From Martyrs to Murderers: Images of Teachers and Teaching in Hollywood Films

167 Pages·2017·6.096 MB·English

by  Robert L. Dahlgren (auth.)

From Martyrs to Murderers
CONSTRUCTING KNOWLEDGE: CURRICULUM STUDIES IN ACTION
Volume 14
Series Editors
Brad Porfilio, California State University at East Bay, USA
Julie Gorlewski, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA
David Gorlewski, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA
Editorial Board
Sue Books, State University of New York at New Paltz, USA
Ken Lindblom, Stony Brook University, New York, USA
Peter McLaren, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Wayne Ross, University of British Columbia, Canada
Christine Sleeter, California State University, Monterey, USA
Eve Tuck, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto,
Canada
Scope
“Curriculum” is an expansive term; it encompasses vast aspects of teaching and
learning. Curriculum can be defined as broadly as, “The content of schooling
in all its forms” (English, p. 4), and as narrowly as a lesson plan. Complicating
matters is the fact that curricula are often organized to fit particular time frames.
The incompatible and overlapping notions that curriculum involves everything that
is taught and learned in a particular setting and that this learning occurs in a limited
time frame reveal the nuanced complexities of curriculum studies.
“Constructing Knowledge” provides a forum for systematic reflection on the
substance (subject matter, courses, programs of study), purposes, and practices
used for bringing about learning in educational settings. Of concern are such
fundamental issues as: What should be studied? Why? By whom? In what ways?
And in what settings? Reflection upon such issues involves an inter-play among the
major components of education: subject matter, learning, teaching, and the larger
social, political, and economic contexts, as well as the immediate instructional
situation. Historical and autobiographical analyses are central in understanding the
contemporary realties of schooling and envisioning how to (re)shape schools to
meet the intellectual and social needs of all societal members. Curriculum is a social
construction that results from a set of decisions; it is written and enacted and both
facets undergo constant change as contexts evolve.
This series aims to extend the professional conversation about curriculum in
contemporary educational settings. Curriculum is a designed experience intended to
promote learning. Because it is socially constructed, curriculum is subject to all the
pressures and complications of the diverse communities that comprise schools and
other social contexts in which citizens gain self-understanding.
From Martyrs to Murderers
Images of Teachers and Teaching in Hollywood Films
Robert L. Dahlgren
State University of New York at Fredonia, USA
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-94-6300-963-8 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-94-6300-964-5 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-94-6300-965-2 (e-book)
Published by: Sense Publishers,
P.O. Box 21858,
3001 AW Rotterdam,
The Netherlands
https://www.sensepublishers.com/
All chapters in this book have undergone peer review.
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved © 2017 Sense Publishers
No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming,
recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the
exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and
executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface vii
Acknowledgements ix
Chapter 1: Introduction: Teachers as the Enemy within 1
Neo-Liberalism and the Art of Blaming Teachers 2
‘Bad Teachers’ and Public Antipathy toward Public Schools 5
Chapter 2: Education and Popular Culture Narratives 13
Fear of a Media Planet 14
Media Exposure V. Protection 16
Toward a New Media Literacy 19
Education and Popular Culture Narratives 22
Conclusions 27
Chapter 3: The Shift: Teacher Film Narratives in the Post-War Period 31
From Martyrs to Murderers 32
Juvenile Delinquency and the “Blackboard Jungle” 34
Urban Education and Up the Down Staircase 40
Conclusions 44
Chapter 4: The “Crisis” in America’s Public Schools 47
A Nation at Risk – A Blueprint for Standards Reform 49
Hollywood and the “Crisis” in America’s Schools 53
Conclusions 61
Chapter 5: Classroom Management in Hollywood Schools 65
“Ditto” and the Barely Conscious Teacher 67
Behaviorism in the Celluloid Classroom 68
“Mr. Hand” and Authoritarianism in the Classroom 70
Conclusions 75
Chapter 6: Instructional Practices in Hollywood’s Imagination 77
