Hollywood Authority 2011

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The Hollywood teachers' perspective on authoritySean Kellya; Samantha Caughlanb

a Department of Sociology, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA b Department of TeacherEducation, Michigan State University, Michigan, USA

Online publication date: 11 January 2011

To cite this Article Kelly, Sean and Caughlan, Samantha(2011) 'The Hollywood teachers' perspective on authority',Pedagogies: An International Journal, 6: 1, 46 — 65To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/1554480X.2011.532086URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1554480X.2011.532086

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Pedagogies: An International JournalVol. 6, No. 1, January–March 2011, 46–65

The Hollywood teachers’ perspective on authority

Sean Kellya* and Samantha Caughlanb

aDepartment of Sociology, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA; bDepartment of TeacherEducation, Michigan State University, Michigan, USA

(Received 22 July 2008; final version received 20 April 2009)

A number of scholars have pointed out the problematic nature of Hollywood’s concep-tions of schools and teaching: stereotypical views of class, race and adolescence; anover-reliance on individualism as overcoming all personal and societal problems; theportrayal of schools as failed institutions. However, few have looked closely at the actualteaching that goes on in these films. What is the model of excellent, ground-breakingteaching that Hollywood puts forth to the movie-going public? In this investigation ofsix canonical films about teaching, the authors investigate Hollywood teachers’ perspec-tives on authority in the classroom and their approach to instruction, in particular theforms of classroom discourse that are showcased in these films. Can Hollywood instruc-tional episodes be characterized as ‘dialogic’ where student ideas play a central role inclassroom discourse? The author(s) find that the modal portrayal of instruction showsa teacher’s journey from an ineffective, incorporative or teacher-centred, approach toa developmental or student-centred, approach that engages their students. Moreover,the teachers’ instructional development is cast as an essential aspect of their profes-sional lives, which produces the psychic rewards that allow teachers to keep teachingin difficult situations. Hollywood teacher narratives strongly support a cultural modelof developmental instruction. Unfortunately, developmental instruction is depicted asthe brilliant inspiration of a few heroic teachers, instead of the result of systematiceducational innovation.

Keywords: films; dialogic instruction; engagement; urban schools; popular culture

The Hollywood high school film reflects the best and worst of our feelings about schools,teachers, and kids. Urban schools are terrorized by gangs and run by clueless or apa-thetic administrators; middle-class schools are similarly terrorized by socially precociousadolescents who run rings around those supposedly in charge. However, a recurrent char-acter type is the hero-teacher, the newcomer who sees through adolescent poses and,regardless of his or her inexperience in teaching, brings wisdom, sanity and caring to theclassroom and students’ lives. These hero-teachers have a cultural impact beyond theirpresence as protagonists in successful films: few in education are unfamiliar with char-acters such as Mr Keating, Mr Holland, and Erin Gruwell. Our students in pre-serviceteaching programmes, while admitting the films’ fairy tale qualities, are strongly affectedby these portrayals of teachers as having major impacts on student lives. But how are these

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

ISSN 1554-480X print/ISSN 1554-4818 online© 2011 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/1554480X.2011.532086http://www.informaworld.com

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Pedagogies: An International Journal 47

exemplary teachers so effective? What are they examples of? Our purpose in this paperis to closely examine the model of classroom instruction put forth in canonical teachingfilms.

A number of scholars have pointed out the problematic nature of Hollywood’s con-ceptions of schools and teachers: stereotypical views of class, race and adolescence; anover-reliance on individualism to overcome all personal and societal problems; the por-trayal of schools as failed institutions. We will address these positions below. However,few have looked closely at the actual teaching that goes on in these films. These heroes areput forth by Hollywood as examples of great teachers: What does their instruction consistof? What curriculum and methods are employed? How does this compare with what actualteachers are doing?

