Who are the five greatest teachers in the movies? Ellen Kim makes her choices for Teacher Appreciation Week.
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Joanne Jacobs
Free-linking and thinking on education by Joanne Jacobs
How about the worst teacher movie IMHO. Michelle Pfeiffer as Luann Johnson in “Dangerous Minds.” I love how she gets urban youths to relate to Bob Dylan (c’mon!!!) and then to Dylan Thomas. That movie also features one of my least favorite structures in these movies. Funny how she only teaches ONE CLASS, never has hall duty, never seems to assign anything that is to be graded, never works at home etc. etc. Oh yeah and where does she get the money to take the entire class to a major amusment park! Puh-leez!
So–all 5 of Ellen Kim’s nominees (and her tongue in cheek Honorable Mention) are men. Kind of ironic, when you consider that somewhere between 75 and 80% of American teachers are women.
My personal nominees (and I have to go with women, naturally): Tina Fey in “Mean Girls” and Kathryn Grody as Ms. Jump in “My Bodyguard”–the young, semi-hip teacher who sees disaster looming between Chris Makepeace as Clifford Peache and Matt Dillon as Melvin Moody, and calms the twitchy teens with just a touch of Shakespeare and a lot of compassion.