Teaching in Movies |
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Bad Teacher (2011)
Having watched this movie when it came out, I understood how the main character, Elizabeth, developed throughout the movie. She became a teacher to pay for cosmetic surgery and in the process became a better person and teacher. The title of the movie is self-explanatory. It takes the audience on Elizabeth’s journey as an English teacher. In this clip, it shows her continuing to show ‘poor’ or ‘bad’ teaching. Although she decides that she wants the class to do well, she approaches it in a way at first that no student would learn. She had spent the whole year not implementing any expectations or routine which ultimately set her students up for failure. All of a sudden, her teaching style flips and she bombards her students with work. This would be inefficient to their learning because it would mean they would have to cram all of the classwork and info. The clip ends with Elizabeth throwing a ball at one of her students’ head when he couldn’t answer a question. Again this is quite clear as to why her style of teaching is not effective since she shouldn’t be (physically) disciplining her students for not knowing the material that she didn’t teach. It’s important to know how to not teach as well. While Elizabeth has the intention of wanting them to learn, she doesn’t do it well and this clip displays what shouldn’t be done. |
Music of the Heart (1999)
This movie follows Roberta whose husband had just left her. She has experience on the violin and a passion for teaching which lands her a supply job in school placed in a community of lower-income. Her program grows throughout the years. This scene shows Roberta out of her comfort zone when she’s teaching as she was told to not be as harsh on the students and after input from the students she resumes with her old style of teaching. I chose these clips because it shows that it’s important to know yourself and your students. Her classes were running fine, students were learning and enjoying the violin until she was told by someone else to change how she teaches. It displays “good” teaching because Roberta had an understanding of how her students learnt best, being fun but also practical. And although she was told to do something else, she chose to do what was best for their learning despite external factors. |