Exploring Teachers in Fiction and Film: Saviors, Scapegoats and Schoolmarms

Description

This book about teachers as characters in popular media examines what can be learned from fictional teachers for the purposes of educating real teachers. Its aim is twofold: to examine the constructed figure of the teacher in film, television and text and to apply that examination in the context of teacher education. By exploring the teacher construct, readers are able to consider how popular fiction and film have influenced society’s understandings and views of classroom teachers. Organized around four main themes—Identifying with the Teacher Image; Constructing the Teacher with Content; Imaging the Teacher as Savior; The Teacher Construct as Commentary—the chapters examine the complicated mixture of fact, stereotype and misrepresentation that create the image of the teacher in the public eye today. This examination, in turn, allows teacher educators to use popular culture as curriculum. Using the fictional teacher as a text, preservice—and practicing—teachers can examine positive and negative (and often misleading) representations of teachers in order to develop as teachers themselves. Cover Title Copyright Dedication Contents Foreword Acknowledgments Preface Introduction Part I Identifying With the Teacher Image 1 Looking Into the Mirror of Erised: Transacting With Representations of Hogwarts’ Teachers and Pedagogy 2 Playing the Role of Teacher: Using Film to Explore Teacher Identities 3 The Role of the Teacher, Real and Imagined 4 Coming of Age in the Classroom: Representations of Teachers in the Short Fiction of Toni Cade Bambara and Sandra Cisneros 5 From Content Literate to Pedagogically Content Literate: Teachers as Tools for Social Justice 6 (Re)Imagining Life in the Classroom: Inciting Dialogue Through an Examination of Teacher-Student Relationships in Film Part II Constructing the Teacher With Content 7 Teacher Images in Young Adult Literature: Pedagogical Implications for English Preservice Teachers 8 Why Teach Mathematics?: Values Underlying Mathematics Teaching in Feature Films 9 I Teach Jim and Jane; I Don’t Teach Gym 10 What Does It Mean to Be Literate?: Examining School Film Teachers and Their Literacy Values With Preservice Teachers 11 The Hidden Curriculum in Room 10: School Mythology and Professional Identity Negotiation in the Miss Malarkey Picture Book Series Part III Imaging the Teacher as Savior 12 Moving Beyond the Teacher Savior: Education Films, Teacher Identity and Public Discourse 13 Revisionist Films: Detaching From Teacher as Hero/Savior 14 Deconstructing a New Teacher Savior: Paladins and Politics in Won’t Back Down 15 Chalk: Overwriting the Savior Narrative Part IV The Teacher Construct as Commentary 16 Films, Governmentality and Agency in the Struggle Over Reading Education 17 Why Bad Teacher Is a Bad Movie and Where the Real Crisis Is: Implications for Teachers and Teacher Education 18 Preparing Teachers in the Time of Superman: The Accountability Narrative of Education Documentaries 19 No Human Left Behind: Falling Skies and the Role of the Pedagogue in the Postapocalypse List of Contributors Index