Teachers have one of the most challenging jobs in the world. Changing the world should be in their job description. Everyone remembers a teacher that changed their lives, gave them hope, who cared about them inside, and outside the classroom. Much of what a classroom teacher does is provide structure where there is none. A teacher’s classroom, much like the charity or scarcity in a child’s home, becomes a fraction of what society becomes. The smallest influences have the biggest outcomes and teachers exist to bring out the best in their students.
What separates a good teacher from a bad one is the ability to care when no one else does. To teach lessons in not the fastest way, but in the most effective way. Giving their time long after classes are dismissed and arriving at campus before the crack of dawn. Teachers are often taken for granted or taken advantage of, but some educators know how to teach the truth and live it regardless of their detractors.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
9 The Paper Chase (1973) - Professor Kingsfield
20th Century Fox
Professor Charles Kingsfield (John Houseman) is the definition of old school. Kingsfield teaches contract law using the Socratic method at the prestigious Harvard Law School. His austere presence and demand for excellence makes first-year law student James T. Hart (Timothy Bottoms) more nervous than a guilty party. On top of that, Hart dates Kingsfield’s daughter and steals Kingsfield’s notes from when he was a law student to study for the final exam. The Kingsfield character is said to be inspired by real-life Harvard Law School professor Edward “Bull” Warren.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
8 Up the Down Staircase (1967) - Ms. Barrett
Warner Bros. Pictures
The novel of the same name by Bel Kaufman starred Sandy Dennis as English teacher Sylvia Barrett. Ms. Barrett teaches at a New York City public high school with a large student body belonging to many races and ethnicities. She deals with a class of troubled backgrounds, gets buried in administrative red tape, and is rebuked by staff for her calm approach to teaching. Barrett makes a breakthrough when she and her students draw comparisons between their literary readings and their own lives.
7 Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969) - Arthur Chips
MGM
Arthur “Chips” Chipping (Peter O’Toole) is a codger in his established teaching role at the Brookfield public school. During his summer holiday, he meets theater singer Katherine Bridges (Petula Clark) who is dissatisfied with her career and love life. The two become smitten and marry each other, changing Mr. Chips into a new man. He eventually reaches the rank of headmaster and owes his change of heart and success to his artful wife.
6 Freedom Writers (2007) - Mrs. Gruwell
Paramount Pictures
Based on the novel The Freedom Writers Diary by Erin Gruwell (played by Hilary Swank) and her English students, Freedom Writers tells the stories of at-risk students from Woodrow Wilson Classical High School. Racial tensions, rival gangs, and other hardships invade the lives of Ms. Gruwell’s class. She teaches them the negative effects of racism and prejudice through the events of the Holocaust and the accounts of Holocaust survivors. Together, they write down their frustrations, desires, and personal experiences to make a better change in their lives and community.
5 Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995) - Glenn Holland
Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Glenn Holland (Richard Dreyfuss) is an accomplished composer who decides to be a music instructor at John F. Kennedy High School in order to be with his family and create his symphony. He shares his love of music with his students, mentors them about the science, history, and power of melody for thirty years. Between a grieving relationship with his deaf son and supporting the school’s art department, Mr. Holland inspired the music in everyone.
4 Dead Poets Society (1989) - Mr. Keating
Buena Vista Pictures
Robin Williams is John Keating (borrowed from the poet John Keats), the nonconforming, free-thinking English teacher at the Weldon boarding school for boys. He rhapsodizes and waxes poetic about living life between the lines to his students, much to the regimented school board’s chagrin. Mr. Keating taught them to find their own voice, to be an individual, and to make their lives extraordinary on and off the page.
3 Stand and Deliver (1988) - Mr. Escalante
Warner Bros.
Jaime Escalante, played by Edward James Olmos, is a math teacher at James A. Garfield High School during the early 1980s. He is met with below-average Latino students, but pushes them to reach their potential through his philosophy of ganas, or “desire” despite the school’s low test scores. Mr. Escalante gave his students discipline and work ethic, using an approachable enthusiasm for math that helped them rise from their circumstances, beyond their race and ethnicity.
2 To Sir, With Love (1967) - Mr. Thackeray
Columbia Pictures
Sidney Poitier (portraying the life of teacher E.R. Braithwaite) is an interim professor from British Guiana at the inner city North Quay Secondary School in the East End of London. He works to be an engineering teacher, but teaches delinquent youths after curtailing their self-destructive behavior and antics. Mr. Thackeray instead treats them like adults, earning their trust as they explore who they are and take responsibility for who they can be.
1 The Miracle Worker (1962) - Mrs. Sullivan
United Artists
The Miracle Worker is the definition of a teacher not giving up on a student. Based on the autobiography The Story of My Life, the film recounts the story of Helen Keller (Patty Duke) being born and growing up blind and deaf. Her parents seek the help of the Perkins School of the Blind, where Anne Sullivan (Anne Bancroft) tutors Helen to communicate. By connecting sign language to objects, Ms. Sullivan helps Helen experience the world as others do. Both teacher and student were lifelong companions, later interred next to each other at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
