a dose of reality

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>]

From the NY Times. A dose of reality to counter 
the incessant Hollywood myth-making about urban 
schools.  By the way, Moore's reference to The 
Wire is well placed.  The 2006 season of the 
excellent HBO series had a poignant and very 
realistic subplot about the ravages of NCLB on 
working class African American kids and their teachers in Baltimore.

Pete Farruggio

January 19, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/opinion/19moore.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Classroom Distinctions

By TOM MOORE

IN the past year or so I have seen Matthew Perry 
drink 30 cartons of milk, Ted Danson explain the 
difference between a rook and a pawn, and Hilary 
Swank remind us that white teachers still can?t 
dance or jive talk. In other words, I have been 
confronted by distorted images of my own 
profession ­ teaching. Teaching the 
post-desegregation urban poor, to be precise.

Although my friends and family (who should all 
know better) continue to ask me whether my job is 
similar to these movies, I find it hard to 
recognize myself or my students in them.

So what are these films really about? And what do 
they teach us about teachers? Are we heroes, 
villains, bullies, fools? The time has come to set the class record straight.

At the beginning of Ms. Swank?s new movie, 
?Freedom Writers,? her character, a teacher named 
Erin Gruwell, walks into her Long Beach, Calif., 
classroom, and the camera pans across the room to 
show us what we are supposed to believe is a 
terribly shabby learning environment. Any 
experienced educator will have already noted that 
not only does she have the right key to get into 
the room but, unlike the seventh-grade science 
teacher in my current school, she has a door to 
put the key into. The worst thing about Ms. 
Gruwell?s classroom seems to be graffiti on the desks, and crooked blinds.

I felt like shouting, Hey, at least you have 
blinds! My first classroom didn?t, but it did 
have a family of pigeons living next to the 
window, whose pane was a cracked piece of 
plastic. During the winter, snowflakes blew in. 
The pigeons competed with the mice and 
cockroaches for the students? attention.

This is not to say that all schools in poor 
neighborhoods are a shambles, or that teaching in 
a real school is impossible. In fact, thousands 
of teachers in New York City somehow manage to 
teach every day, many of them in schools more 
underfinanced and chaotic than anything you?ve 
seen in movies or on television (except perhaps 
the most recent season of ?The Wire?).

Ms. Gruwell?s students might backtalk, but first 
they listen to what she says. And when she raises 
her inflection just slightly, the class falls 
silent. Many of the students I?ve known won?t sit 
down unless they?re repeatedly asked to (maybe 
not even then), and they don?t listen just 
because the teacher is speaking; even ?good 
teachers? are occasionally drowned out by the din 
of 30 students simultaneously using language that 
would easily earn a movie an NC-17 rating.

When a fight breaks out during an English lesson, 
Ms. Gruwell steps into the hallway and a security 
guard immediately materializes to break it up. 
Forget the teacher ­ this guy was the hero of the movie for me.

If I were to step out into the hallway during a 
fight, the only people I?d see would be some 
students who?d heard there was a fight in my 
room. I?d be wasting my time waiting for a 
security guard. The handful of guards where I 
work are responsible for the safety of five 
floors, six exits, two yards and four schools jammed into my building.

Although personal safety is at the top of both 
teachers? and students? lists of grievances, the 
people in charge of real schools don?t take it as 
seriously as the people in charge of movie schools seem to.

The great misconception of these films is not 
that actual schools are more chaotic and decrepit 
­ many schools in poor neighborhoods are clean 
and orderly yet still don?t have enough teachers 
or money for supplies. No, the most dangerous 
message such films promote is that what schools 
really need are heroes. This is the Myth of the Great Teacher.

Films like ?Freedom Writers? portray teachers 
more as missionaries than professionals, eager to 
give up their lives and comfort for the benefit 
of others, without need of compensation. Ms. 
Gruwell sacrifices money, time and even her marriage for her job.

Her behavior is not represented as obsessive or 
self-destructive, but driven ­ necessary, even. 
She is forced into making these sacrifices by the 
aggressive neglect of the school?s 
administrators, who won?t even let her take books 
from the bookroom. The film applauds Ms. 
Gruwell?s dedication, but also implies that she 
has no other choice. In order to be a good teacher, she has to be a hero.

?Freedom Writers,? like all teacher movies this 
side of ?The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,? is 
presented as a celebration of teaching, but its 
message is that poor students need only love, idealism and martyrdom.

I won?t argue the need for more of the first two, 
but I?m always surprised at how, once a Ms. 
Gruwell wins over a class with clowning, tears, 
rewards and motivational speeches, there is 
nothing those kids can?t do. It is as if all the 
previously insurmountable obstacles students face 
could be erased by a 10-minute pep talk or a 
fancy dinner. This trivializes not only the 
difficulties many real students must overcome, 
but also the hard-earned skill and tireless 
effort real teachers must use to help those students succeed.

Every year young people enter the teaching 
profession hoping to emulate the teachers they?ve 
seen in films. (Maybe in the back of my mind I 
felt that I could be an inspiring teacher like 
Howard Hesseman or Gabe Kaplan.) But when you?re 
confronted with the reality of teaching not just 
one class of misunderstood teenagers (the common 
television and movie conceit) but four or five 
every day, and dealing with parents, 
administrators, mentors, grades, attendance 
records, standardized tests and individual 
education plans for children with learning 
disabilities, not to mention multiple daily 
lesson plans ­ all without being able to count on 
the support of your superiors ­ it becomes harder 
to measure up to the heroic movie teachers you thought you might be.

It?s no surprise that half the teachers in poor 
urban schools, like Erin Gruwell herself, quit 
within five years. (Ms. Gruwell now heads a foundation.)

I don?t expect to be thought of as a hero for 
doing my job. I do expect to be respected, 
supported, trusted and paid. And while I don?t 
anticipate that Hollywood will stop producing 
movies about gold-hearted mavericks who play by 
their own rules and show the suits how to get the 
job done, I do hope that these movies will be kept in perspective.

While no one believes that hospitals are really 
like ?ER? or that doctors are anything like 
?House,? no one blames doctors for the failure of 
the health care system. From No Child Left Behind 
to City Hall, teachers are accused of being 
incompetent and underqualified, while their 
appeals for better and safer workplaces are systematically ignored.

Every day teachers are blamed for what the system 
they?re just a part of doesn?t provide: safe, 
adequately staffed schools with the highest 
expectations for all students. But that?s not 
something one maverick teacher, no matter how 
idealistic, perky or self-sacrificing, can accomplish.

Tom Moore, a 10th-grade history teacher at a 
public school in the Bronx, is writing a book about his teaching experiences.