In analysing these films’ models of teaching, we find Metz’s (1978) classic conceptionsof teacher authority (particularly incorporative or teacher-centred instruction, and devel-opmental or student-centred instruction) map onto Hollywood contrasts between effectiveand ineffective teaching. A teacher’s perspective on authority is fundamental to his or herinstructional approach, and permeates nearly every aspect of instruction. We examine filmicteachers’ perspectives on authority, in particular its expression in qualities of classroomdiscourse and teachers’ use of instructional activities. Following Gamoran and Nystrand’s(1992) method of analysis, we examine the prevalence of dialogic instruction, or the extentto which student ideas are at the centre of classroom discourse, in Hollywood films.

Hollywood teacher narratives and cultural definitions of teaching

Our analysis of Hollywood portrayals of effective teaching is motivated by the beliefthat these films contribute in some small way to broad cultural definitions of effectiveteaching, and thus, to teacher beliefs about what counts as “good” or “real” teaching.Conceptual models of teaching and learning have traditionally emphasized such factorsas a school’s organizational resources (Barr & Dreeben, 1983), teacher training and social-ization (Weick, 1976), or professional development (Gamoran, Secada, & Marrett, 2000;Newmann & Associates, 1996; Rowan, 1990). However, broad cultural definitions mayalso play a direct role in shaping teaching practices if they have an impact on teachers’cultural models of their students and their own work as teachers.

Cultural models, a concept borrowed from cognitive anthropology, are simplified imagesor narratives of the world that are formed within identifiable groups (American movie-goers, middle-class parents, high-school teachers), and which are both recognizable asshared perspectives and available for appropriation as cognitive resources. They enableshared understandings within groups, both mark and constitute membership, and help tonegotiate interactions with a complex world (Gee, 1996; Holland & Quinn, 1987; Shore,1996).

As teachers struggle to meet the difficult goals they set for themselves, it is importantto ask, where do their cultural models of good teaching come from? After the comple-tion of formal training, teachers work mostly in isolation. Where do innovative practicescome from? Hollywood portrayals of successful teachers have a potentially profoundeffect on our nation’s cultural models of teaching. In addition to being consumed by thepublic in ways that are potentially harmful to building the will to confront the societalproblems that impact our education system, these cultural models may have a more imme-diate effect on teachers’ instructional practice. Hollywood films provide not only potential“scripts” (Taylor & Crocker, 1981) that teachers can draw on in understanding the logic ofa particular approach to teaching, but may legitimate particular perspectives on authority

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48 S. Kelly and S. Caughlan

in the classroom. In addition, both real teachers and Hollywood teachers teach in particularkinds of communities and schools that carry their own freight of cultural models related towhat is possible with students occupying various positions related to race, social class andacademic achievement.

Views of Hollywood teachers and teaching in cultural and educational studies

A number of books and articles have been written regarding the view of education andteaching in Hollywood movies. This is understandable, since both cinema and schoolingare considered microcosms of American society, reflections of ideology and cultural norms.In addition, with an eye towards film’s influence on new teachers, teaching films are oftenused in pre-service courses to prompt reflection on concepts of teaching and teaching prac-tices (Giroux, 1993; Grant, 2002; Trier, 2001). This literature has tended to focus on theideologies underlying these films, particularly those related to American individualism,sometimes using general depictions of these movies’ teaching practices.

While teaching films imply that these (usually) novice teachers are rebels and outliers,authors of these articles claim they promote conformity to the status quo. Giroux (1993)critiques Mr Keating in Dead poets society as reinforcing his upper-class students’ beliefin themselves as extraordinary; Mary Dalton (1999) maintains these teachers are “tool[s]of social conformity” (p. 21) who do little or nothing to change the corrupt and inefficientsystems to which they provide the counter-example. We find Robert Bulman’s (2005) workmost useful: he makes a persuasive case for the cultural hegemony of middle-class valuesof individualism in urban, suburban and upper-class schools. These films fall rather neatlyinto place along social class lines, with urban, underclass students saved by hero-teacherspromoting “utilitarian individualism”, or concurrent norms of hard work, high expecta-tions, and the belief that the full responsibility for success or failure in life resides withthe individual (Bellah, Madson, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985). In contrast, suburbanfilms are almost silent on the topic of academic effort, promoting an individualism markedby resistance to authority and a search for self-fulfilment.

