Exploring Teachers in Fiction and Film Saviors, Scapegoats and Schoolmarms

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.

Contents Foreword Robert Bulman Preface Part I: Introduction Melanie Shoffner Part II: Identifying with the Teacher Image 1. Looking into the mirror of erised: Transacting with Representations of Hogwarts’ Teachers and Pedagogy Dawan Coombs Jonathan Ostenson 2. Playing the role of teacher: Using film to explore teacher identities Sheryl Long Carol A. Pope 3. The Role of the Teacher, Real and Imagined Jason Whitney 4. Coming of age in the classroom: Representations of teachers in the short fiction of Toni Cade Bambara and Sandra Cisneros Rodrigo Joseph Rodríguez 5. From content literate to pedagogically content literate: Teachers as tools for social justice Nalova Westbrook 6. (Re)Imagining life in the classroom: Inciting dialogue through an examination of teacher- student relationships in film Mark A. Lewis Ian Parker Renga Part III: Constructing the Teacher with Content 7. Teacher images in Young Adult literature: Pedagogical implications for English preservice teachers Benjamin Boche 8. Why Teach Mathematics?: Values Underlying Mathematics Teaching in Feature Films Amanda Jansen Charles Hohensee 9. I teach Jim and Jane; I don't teach gym Carol A. Smith 10. What does it mean to be literate? Examining school film teachers and their literacy values with preservice teachers Shelbie Witte 11. The hidden curriculum in Room 10: School mythology and professional identity negotiation in the Miss Malarkey picture book series Sarah Fischer Part IV: Imaging the Teacher as Savior 12. Moving beyond the teacher savior: Education films, teacher identity and public discourse Carey Applegate 13. Revisionist films: Detaching from teacher as hero/savior Chea Parton 14. Deconstructing a new teacher savior: Paladins and politics in Won’t Back Down Ashley Boyd 15. Chalk: Overwriting the savior narrative Walter E. Squire Part V: The Teacher Construct as Commentary 16. Films, governmentality and agency in the struggle over reading education Patrick Shannon 17. Why Bad Teacher is a bad movie and where the real crisis is: Implications for teachers and teacher education J. Patrick McGrail Ewa McGrail 18. Preparing Teachers in the Time of Superman: The Accountability Narrative of Education Documentaries Christian Z. Goering Jen S. Dean Brandon Flammang 19. No human left behind:Falling Skies and the role of the pedagogue in the post-apocalypse Jeff Spanke List of Contributors

Melanie Shoffner is Associate Professor of English Education, Purdue University, USA.