Oct
3
Written by:
costcutters
03/10/2011 09:22
What do you do after a hard day in the classroom, when you have no marking, paperwork, parent’s evenings or other commitments? Perhaps you relax with a glass of wine and the X Factor, perhaps you go to the gym and let off some steam, or maybe you go to the cinema.
The cinema is one of the most popular activities for teachers on a day off. The escapism of cinema is perfect for allowing anyone to turn off their tired brain for a couple of hours, slouch down in a cinema seat or on a sofa at home with a big bowl of popcorn and get away from it all for a while.
Interestingly though teaching is a fairly common theme for movies. Or rather teachers make rather interesting characters for movies. Perhaps it is the fact that most people went to school at some time or another and can relate to the classroom atmosphere of being sat at school desks for hours or perhaps it is the fact that teachers can have such a big impact on the lives and minds of young people, with the classroom the usual epicentre.
With this in mind, and by way of providing you with a list of highly recommended movies to work through, here is a list of 5 of the best movies featuring teachers or teaching that will inspire, amuse or just help provide you with a few hours respite from the regular rigours of a life of teaching.
Dangerous Minds
Michelle Pfeiffer is a former marine who is set the task of teaching a class of inner city high school kids with a distinct lack of school resources who have been written off by their school and themselves. A classic teacher movie with a tough class slowly swayed by the resilience of the teacher…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBQf9noA7xY
Lean on Me
Perhaps one of Morgan Freeman’s most under rated roles, in which he plays a tough teacher who strides into a failing New York City school and turns it around. He is one of many teachers’ favourite inspirational figures…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWW4KogocfQ
Mr Holland’s Opus
This is a bit of a tear jerker. Richard Dreyfus takes a job as a music teacher, forsaking his career as a composer to support his family. He finds out how he can inspire a classroom as much with his teaching as he might with his composing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLaHHGYGlZM
Dead Poets Society
Robin Williams plays in possibly the first film people mention when asked to think of an inspiring teaching movie. He is a rebellious teacher in a stuffy school, who takes his students and shakes up their world and their lives for the better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQtmGcdSDAI
The Karate Kid
OK so perhaps not the first film many would think of as it has no classroom, but it is a film with an inspiring teacher and an underdog spirit in the student, slowly taught skills and discipline that serve him well in the end. Just make sure you watch the original and not the remake…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aYl7N0JPWs
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