My high school U.S. History teacher opened a class on a Monday by arguing that Election was the first movie he’d seen in a while that treated teachers as actual people with some kind of inner life. This was in contrast to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or The Breakfast Club, which, despite being filmed only minutes away from our school, did not depict teachers or school personnel as anything more than caricatures of bumbling authority. A few years later, one of the grad school professors in the program that was gearing me up to be a high school English teacher suggested Teachers was worth watching before beginning student teaching. It also had the distinction of having been filmed in Columbus, Ohio, where I was earning that degree. I think the main reason my prof had suggested it was because of the character of Ditto. He dies in class and none of the students even notice until a few periods go by! In the bleakest sense, his death represents a clear example of strong classroom management despite absolutely abysmal student engagement.
This weekend marked the third or fourth time I’d watched Teachers. Ditto is still my favorite character, rich inner life or not, but I was struck more by what is different 40 years on. The first thing that stands out is the lack of security structures in the school. The idea that parents or visitors or anyone else can just walk into a school without being stopped or interrogated feels foreign. The sheer chaos of looking at the main office at the start of the movie is overwhelming. The administrators, teachers, staff, students, and others are all going about their business in an open office space. There are vital discussions happening amidst physical conflicts and quotidian conversations. It’s a lot to process and it’s all in the open. Many of those interactions would happen behind closed doors or via emails or chats in 2024, which would make the school much quieter, but no less intense.
Alex Jurel, the unsympathetic protagonist played by Nick Nolte, is a history teacher who calls off most Mondays due to hangovers and hookups. He’s a letch and a wretch. When Jurel learns from vice principal Roger Rubell, played by Judd Hirsch, that the attorney representing a former student who is suing the school is herself a former student, he thinks back on her time at the school and remarks, “Great ass.” The sexism alone is gross enough but it’s even more revolting to think a teacher was thinking about a teenage student’s body in that way. There’s an attempt at redeeming his character later in the film when he takes Diane Warren, a student played by Laura Dern, to a free clinic to get an abortion because the PE teacher raped her. Even though he did the right thing in that moment, he’s still a creep. He has a rich inner life, but it's nothing I want to know any more about.
A cursory look at the fragments of reviews on the movie’s Wikipedia page indicate that Teachers is not a strong example of film on its own merits. The writing and characters receive criticism in equal measure for being inconsistent, flat, and contrived. So, yeah, as a film—as a piece of art—it does not hold up 40 years on (if it did at all upon release). The “jarring tonal shifts” might displease the reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes, but these blunt and honest moments reflect the reality of getting through a day of teaching in public schools in this country. I’m thinking of last week in particular, where in the course of a few minutes I de-escalated two kids who were squaring off to fight in the hallway, then helped another open a jammed locker, and then, you know, taught my class. Every day isn’t like that, but for the days that are, I’m glad I can watch Teachers and think how someone who isn’t a teacher sort of understands what it’s like to be one, even if none of the teacher characters are sympathetic or relatable or redeeming.
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