A number of authors have criticized school films for their implication that all changetakes place at the individual level, while institutional, political, social and cultural changesremain unexplored – those needed in the larger school and community in order for all chil-dren to have the chance to become engaged in learning and reach their potential (Bulman,2005; Dalton, 1999; Fisher, Harris, & Jarvis, 2008; Gale & Densmore, 2001; Giroux, 1993;Grant, 2002). The hero-teacher creates change by making personal connections with stu-dents, often outside of the classroom or school, as indicated by the comparatively smallproportion of time spent by each movie in the classroom.

Those authors who do discuss teaching critique both curriculum and methods. Giroux(1993) criticizes Mr Keating’s curriculum and his Romantic approach to resistance as “avapid and aesthetic individualism rooted in the traditions of British high culture” (p. 45),and characterizes Stand and deliver as “teaching to the test and legitimizing canonicalknowledge” (p. 49). Peggy Grant (2002) argues that supposedly student-centred teachersin urban films do not follow a constructivist pedagogy, and she supports this with detaileddescriptions of teaching in key scenes. However, she overlooks the fact that very few actualteachers engage in constructivist pedagogy, either, so ends up criticizing Hollywood film-makers for not keeping up with educational and psychological research.

We differ from these authors in our systematic analysis of teaching in these films, andour ability to relate these methods and models to what is actually occurring in Americanclassrooms. We complicate the ideological critiques of these films with a portrait of

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teaching that, while not in line with what we might consider the ideal, does emphasizethe possibility of engaging instruction and positive educational outcomes for disadvan-taged students. In fact, we find that in certain aspects of classroom discourse, Hollywoodteaching is more developmental than most viewers have probably experienced in theirown schooling, which helps to account for the popular acceptance of these teachers asextraordinary.

Authority in the classroom and teachers’ approach to instruction

In this analysis we draw on Metz’s (1978) conceptual framework of teachers’ perspectiveson authority relations in the classroom. Metz describes teachers’ perspectives on authorityas being primarily “incorporative” on the one hand or “developmental” on the other, andwe find this is also the case in movies that treat teaching seriously. Metz’s ideal types areclosely related to Cuban’s (1993) categories of “teacher-centred” versus “student-centred”instruction, which have existed in tension in American schools since the early twentiethcentury.

For incorporative or teacher-centred teachers, the task of teaching entails transmit-ting an existing body of knowledge and skills to students. There are two important andinterrelated dimensions to this perspective. First, the incorporative teacher believes thatthe authority to make decisions on both what a student is to learn and how it is tobe learned resides solely with the teacher. Second, in selecting a method and style ofinstruction, incorporative teachers emphasize classroom order as an important instrumen-tal goal, because an orderly classroom is a necessary prerequisite to achieving coverage ofmaterial.

For teachers that adopt a developmental or student-centred perspective, fostering stu-dent engagement is seen as the fundamental challenge in a classroom. Rather than focusingon content coverage and maintaining order, developmental teachers direct their energiestowards cultivating interest, concentration and effort, under the assumption that studentsmust be engaged in order for achievement growth to occur (Fredericks, Blumenfeld, &Paris, 2004; Kelly, 2008; Newmann & Associates, 1996). The developmental teacher cedessome authority to students, allowing them to have input in what will be learned, and tailor-ing material to students’ interests in hopes that they will engage the material (Metz, 1978).The developmental teacher sees learning as a self-directed process (Metz, 1978; Pace &Hemmings, 2007; Silberman, 1970) and the classroom as a place where student ideas aretaken seriously (Gamoran & Nystrand, 1992). An orderly classroom is good, but not if itis achieved at the expense of engagement. Thus, the developmental teacher typically hasfewer classroom rules, and rules might be based in general principals of action rather thanspecific behaviours to avoid (Metz, 1978).

