The Movies
John A. Beineke
October 2001
It’s funny what one remembers in graduate school. A quarter century ago in a curriculum class the 1968 documentary film High School was mentioned. We did not view that movie, but the title stuck in my head. Last month, PBS ran the film. In terms of representing what life was like in high schools at that time it remains a masterpiece. Since that is the year I graduated from high school, I can also testify to the fact that it is an accurate depiction. Although shot in Philadelphia, the haircuts and dress of the teachers and students, the classrooms, the hallways, and even the convocations portrayed in the movie are all much as I remember from my Midwest high schools days.
Jump fifteen years to when another film was made ¾ now called a video¾ and also called High School. This time the film, while also utilizing raw footage of the daily life of a high school, had a point of view. The film was based on Ernest Boyer’s Carnegie Foundation study also entitled High School. It used scenes from a number of 1983 high schools as a backdrop for the status of these educational institutions and also a foundation upon which Boyer made recommendations on what the high school of the future should look like. Boyer was able to foresee a move to greater rigor in the curriculum, a de-emphasis on tracking, the need to serve all students, and less teacher talk and greater student/teacher interaction. It missed the advances that would happen in technology, the political shift to high-stakes testing, and the violence that would become a part of American education.
Then one takes a look at the year 2000 and the fictional television series Boston High. It put into the mix sexuality, controversial social and legal issues, and the personalities of teachers and students. The progression from 1968 to 1983 to 2000 gives one pause as to where we might be in another fifteen years. And while not predicting the future, movies have documented what classrooms have been like in the past.
Arthur Schlesinger’s autobiography A Life in the Twentieth Century: Innocent Beginnings has a marvelous chapter in it devoted almost entirely to the movies of the 1930’s. The prize-winning historian and aide to President Kennedy relates how these movies had an impact on his life and how they represented those times in American history. Movies about schools and education can not only entertain us, but also inform us about the perennial issues that surround the experiences we all hold in common. Here, in no special order, are some movies that have both entertained and informed me on schools and schooling.
The original Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) with Robert Donat and Greer Garson is sentimental, yet still timely as it showed the growth of a teacher and the commitment he had for his students. Another one from that era is Claudette Colbert and John Payne in Remember the Day which is about two Indiana schoolteachers during World War I and a very special student they had in common. Good Morning, Miss Dove with Loretta Young is also well done. All of these films place teachers in honored and special places in society. And the titles are marvelous.
Some movies of the past fifteen years that I would recommend include Teachers with Nick Nolte, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with Matthew Broderick, Dead Poet’s Society with Robin Williams, and Stand and Deliver with James Olamos. A Masterpiece Theater presentation from the 1980’s based R.F. Delderfield’s To Serve Them All My Days is also excellent. And classics from even farther back such as The Blackboard Jungle, Up the Down Staircase, and To Sir With Love are available on video and deliver a powerful message.
I am sure I have missed some films ¾ both documentary and fictional ¾ that are as powerful as the ones I have mentioned. As educators, we probably need to use this medium more than we do. They have the potential to motivate and educate our students at least as well as the printed word. Even non-education movies like Saving Private Ryan can be effective tools for teaching about teachers and schools. I remember being moved emotionally when the Tom Hanks character finally lets it be known what his profession was back in the states before World War II. He was a teacher.