Images of teachers in Hollywood cinema (Part 3) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Images of teachers in Hollywood cinema (Part 2)
The second part of this Dossier explores how Hollywood cinema has portrayed teachers, both in their professional and in their private life, on the one hand, by reflecting society's beliefs and attitudes, and on the other hand, by helping to spread images of teachers which are often stereotyped and seldom consistent with the real situation and the contradictions of schools. Although focussed on American schools, the Dossier presents a series of criteria useful for reflecting on and discussing any school system and its teachers.
Images of teachers in Hollywood cinema (Part 1)
A follow-up to the Dossier School at the movies: teaching and educational relationships, this new Dossier explores how Hollywood cinema has portrayed teachers, both in their professional and in their private life, on the one hand, by reflecting society's beliefs and attitudes, and on the other hand, by helping to spread images of teachers which are often stereotyped and seldom consistent with the real situation and the contradictions of schools. Although focussed on American schools, the Dossier presents a series of criteria useful for reflecting on and discussing any school system and its teachers.
Professional Risk: Sex, Lies, and Violence in the Films about Teachers
Pedagogical issues are rather popular in the world's cinematography. Images of school and university teachers occupy a special place in it. Hoping to attract as many viewers as possible the cinematography prefers to refer not to everyday routine education process but to " hot spots " of teaching associated mainly with sex, lies and violence (in this regard deception is successfully combined with narrative moves of violence and sex) in recent decades. Thus, the title of the French film Risky Business (Les risques du métier, 1967) contains the essence of the media presentation of the teacher's image whose profession is undoubtedly linked to serious risks and challenges. The review and analysis of 1300 Western films about school and university, study of more than 7000 published materials (books, research articles and film reviews) on the declared topic have enabled us to reveal the following basic types of teacher's images in the Western cinematography: positive (super)hero (often a male, a school teacher recently employed) who reeducates an aggressive and disobedient class; a negative personage who hates students (in some cases he/she can even be a robot-killer or an alien); a loser / clown, outsider suffering from his job; a bureaucrat-administrator. The authors of the article point to the fact that the teacher's image on the Western screen has significantly transformed over time. The self-censorship that existed practically till the 1960s did not allow film makers to touch upon such radical aspects as violence, sex, obscene language, racial and religious problems in schools and universities. But after the lifting of the Hays Code and the advent of the so-called sexual revolution of the 1970s the Western screen began to successively exploit the topics forbidden before, thus creating new horrifying narratives moves every year. On the other hand, the tendency for reflection on the pedagogical mission and real professional challenges involved stills remains in the Western cinematography. 292 Such hermeneutic analysis of Western audiovisual media texts about school and university allowed the authors to integrate the structure of media stereotypes of school and university teachers in films.
http://padi.psiedu.ubbcluj.ro/pedacta/index.html, 2019
This paper investigates the link between media and the teacher image, with an outlook of critical understanding and pedagogy; it works with teacher-stories, with teacherroles, searching for the perceived difference between "good" and "bad" teachers in movies. The paper looks at how positive and negative movie clips are generating associations, experiences, and attitudes in the viewers generally, with the use of a questionnaire and screening of film episodes. The study is motivated by the assumption that media, and especially the "Hollywood Curriculum" sets up unrealistic expectations to the average person, portraying even radical ideas as liberating, or liberal. The research also looks further into the connection between the ethical dimensions in movies and the Hollywood curriculum. This includes analyzing the narrative basis of the teacher image in movies, leaving the question open in the end: how can we teach the next generation to use the media while being aware?
School at the movies: teaching and educational relationships (Part 2)
Part 2 of this Dossier continues the description of how movies have portrayed the teaching/learning process, teaching strategies and interpersonal relationships between teacher and students. Our exploration continues with a wide range of movies, from Mona Lisa smile to Freedom writers, from Pocket money to Stand and deliver, ending with (obviously!) Dead poets’ society …
The representation of black school teachers in popular movies
In this study, I searched for representations of 'black teachers' through popular media stories. Teachers and students‟ representations in popular culture have long been the subject of different scholars and disciplines showing a distinctive interest in the central character of the school teacher in the world of film. This character has often been analysed in terms of gender, rarely class, race and ethnicity and there are even fewer accounts on sexuality. The limited research with regard to „race‟, education and popular culture indicates that Hollywood cinema and TV portray the white as saviour hero and the African American or Black British characters as representative of the „other‟ teacher. Within the framework of cultural studies and critical race theory, movies on black teachers are the focus of my consideration. As an outcome of content analysis and critical viewing of more than twenty movies, a sample of six features and TV movies were selected based on their racial significance inscribed on the central role of teacher. The teaching narratives of four black and two white teachers were addressed historically and intertextually by deriving evidence from diverse scholars, film critiques, box office covers and the comparative study of the popular texts themselves. The entire stories take place in secondary schools and are the classics The Blackboard Jungle (1955, USA) and To Sir with Love (1967, UK), Lean on me (1989, USA), Sarafina! (1992, USA & South Africa), Shoot the Messenger (2006, UK) and Freedom Writers (2007, USA). In this interdisciplinary approach, these movies unveil racist stereotypes and ideological trends that are enforced and duplicated by popular media, very often at crucial historical and political times of racial relations and educational debates. A great number of them are based on real events and personal accounts of teachers, often crossing national boundaries and going to the past in order to narrate the experiences of black teachers and to talk about racial inequalities. This study found also that black teachers are more frequently depicted in film from the mid-1980s onwards and popular images of black school teachers are predominantly male and middle class. Black school teachers are very rarely portrayed as educated in the teaching profession, positioned in same-gender schools or belonging to the upper class. He/she more often appears working in urban schools, outside the classroom, and consistently resilient and dedicated to saving black and minority students in the „jungle‟ of inner cities or poor neighbourhoods.
School at the movies: teaching and educational relationships (Part 1)
A productive teaching/learning process requires a cooperative "class climate" as well as positive personal relationships, used as the basis of effective teaching strategies. Movies provide many examples of how teaching and pedagogical choices can be interrelated. Teachers are at the centre, not so much for their charisma ( à la Professor Keating in Dead poets' society ) as for their ability to use their communicative potential to foster students' learning and growth in autonomy. We will explore this intriguing topic with the help o a wide range of movies, from Mona Lisa smile to The class, from The 400 blows to (obviously!) Dead poets’ society …