In the introduction a man is sharing the reasons why this movie means so much to him, he says he was surrounded by teachers his whole life. His mother, aunts, and other relatives were all teachers. They complained, but they loved being teachers. This movie takes place in time periods; first day of school, 34 weeks until summer, one week before spring break, etc. but my notes do not go in this form. My notes on the movie were taken and classified by the teacher, and then by the main ideas that I got from the movie.
On the first day of school each teacher is introduced. Mr. Stroop is a 3rd year History teacher, he begins his school year asking students how they spent their summer, making them laugh, and it seems like he has a connection with these students. He has a meeting with an obvious superior discussing his goals from the last years meeting. He hasn't improved his lesson planning, or his organization or sarcasm. " But the kids like the lesson" is his answer to why he doesn't follow and plan a specific outline for each class. Mr. Stroop had been told before he began teaching as a piece of advice, "don't be their friend" but he had found that he wants the students to trust him and bond with him.
He is hard to take seriously, there is a scene where he is asking his students to tone down their intelligence, not to use big words, and not to correct him even though he may be wrong. There is a scene of him out shooting targets, he says"do your best, your not going to get every kid" referring to shooting his targets and the amount of kids that succeed in high school. "6 out of 10 get a college degree...i tried" he says. He shows great concern in being voted teacher of the year, seems as though more effort is put towards that than towards the curriculum in his History class. When he loses this election he shows his rage and loss of control in front of his classroom of students
Mr Lowry is a first year teacher who seems to have come from basically no training at all. Right away the students know he is new, they ask him how long he has been a teacher and he replies "1.5 hours." He stumbles over his words, jumps back and forth between subjects, and shows his frustration and confusion all over his face. He checks out a book on classroom management to try to help himself find control, the kids joke alot, laugh, and hide his chalk from him. No one in this class seems to be learning. Then one day he agrees to be in the Spelling Hornet, the slang words spelling bee ran by the students that the teachers study for and compete in. He wins, with the help of his history class that came together to help him. They bonded and as a result we saw a huge change in the classroom dynamics. Its as though the kids did not respect him or consider his personality until he let them see it, let down his guard and poof, he was respected after that. His frustration showed greatly when there was a cell phone incident in class, Mr Lowry lost his temper and used cuss words, then went to the students home and bonded with his mother, didn't seem to solve anything except drive in the nail that he was inexperienced and lost within his job.
Coach Webb had the right idea on how to teach I believe, her students responded to her and she laughed with them, also holding control over her classroom at the same time. She said "you make students understand their expectations and suddenly they perform at that level". At the same time her skills at interacting with other teachers and staff were not so great. Many staff members confided in the A.P that Coach Webb was pushy, and condescending. She seemed very concerned about the little things, hall passes, food in the lounge fridge, more so than academics or physical education. She thought that having her best friend serving as the new Assistant Principle would help her to have more dependency on administration, that she could complain about something and her friend would help her out. There were multiple scenes when Coach Webb would be complaining about how things were done, that things "should Be in black and white, no grey area". In the end of the movie she does a little soul searching and decides that "I need to try and approach people differently, try to encourage them instead of coming down on them"
The Assistant Principle in this movie went from teaching traditionally in the classroom to administration when a position became available. Right away you can see that the Principle, her superior is more willing to talk about his interests, and his life than he is to talk about her duties. He remains very vague and tells her to expect to spend many hours here, even some Saturdays. She becomes overwhelmed pretty early on as she is being bombarded with complaints by staff. Instead of being able to focus on academia she is always fighting a battle for someone. She mentions towards the end of the school year that she has been focusing so much on the "bad kids it makes her realize how much she misses teaching those who do care" She talks about academics and children learning the lessons in her class more than any other teacher. There is a scene in the end when she says schools need more nurturing, but it starts at home, a place that she herself had not been spending enough time focusing on.
Throughout the movie the teachers spend some down time visiting in the lounge, they go out for drinks together, and that bonding between staff is something I agree with. Within this school there is no clear lines of who does what, or what is allowed. No consistency in a school can affect teachers, staff and students. Some teachers are appearing to be putting tons of effort into their class, while others appear to be lacking. The teachers in this movie complained and spoke more about each other than they did about teaching students. Even during the teacher of the year debate we heard topics including, copiers for every teacher, less faculty meetings, corporal punishment which had no relevancy to this school. The teachers were more passionate about improving their working conditions than improving the children's learning conditions.
Watching this movie made me realize that teachers are always faced with their own trial as they are human like anyone else, but the focus needs to remain on the students, learning, and especially bonding since students are much more willing to listen when they respect you.
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