Description

Few new teachers, particularly those who come into the profession through alternative certification programs, have first-hand knowledge of high-poverty urban classrooms, yet all new teachers are intimately acquainted with the representations of urban classrooms that abound in popular culture. These are typically Hollywood productions that follow a messianic teacher figure, typically young, white and middle-class, into the racialized space of a ghetto classroom. In the conventional narrative, this heroic teacher figure, the great white hope, recovers easily enough from the initial culture shock and swiftly wins the respect and loyalty of her students. Although lacking in formal training, the upstart teacher is steeped in heartland values and deeply committed to the myth of the American Dream, traits she uses to domesticate her charges by convincing them to adopt the value system of the dominant culture.
In this paper I argue that new teachers' attitudes and classroom practices will likely be shaped by this category of urban school films unless teachers possess critical tools to challenge the distorted narratives seen on screen. Scholars and teacher educators interested in enhancing the quality and equity of urban public schools must therefore take up urban school films as objects of inquiry.

Paper presented at Teachers, Teaching & the Movies: Representations and Pedagogy in Film, Television, and New Media
Multi-disciplinary Conference, March 26-28, 2009
Saint Mary’s College of California, Moraga, CA

http://www.stmarys-ca.edu/academics/...