Bad Teacher - This movie is really, really irritating me.

The only thing I know about Primo is what I saw in the movie and his wiki page, but would you not agree sometimes this may be necessary? You can't always hold hands while walking the rain to get things done.

 

Or at least misinformed.

 

Yes, because somehow ALL the teachers in Providence were bad. It couldn't have been broader systemic issues that were beyond the teachers' control. [Incidentally, notice that it was the people in charge of that broken system who were deflecting the blame to the teachers. That they got praised for it shows scapegoating works.]

And as it so happens, I've known teachers who were in the "rubber rooms" in NYC. Those rooms (technically called Teacher Reassignment Centers) were where teachers got sent any time there were allegations made against them. If a mother filed a complaint that Mr. Bibbidy told her Johnny to "shut up" - yes, that phrase is, in and of itself, considered verbal abuse - then he got "reassigned" there, pending a hearing. If he was lucky, he'd be told why he was removed from the school. The DoE had a couple investigative departments (one for more serious cases, and one for stuff like this), and once the investigation was done, then the hearing would be scheduled. Or at least, that's how it was supposed to work. The reason these became so controversial was that the DoE wasn't giving these teachers their hearings in anything close to a timely manner. And by that I mean they were having to wait years, sometimes six or more.* Now, it was the DoE that set the date. The teachers had no say at all in this. The union had almost no say. But the one person everyone listened to on the subject was the man in charge of the DoE, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who blamed the teachers for the length of time they were waiting. Yet people bought it.

And what did the teachers do while they waited months and years for their hearings? What were these Reassignment Centers? They represented an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude on the part of the DoE. They were just rooms with chairs and desks, either in buildings the DoE owned or in spaces they were renting. [The teachers I knew were in a church annex; the church only used the rooms for Sunday school, so they sat empty during the week.] Once there, teachers had to occupy themselves. They could read or knit or play cards, but they couldn't leave. And that was what they did, day after day, week after week. The only staff were security guards and a "principal" who came in a couple times a week to deal with paperwork. Once again, this was the system that Bloomberg's people had in place, but he made sure the teachers got the blame.



*Not all teachers were waiting that long, of course. The obvious, open-and-shut cases got through much faster. The ones that took years were the lower-priority cases, where the charges were relatively minor or where the investigation had been inconclusive (perhaps, say, because the teacher wasn't guilty).

 

Salacious, I hope you realize I wasn't characterizing all providence teachers or the entire NYC school system. I did post the following:

"Every career field has got bad apples that make whole professions look bad. Cops, firemen, teachers, investment bankers, priests. While you would like to think that certain career fields would only be populated by white knights of purity, we all know that isn't the case because PEOPLE have those jobs, not droids."

I think we can agree that it only takes a small handful of people to cast doubts and animosity towards the larger group of people they belong to. That was the point I was trying to make sir.

 

I think people are confusing my opening post as saying, "There are no bad teachers, so don't make movies about them," when it actually said, "Bad teachers are not funny. This movie irritates me."



Edit: Two of my favorite clips from the Daily Show during the whole Scott Walker vs. Teachers fiasco: here and here

 

It just doesn't seem to me that it really has anything to do with teachers specifically. There's a comedy inherent in anyone being really flagrantly uncaring about their job. It's maybe funnier if kids are involved because then the stuff you do becomes more inappropriate. I'm sure the intention isn't to tear down teachers. It's just to create a humorous situation.

This being said, I don't actually think the film looks all that funny and don't have an interest in seeing it. I just think people overreact to films all the time. And that overreaction just gets more people interested in the films, so it's kind of counter-productive.

Besides, I'm sure in the end she'll learn the real value of good teaching and become a good teacher or move on, blah blah. It's Hollywood and it's a comedy. You really think it will turn out any other way?

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

Solojones- what you're saying is completely valid, and I'm not really sure what to say except that the movie just rubs me the wrong way. As I said earlier, I realize I'm being uptight about this movie. I'm not trying to change opinions or convince people not to go see it. I just wanted to explain what irritates me about the disconnect between this movie and the political climate surrounding education.

I watch way more cable news than I should, and education is a big topic of discussion. CNN--supposedly the neutral network--brings in their "education contributor" Steve Perry whose panacea for education is always inevitably "fire the bad teachers!"--as if there are so many of us out there that it will revolutionalize the public school system. Furthermore, you have the recent statistics showing that students in the U.S. are falling far behind their counterparts in other countries. People were up in arms about this a couple months ago. What irritates me is not just how the movie lazily plays on stereotypes and misconceptions, but also the hypocrisy in how much money this movie will make because apparently people think bad teachers are funny and therefore that their kids receiving a bad education is funny.

