Good teacher movies

“I know some critics say such movies like ‘Freedom Writers’ and ‘Stand and Deliver’ which was … SO similar… mask the dark side of good teachers and are written to a formula like there’s a good teacher fighting rebellious students and unsympathetic administrators but in the end all the students succeed and everyone feels good…”

“And yet, whenever I see such movies I feel moved. I don’t feel moved by car chases. Excited maybe. But I’m MOVED by intellectual challenge, the spiritual challenge. Not moved by the physical. Someone running away…”

“Like a cat chasing a mouse…?”

“I like an intellectual challenge, someone working HARD. I’m impressed by their ENERGY. Of Jaime Escalante.”

“And their calmness…”

“Calmness under stress. Very professional. Erin Gruwell’s way of solving problems, she did it all her own way, she got money, funded herself.”

“Her husband was no help.”

“And the education board didn’t help. She had to get three jobs, at a department store, at a hotel, and teach days…”

“I was impressed that she had some influence on people, she did something meaningful, she helped some kids. That was great. I’m not saying you have to help a million people. Even one or two will do.”

“But she was lucky. She could jump from a high school to a university teaching job. If she had to stay doing the same job for 30 years, yeah, maybe then she too would have become disillusioned, like those administrators.”

“It’s easy to be cynical about such stories. But sometimes the starfish story…”

“The what…?”

“There is a man walking along a beach. Beautiful day. He sees another man in the distance. As the first man approaches he can see that there are hundreds of starfish stuck on the sand by the falling tide and the second man is picking up starfish and throwing them back in the sea.

The first man comes up and asks, ‘Why are you doing this? There are thousands of starfish. Most of them are going to die. You can’t possibly make a difference.’

The second man pauses and looks at the first man. Then leans down and picks up one more starfish and thows it back into the ocean. He turns back to the first man and says, ‘Well, it sure made a difference to that one!’”