The choice of one or another of these models of teaching is not a purely rational choicemade by informed professionals. In numerous studies of teaching among different popu-lations, the focus on order preferred by incorporative or authoritative teachers is seen asnecessary for urban students, or those in the low-track classes occupied by working classand minority students (Oakes, 1985; Pace & Hemmings, 2007; Page, 1991). Such studentsare seen as incapable of handling the self-regulation required for developmental instruc-tion. Teachers’ cultural models of their students and what these students are capable of bothinfluence and are influenced by their perspective on authority, which may differ from classto class (Caughlan & Kelly, 2004; Page, 1991).

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The developmental perspective and dialogic instruction

Metz’s (1978) typology of instruction itself refers to abstracted ideas about authorityand classroom instruction, but specific instructional techniques can often be identifiedas developmental. In particular, the developmental perspective has a clear articulation inpatterns of classroom discourse. In general, classrooms tend to be dominated by lecture,recitation, and seatwork (Goodlad, 1984; Mehan, 1979; Nystrand, 1997), which tend toelicit procedural engagement (Gamoran & Nystrand, 1992).1 When students are procedu-rally engaged they can often get by without much critical thinking. Even if the teacher’sdemands do call for critical thinking, students can get by without being personally con-nected to the topics covered. For the teacher’s part, the primary goal is to transmit a specific,common understanding to students and/or evaluate whether students hold the commonunderstanding.

Procedural instruction can be contrasted to instruction that elicits substantive engage-ment, in which students are stimulated to become actively involved, engage in criticalthinking, and relate classroom topics to their own lives. Classroom discourse looksdifferent in a class where students are substantively engaged.

First, instead of asking questions simply to find out whether students know the answerthe teacher has in mind, teachers ask questions because they really want to know whatthe student is thinking. These are called “real” questions (Morine-Dershimer, 1985) or“authentic” questions (Nystrand, 1997). Second, teachers build on what students havesaid to create a conversation, rather than following a predetermined script. This is knownas “uptake” (Collins, 1982). Authentic questions and questions with uptake provide forsubstantive student input. When students become engaged, and when the teacher helpspromote a student-centred learning environment, students themselves may direct the con-versation by posing substantive questions to both the teacher and other classmates. Whatresults is a discussion or free exchange of information without prompting by the teacher.Classrooms where teachers pose many authentic questions and questions with uptake, andwhere teacher-directed lessons often give way to discussion, are called dialogic classrooms(Nystrand, 1997). Dialogic instruction is a form of developmental instruction emphasiz-ing student-centred classroom discourse. It represents a fundamental shift in authorityrelations, where student ideas influence the direction of learning in the class (Langer,1995).

In an analysis of tens of thousands of question-and-answer sequences from hundredsof classroom observations, Applebee, Langer, Nystrand, and Gamoran, (2003) showed thatteachers’ use of dialogic instruction facilitates substantive engagement. Teachers’ use ofuptake and authentic questions can dramatically increase the incidence of student partici-pation in class and genuine discussions (Nystrand, Wu, Gamoran, Zeiser, & Long, 2003).Moreover, in relinquishing authority to students, teachers engaging in dialogic instructionreduce the extent of evaluation in classroom discourse. As a result, engagement is alsomore widespread within dialogic classrooms (Kelly, 2007). Higher levels of engagementdo facilitate achievement growth, and a link between dialogic instruction and the develop-ment of literacy skills has been established in three major studies of classroom instruction,each involving hundreds of English and language arts classrooms (Applebee et al., 2003;Langer, Applebee, & Nystrand, 2005; Nystrand, 1997).

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Linking discourse and authority in a study of Hollywood teachers

By using a systematic study of classroom discourse across six Hollywood films, we wereable to both categorize each teacher’s approach as it relates to Metz’s typology, and to showhow teachers developed as teachers across each filmic narrative. Most of the movies show ateacher’s journey from an ineffective, incorporative approach to a developmental approachthat engages students and ultimately produces academic success and the psychic rewards(Lortie, 1975) that allow teachers to keep teaching in difficult situations. In particular,the films culminate with the teachers feeling that they have reached students and aidedtheir academic, social and moral development. While all the films promote developmentalpedagogy, they vary in the extent to which they portray classrooms with dialogic discourse.

