

In fact, I’d hazard to say that many of the best are leading quiet lives, most likely right down the street from you and me. Some of us have had these teachers, the ones who change lives every year, year in and year out. Some of us are working to be these teachers. But you won’t catch Hollywood making movies about any of us, now, will you?

Funny that a movie helped me recommit to teaching when I was at a crossroads. The movie? Mr. Holland’s Opus. A man who didn’t want to teach, who only started teaching as a way to pay bills while he did his “real” work, composing. A man who changed lives. That’s the kind of teacher I want to be. And if they make a movie of my life, that’s what it’ll look like.