AILSA CHANG, HOST:
With trainees heading back to school, it’s a great moment to celebrate teachers. And to do that, film critic Bob Mondello is here with what Hollywood has taught us about mentor.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, “STAND AND PROVIDE”)
EDWARD JAMES OLMOS: (As Jaime Escalante) Will everybody please try to find a seat?
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Educators are a key in Hollywood, as bound by convention as the men who wear white hats in Westerns. They’re mostly young, they’re always energetic, and they answer to honorifics.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
UNKNOWN ACTOR # 1: (As character) Mr. Chips.
UNKNOWN ACTOR # 2: (As character) Miss Brodie.
UNKNOWN ACTOR # 3: (As character) Miss Moffat.
RALPH MACCHIO: (As Daniel LaRusso) Mr. Miyagi.
MONDELLO: Or just plain …
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “TO SIR, WITH LOVE”)
SIDNEY POITIER: (As Mark Thackeray) Sir or Mr. Thackeray.
MONDELLO: … Sir, with love, obviously. Also, if need be …
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “HALF NELSON”)
ANTHONY MACKIE: (As Frank) Hey. What’s up, teach?
MONDELLO: … If that’s what it takes to get their trainees to stand and deliver, to be terrific debaters, or to form dead poet societies while directing the down staircase in a chalkboard jungle. You understand the type – hardworking, earnest and, many of all, inspirational, all while challenging – due to the fact that Hollywood never does anything midway – the sort of obstacle that would offer time out to a wonder employee. “The Wonder Worker’s” Annie Sullivan, for instance, had to get through to a kicking, biting, almost feral Helen Keller, who had been deaf and blind given that infancy.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE MIRACLE EMPLOYEE”)
PATTY DUKE: (As Helen Keller, groaning).
MONDELLO: With just a few gestures to indicate what she wants, 7-year-old Helen has no chance to communicate with those around her and at first no concept of language itself. Her breakthrough is available in what total up to a relentless battle with Annie at a backyard water pump, where she all of a sudden realizes that the motions her teacher’s been making in the palm of her hand connect to the motion of Annie’s lips …
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE MIRACLE WORKER”)
ANNE BANCROFT: (As Annie Sullivan) W-A-T-E-R – water. It has a name. W-A-T …
MONDELLO: … Which they represent an idea – the dampness she’s feeling.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, “THE WONDER EMPLOYEE”)
DUKE: (As Helen Keller, vocalizing).
BANCROFT: (As Annie Sullivan) Yes.
MONDELLO: She mimics Annie’s hand motions, spelling it back.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, “THE MIRACLE WORKER”)
BANCROFT: (As Annie Sullivan) Yes. Oh, my dear.
MONDELLO: And right away, Helen wants other words, pounding on the earth beneath her feet.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, “THE MIRACLE EMPLOYEE”)
BANCROFT: (As Annie Sullivan) Ground.
MONDELLO: Annie spells it out, and Helen spells it back.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, “THE MIRACLE WORKER”)
BANCROFT: (As Annie Sullivan) Yes.
MONDELLO: And as powerfully as it ever has on movie, a whole world of understanding opens.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, “THE MIRACLE WORKER”)
BANCROFT: (As Annie Sullivan) Pump.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MONDELLO: A lot of on-screen instructors face more traditional trainees and create bonds with them over more traditional issues – kids who do not think they wish to find out, who skepticism authority, who are tired and who inspire teachers like Robin Williams in “Dead Poets Society” to discover unconventional ways to jazz up classwork.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “DEAD POETS SOCIETY”)
ROBIN WILLIAMS: (As John Keating) I stand upon my desk to advise myself that we need to constantly take a look at things in a different way. See? The world looks very different from up here. You do not think me? Come see for yourselves. Begin. Begin. Despite the fact that it might appear ridiculous or wrong …
MONDELLO: This gets him in trouble with the headmaster, which’s pretty much a standard Hollywood plot advancement. Educators who care – and you wouldn’t make a movie about them if they didn’t – must not only relate to students, however must likewise shield them from their own moms and dads, from school administrators, from the authorities and from social forces that lead them to not value education in the very first location – “Stand And Deliver’s” math instructor, Jaime Escalante, for instance, helping Latino trainees to conquer, initially, their own resistance to authority …
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “STAND AND DELIVER”)
UNKNOWN ACTOR # 4: (As character) Can we speak about sex?
(CROSSTALK)
OLMOS: (As Jaime Escalante) If we talk about sex, I have to offer sex for homework.
(CHEERING)
MONDELLO: And after that when they start to be successful, he helps them conquer the unreasonable perceptions of administrators wielding standardized tests.
Denzel Washington is up versus even more powerful forces in “The Great Debaters,” a movie set in the segregated south of 1935. When his Black college argument group is informed it can not compete in a national tournament, he lets them know his stake in their battle is individual.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, “THE FANTASTIC DEBATERS”)
DENZEL WASHINGTON: (As Melvin B. Tolson) You are my students. I am your teacher. I believe that’s a spiritual trust. So what do I say to you now? Quit due to the fact that the dean says so? Since the constable says so? Due To The Fact That the Texas Rangers say so? No. I am diametrically opposed to that. My message to you is to never give up.
UNIDENTIFIED STAR # 5: (As character) We are not quitting.
WASHINTON: (As Melvin B. Tolson) Good.
