Teacher Stereotypes....

While I can't say that teacher movies inspired me to join this profession (as the "Education World" article suggests), I can say I am a huge fan of the feel-good, teacher-saves-the-day movie. I bawl like a baby every time the final symphony gets played at the end of Mr. Holland's Opus, again when the inner-city school wins the state choir competition at the end of Sister Act II - thanks to the tireless efforts of Whoppi Goldberg, and then again (embarrassingly enough) when Hillary Swank manages to save a class of 9th graders from a lifetime of oppression and disadvantage by having their diaries published in Freedom Writers. School of Rock, on the other hand, doesn't really fall into the same category as these other films, merely by nature of the teacher and the classroom. Instead of being "agent of social change", the students are more or less the ones who save the teacher, giving a bit of a role reversal from the traditional teacher stereotype we see in Hollywood today.

School of Rock may also just be in one of my top 15 favorite movies ever, so perhaps I'm a little biased. But it has definitely been interesting to say the least to view these movies now through a lens of experience. After teaching myself for a whole 11 weeks, I definitely agree that Hollywood has illuminated the teaching profession and life in schools. On the whole, Hollywood has made teaching out to be a profession where they are always successful in the fight against their ofen repressive inner city school students. Freedom Writers, while a tear-jearker, is in my opinion the worst example of teacher stereotypes out there. Hillary Swank, as Shannon and Crawford (1998) suggest, is completely robbed of a life outside of school. She works three jobs on top of her full-time teaching position, and still has time to grade a stack of 120 student papers? But then again, she only teaches one prep and has one class. Teaching is so much more complex and complicated than that. While Jack Black's character isn't one that needs to save his students by providing them with access to a culture/language of power (it is clear they are already getting that at home from their parents), he is "saving" them by giving them a "real-world" education, one that helps students reach their true potential regardless of text books, standardized tests, and the competitive nature of a well-respected, selectd, and highly-esteemed elementary school. He fights against the "constraints" of their obviously privileged background to give them access to a world that, like the typical Hollywood inner-city school student, they wouldn't have had without the help of the teacher. While most media portrayals of teachers use a highly priviledged teacher who helps give students access to knowledge and education, the roles are reversed or at least mutual in School of Rock. The students become more aware of a real-world education, social skills, and seeing more to life than good grades and academic success, while Jack Black is simultaneously transformed from a lazy, selfish, freeloading band member to a bonafied freelance music teacher in the end from what he learned from his students in his ideal clasroom at Horace GReen. Oh, the joys of teaching....

What is really interesting to me about the use of pop music in his classroom is that he uses it to show the tremendous impact teachers have on students, as the "Education World" article suggests. Not only is he teaching them music skills and knowledge about the history of rock, but he is helping to build their character and self-esteem. Tamisha, the shy backup singer is tranformed into the confident solo singer at the battle of the bands. The piano player is transformed from a nerdy classical-music loving student with no friends to "the bee's knees." Freddy learns to control his temper and channel it into drumming. And Zach learns to "stick it to the man", his dad.The point Mr. Schneebly makes about incorporating popular music into his curriculum is definitley a positive one. However, what I can see is that his experience in the classroom is an atypical one. I spend my time at school wondering how I can get students to even listen to the material being taught, let alone finish their homework. Horace Green Elementary is full of students who, for a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic motivating forces, want to be extremely successful in school. Jack Black uses music because it is what HE knows and loves as a teacher, not because it was a necessity that his students understand rock music. So with an incredibly passionate teacher and with incredibly motivated students, Jack Black's character is ultimately set up for success in his classroom - not likely here in good old Minnesota. Jack Black uses popular music to expose his students to a world they were completely unaware of. In my own classroom, popular music would be used instead because it is more likely they would be engaed with the material if they were able to relate to it on a personal level.