The Revolution in Instructional Techniques 78
Hollywood and Direct Instruction Fantasies 82
Anyone…Anyone…Anyone? Ferris Bueller and the Escape from High
School 84
Conclusions 88
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 7: Teacher/Student Interactions on the Silver Screen 91
Teachers and the Philosophy of Caring 92
The Toxic Public School Teacher in 1970s and 1980s Movies 94
Sex and the Single Teacher 99
Mr. Ryan and Teacher Expectations of Students 100
Conclusions 104
Chapter 8: The Mavericks: Inner City Schools and White Saviors 109
Urban Education and the “At Risk” Student 112
Of Dangerous Minds and Freedom Writers 116
Revolting Parents on Film 122
Conclusions 125
Chapter 9: Myth, Reality and America’s Public Schools 129
America’s Schools through the Hollywood Looking Glass 133
“America’s Report Card” 135
Education Reform Falls on Its Face 138
Conclusions 141
Chapter 10: Conclusions: Toward a New Media Paradigm on Education 145
Where We Are 147
Where We Could Be 151
Appendix 1: Filmography 159
vi
PREFACE
I was born into a family of teachers. My maternal grandmother Helen Hobart worked
at the University of Michigan in the late 1940s. My fraternal grandmother Leta
Dahlgren also taught, albeit briefly, in a small, rural elementary school in Mount
Vernon, Washington. My great aunt Florence taught various elementary grades
during a lengthy career in Long Beach, California. An uncle, Royal Gunn, was a
Physical Education teacher in Washington State. My maternal aunt Ran Hobart
taught 4th and 5th grades during a 30-year career in the Alexandria, Virginia school
district. My father Wayne taught 6th and 7th grades for 6 years in the Bay Area
of California before joining the United States Department of Defense Dependent
Schools (DODDS) system, for which he worked as a principal for the rest of his
career. He met my mother Em, who taught 1st grade for 9 years in Virginia and then
in the DODDS system, in a small school in Orleans, France in 1957. Many of our
closest family friends during my childhood, most notably Leonard Blostein – a 5th
and 6th grade teacher – were also DODDS educators. Most of my childhood friends
were sons and daughters of fellow teachers and administrators. Wherever I went
growing up, therefore, I was surrounded by people who had devoted their lives to
working with children.
Ironically, for just this reason, I resisted teaching for many years. My older brother
Steve and I both remember well dinner-table conversations during our childhood
that were drenched with the frustrations of the day-to-day lives of public educators –
belligerent students, unsupportive parents, dictatorial upper administrators, irritating
paperwork. Whatever it was that they spent their days and weeks and school years
doing, it didn’t seem like much fun to us. My father even brought his planning charts
for the following year with him on our summer beach vacations on the Adriatic coast
of Italy. Teaching, thus, seemed more like drudgery than did the exciting career
options I had planned for myself.
I consequently cast my mind toward more seemingly glamorous pursuits. Like a
lot of bookish kids in the 1970s, I imagined myself as a young Bob Woodward or
Carl Bernstein, diligently working to expose the next political scandal to rock the
nation to its foundations; or perhaps as a young Greil Marcus or Cameron Crowe,
habituating smoky clubs in order to unearth the next voice of a generation for rock
fans across the country. These dreams were soon dashed in my college career when
I butted up against the reality of the mind numbing, and yet necessary, daily routine
of obituaries and police blotter reports. When I then doubled back to teaching in my
late 20s, the work had an instant impact on my level of confidence and general sense
of happiness; I had finally found something that I enjoyed doing and that I seemed
to be good at as well. While my father wondered out loud whether I could ever make
a decent living in teaching (an odd thought, given that he had raised a family of four
vii
PREFACE
doing precisely that), my parents were nonetheless thrilled to see me land on my feet
– and in a field to which they’d devoted much of their lives, no less. When I received
my Master’s degree in Social Studies Education from Simmons College in Boston
in May 1997, my mother reached out to hug me and whispered in my ear, “I always
knew you were a born teacher.”
While none of us ever went into the teaching profession expecting to become
millionaires, teachers, until recently, were all reasonably well compensated for our
hard work in the classrooms and led comfortable, middle class professional lives.