MONDELLO: The rebel with a class, as it were, is a relatively current development in Hollywood. On-screen teachers were long pictured in gentler terms, as protective and nurturing rather than crusading. Movies tended to register for the “King And I’s” real however sappy thought that, if you end up being a teacher, by your pupils you’ll be taught.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, “THE KING AND I”)
MARNI NIXON: (As Anna Leonowens, singing) As an instructor, I’ve been learning. You’ll forgive me if I boast. And I have actually now become an expert on the topic I like most – getting to know you.
UNKNOWN CHILDREN: (As characters) Ah.
NIXON: (As Anna Leonowens, singing) Learning more about you …
MONDELLO: No difficult assignments in her class.
But the year that movie came out, the rougher side of that getting-to-know-students formula was already on screen in “Blackboard Jungle,” set in an inner-city school where teacher Glenn Ford sparred with rebellious student Sidney Poitier.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “BLACKBOARD JUNGLE”)
GLENN FORD: (As Richard Dadier) There was no racial concern till you made one.
POITIER: (As Gregory W. Miller) Why you’ve got the knife out for me?
FORD: (As Richard Dadier) Oh, man. There’s a real switch. I imply, after all the problem you triggered.
POITIER: (As Gregory W. Miller) Young boy, you really got it bad.
FORD: (As Richard Dadier) You deny it?
POITIER: (As Gregory W. Miller) You’re going to hit me? I ‘d truly like that. That’ll actually wash you up around here.
MONDELLO: A couple of years later, instructor Poitier got his comeuppance in “To Sir, With Love.”
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, “TO SIR, WITH LOVE”)
POITIER: (As Mark Thackeray) I lost my temper – the one thing I swore I would never ever, never do. Those kids are devils. Nothing I’ve attempted …
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
POITIER: (As Mark Thackeray) They’re kids.
SUZY KENDALL: (As Gillian Blanchard) What?
POITIER: (As Mark Thackeray) Kids – that’s it.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
POITIER: (As Mark Thackeray) Kids.
MONDELLO: And that became the brand-new design template – instructors wading into problems of race, class, generational dispute to help kids with good intentions and dependably standard knowledge. More recently, the knowledge’s been less traditional, state, in the comedy “School Of Rock,” where the instructor is practically unintentionally successful at winning over his charges.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, “SCHOOL OF ROCK”)
JACK BLACK: (As Dewey Finn) If you want to rock, you got to get mad at the male. And right now, I’m the male. And who’s got the guts to tell me off, huh?
MIRANDA COSGROVE: (As Summer Hathaway) You’re a joke. You’re the worst teacher I’ve ever had.
BLACK: (As Dewey Finn) Summer Season, that is excellent. I liked the delivery due to the fact that I felt your anger.
COSGROVE: (As Summer Season Hathaway) Thank you.
MONDELLO: A harder approach to music guideline is “Whiplash,” where allure trainer seems fine until his auditioning drummer gets the pace wrong.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, “WHIPLASH”)
J K SIMMONS: (As Terence Fletcher) Why do you expect I simply tossed a chair at your head, Neiman?
MILES TELLER: (As Andrew Neiman) The tempo?
SIMMONS: (As Terence Fletcher) Were you rushing or were you dragging?
TELLER: (As Andrew Neiman) I do not understand.
SIMMONS: (As Terence Fletcher) Start counting.
TELLER: (As Andrew Nieman) One, two, 3.
(SOUNDBITE OF FLETCHER SLAPPING NIEMAN)
TELLER: (As Andrew Nieman) One, two, 3.
(SOUNDBITE OF FLETCHER SLAPPING NIEMAN)
TELLER: (As Andrew Nieman) One, 2, three.
SIMMONS: (As Terence Fletcher) Now, was I rushing or was I dragging?
TELLER: (As Andrew Neiman) I do not understand.
SIMMONS: (As Terence Fletcher) Count again.
TELLER: (As Andrew Nieman) One, 2, 3.
(SOUNDBITE OF FLETCHER SLAPPING NIEMAN)
TELLER: (As Andrew Nieman) One, 2, 3.
(SOUNDBITE OF FLETCHER SLAPPING NIEMAN)
TELLER: (As Andrew Nieman) One, 2, 3, 4.
SIMMONS: (As Terence Fletcher) Rushing or dragging?
TELLER: (As Andrew Neiman) Rushing.
SIMMONS: (As Terence Fletcher) So you do understand the difference.
MONDELLO: Motivation through fear – a definite outlier.
Even more often, films enhance the idea that, in nonreligious society, mentor is the closest thing we have to a spiritual occupation. You don’t choose to teach. You’re called to teaching as a profession. And as with faith, this calling is one in which the standard job hasn’t changed in a thousand years. You stand in front of your flock, which anticipates you to be above reproach both on and off the task. Your authority comes from on high. You require the persistence of a saint, the wisdom of a rabbi and the endurance of a martyr. And at day’s end, the benefits are mostly spiritual, as when Helen Keller, having pretty much worn out Annie Sullivan, requiring the name of every item around them, finally indicates Annie herself. And Annie, choking back tears, spells out T-E-A-C-H-E-R.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, “THE WONDER WORKER”)
BANCROFT: (As Annie Sullivan) Teacher.
MONDELLO: And Helen spells it back.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MONDELLO: And the lesson starts.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MONDELLO: I’m Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE WONDER EMPLOYEE”)
BANCROFT: (As Annie Sullivan) Instructor.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/08/30/1120126895/encore-what-the-movies-taught-us-about-teaching