I mean, as I said earlier, who would make a movie about, say, a pediatrician who prescribes the wrong medication to kids just to see what side-effects it would cause? 1. It would probably make parents uncomfortable. 2. It's sort of a ridiculous concept. The thing about Bad Teacher is that I don't think people believe it's a ridiculous concept--just hyperbolized.

I, personally, don't feel that I would fully enjoy the movie for what it was intended to be (though I admit there would maybe be parts I would laugh at. I've only seen the trailers, after all). The only thing I can really compare my feeling to is that of, "That's not really what you think of me, is it?"

 

Espy, your feelings are obviously valid and I can see how the trailer would rub you the wrong way.

As far as firing bad teachers... well yes, I think we should fire people who are really bad at any job. But no, that's not a cure-all. That's only a tiny part of a much bigger problem, and most of it has to do with parents, not teachers.

One thing I've thought about recently in regards to the US falling well behind other nations in areas like science and math... I do wonder if it has something to do with the fact that US education is essentially based around the notion of the liberal arts. Which I'm all for, personally. However, most of the other countries in the Western world don't require older students to continue to focus on all subjects. I'm sure you test better in math and science if all you're doing is math and science. I'm not saying that totally accounts for the difference at all, it's just something I was wondering about.

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

U.S. kids also spend far fewer days in school than kids in countries that blow us away on the test result front.

I'd hate to lose summer vacation and half days on Saturday as much as the next kid, but it would stop the crying about how inexplicably terrible our schools are.

So feh on bad teachers, bad parents, and dumb kids. None of those things are common, except as planks in campaign platforms. 180 days out of 365 is just not enough when compared to what our international competitors are putting in.

 

That's true. And given that I only have one year of school left ever, I don't care if students lose their summer vacation now


-sj loves kevin spacey

 

I don't understand how one could point to that when the math and science tests used for those statistics are pretty damned easy. All those that rank above the United States often have low poverty rates, have a lot of public assistance (universal health care, welfare), and a centralized education system rather than 50+ separate systems with occasional mandates from the Department of Education regarding whom gets how much funding.

 

It was just that your examples were ones of teachers getting blamed for problems caused by the people doing the blaming. The movement blaming bad teachers for all the ills of the education system, ignoring (quite intentionally) the bureaucratic interference and outside social pressures that have neutered education, is only serving to exacerbate what's wrong. [This isn't surprising, since the movement is being led by those behind the bureaucratic interference, and no politician would ever want to be accused of blaming parents for anything. Teachers are a much smaller voting segment.] The Providence incident was a demonstration of all that's wrong about the movement, but the cowards behind it were heralded, even by President Obama.


Tying this back into the film, my other point is that just a fraction of what Diaz does in the trailer would have got any real teacher in NYC not only rubber roomed (well, if it happened while they still existed) but also in a two-page spread in the Post, lambasted as an example of how terrible those wicked teachers are. And it wouldn't matter a bit if it turned out that what happened wasn't nearly as bad as it appeared to be.

 

Well, the UK is ahead of us in some things and that's two different systems since Scotland has its own... but yes, I understand your argument


I still would lobby hard for making IB a standard for American students wanting to go to college. If not the diploma then at least some classes so they actually know how to think critically and write.


-sj loves kevin spacey

 

Salacious, I think you've put your finger on what is bugging me about this movie. On the one hand, we have parents and politicians demanding 100% of kids (yes, No Child Left Behind demanded 100%) score proficiently on math and reading tests, regardless of whether the kids are SpED or ELL and regardless of their home life and socio-economic backgrounds. When the system doesn't meet that standard, we are outraged and make idiotic suggestions like tying teacher salaries to test scores. Then we all go laugh at a movie where Cameron Diaz plays a teacher who blatantly despises children, chucks dodgeballs at them, and only takes her job seriously when it might make a guy like her. It's the kind of stuff that just makes you want to throw your hands up in the air.




Edit: We also need strong bilingual education. We have a shameful number of students in this country who never gain proficiency in a foreign language. We have an even more shameful number of students in this country who never gain proficiency in their native language because "This is America! Learn English or get out!"

But that's another rant for another time...

 

This movie shows exactly why American students are falling behind the rest of the world. Disgusting.

 

If only we got rid of the damned Teachers' Union, we could finally get somewhere in education in this country.

 

Just surprised that there aren't pictures of Diazs' Maxim photoshoot.