Moreover, we were psychically rewarded with the knowledge that we were all
important figures in the lives of the children with whom we taught and within the
communities in which we worked. In that sense, we were all rich. Teaching was
once an honored profession in this country, viewed in the same vein as police work
or fire fighting. The people around us may not have always wanted to trade places
with us; those who knew us well, knew that we didn’t get the proverbial summers
off. However, they valued our service and were quick to tell us so.
When I started teaching, I encountered a peculiar reaction when I told people
that I met for the first time that I was a teacher. They always asked whether I taught
in a public or a private school. When I told them I was a public school teacher,
they would typically pat me on the shoulder and say things such as, “Thank you.
That must be very difficult but rewarding work.” I have always assumed that this
is a similar reaction to that which a young man encounters when entering the
priesthood – “thank you, my son.” In many ways, this makes sense, as the modern
public education movement sprung largely from a monastic model developed in
medieval Europe. Teaching is, thus, a vocation, a calling, for many who take it up to
continually go down into the cave of Plato’s imagination and to help to enlighten the
next generation – and those outside education once valued it as such.
Something has changed dramatically in the public image of teachers since
the time that I began teaching in the early 1990s. In the media and the popular
culture, teachers are no longer considered martyrs to the cause. More often than
not, teachers are portrayed as depressives, as bullies, as sexual predators, even
as murderers. This book is a humble effort to push back against this unfair and
dangerous mischaracterization of a group of professionals who dedicate their careers
to improving the lives of children.
January 2017
Fredonia, NY
viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project has been a labor of love for me from its inception to its culmination.
I began 1st grade in 1970 – the turning point of this survey of films – and was
graduated from high school in 1982 – the height of the popularity of the teen comedies
created by John Hughes and other masters of the craft. Thus, I grew up entranced by
many of these movies, laughing along even at the barbs aimed at public schools and
teachers. At the time, their humor seemed harmless at worst and anti-authoritarian
and empowering at best. Enjoying the popular cultural artifacts of the 1970s and
1980s therefore doesn’t automatically mean that one hates the public sector and
sneers at public servants and revels in Tea Party pronouncements about the death of
big government. On the other hand, it need not blunt the ability to unpack the critical
meanings embedded in these seemingly innocuous entertainments. It is my hope that
this book is but one humble effort in this direction.
I would like to first acknowledge the colleagues at the University of Florida who
initially encouraged me down this line of inquiry, including my mentors Drs. Elizabeth
Washington and Sevan Terzian. I have presented pieces of this work on panel
discussions with several colleagues, including Dr. Christopher Brkich, Dr. Andrew
Grunzke, Dr. Amy Martinelli, Dr. Stephen Masyada, and Dr. Patrick Ryan. From
small kernels of ideas spring larger projects, my friends! Several of my colleagues
here at Fredonia, including Dr. Bond Benton, Dr. Alexander Caviedes, Dr. Douglas
McCord, and Dr. Shazad Mohammed read early drafts of this material and gave me
important feedback on its content and structure. I have also received much-needed
support from the Dean of the College of Education Dr. Christine Givner.
This book is very much inspired by the dedicated example of all the teachers in
my life, most notably the teachers in my family – including my mother and father.
This also includes the many teachers alongside which I’ve worked in Massachusetts,
Japan, Florida and here in Western New York. When I first embarked on this path,
one of my social studies teacher friends in Florida, jaded by one too many in-service
workshop days, was initially skeptical about the value of research to K-12 public
school teachers, and said to me – “just don’t forget us here in the trenches.” I hope
that I’ve done him proud with this modest effort.
I’d also like to note the influence on this work of my brother Stephen Dahlgren
and nephew Eric Dahlgren, both avid and critical consumers of movies. Watching
films and television shows with them and, more importantly, discussing them long
after the fact, has forced me to challenge my most deeply-held beliefs about mass
culture products. This book couldn’t have been written without them.
Finally, this volume would not have seen the light of day without all of the love
and support that I receive daily from my favorite teacher, my colleague and wife
Dr. Kate Douglass, to whom I am pleased to dedicate this work. I love you, my
darling Kate!
ix