This commitment to the developmental is underscored by the presence in each filmof at least one foil character. A foil is a literary and dramatic device, a character whosecontrasting behaviour and/or perspectives serve to illuminate the special qualities of theprotagonist. In these films, the foil (who may be an individual teacher, administrator, or anentire department) embodies incorporative or authoritative attitudes towards authority andinstruction. They may believe that obedience is the way to success for young people, or theymay have given up on succeeding altogether. Often, the foil teacher begins by befriendingthe newcomer and attempting to recruit him or her to incorporative views of instruction. Insuch cases, the break with the foil or the foil’s downfall marks the teacher’s path to success.

Data and methods

Data

We chose six films for this analysis: To sir, with love (1967), Up the down staircase (1967),Dead poets society (1989), Mr Holland’s opus (1995), Dangerous minds (1995), Freedomwriters (2007). Each of these films features teachers who teach subject matter appro-priate to a study of dialogic discourse as part of normal content study: English, musicappreciation, life skills. For that reason we did not choose coaching films or those inless “subjective” areas, such as mathematics. We also chose films that featured classroomscenes as central to the dramatic action, so rejected the collection of “high school” films,such as Ferris Bueller’s day off or Mean girls, that feature a high school setting but seemto see the classroom as an interruption of the real action taking place in bathrooms, lunch-rooms, locker rooms and bedrooms. Since, as Bulman (2005) points out, it is mainly urbanfilms that treat academic work seriously, we end up with a sample skewed in that direction.Our films range in the amount of time they devote to instruction (from 17 minutes in MrHolland’s opus to 42 minutes in Freedom writers), but they all portray the classroom as aplace where teachers and students interact in significant ways, and instruction as an impor-tant activity that helps to construct the student–teacher relationship and make a differencein students’ lives.

Methods

We analysed the classroom sequences in each film for activity type and classroom dis-course patterns in order to describe each teacher’s development through the narrative. Eachfilm was coded using a framework for the analysis of classroom instruction developedby Martin Nystrand and colleagues at the National Research Center on English Learning

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52 S. Kelly and S. Caughlan

and Achievement (CELA). In the results section, we present a quantitative and qualita-tive overview of Hollywood teachers’ instructions and compare the sample of Hollywoodteachers to real-world classrooms.

We summarize the nature of classroom activities (time summary statistics) and class-room discourse (question property statistics) graphically. While the analysis is quantitative,it is not statistical. The data do not represent ‘samples’ of classroom instruction that we useto make inferences about a population or causal processes. We do not conduct and reporttests of statistical significance for these data. Instead, each classroom scene is viewed asa purposefully crafted instructional vignette. Each individual utterance in these films wascarefully scripted to advance the action of the film. The coding process and the quantita-tive summary allow us to present an interpretation of Hollywood teaching that is consistentacross films and explicitly connected to observational research in actual classrooms.

Our analysis resulted in our being able to identify, in all but one film, a “tippingpoint” in the teacher’s instruction, where the teacher makes a rather dramatic shift froman incorporative to a more developmental approach. Tipping points are often indicated orprefaced by events in the film which illustrate the teacher’s changing perspective on author-ity. The instructional scenes after the tipping point are both evidence of and the effect ofthe teacher’s changing perspective.

Time summary statistics

Time summary statistics were produced according to the rubrics of the CLASS program.2

The following activities were coded and time summary statistics produced: proceduresand directions, discipline, classroom interruption, lecture, question and answer, discussion,reading aloud, silent reading, role play, game, test, student presentation, seatwork-teacherhelping, seatwork-teacher monitoring, seatwork-unsupervised, small group work, andothers.

Instructional activities typically associated with an incorporative perspective includelecture, reading aloud and silent reading and, frequently, various forms of seatwork.Question and answer sessions can be incorporative or developmental, depending onthe question properties. Various activities, including student presentations, role playing,games, and small group work, depending on the nature of the tasks, can be developmental.Discussion is defined as the free exchange of information among students and/or betweenat least three students and the teacher lasting at least half a minute. In the films analysedhere, lecture and discussion are the most prominent modes of instruction clearly associatedwith incorporative and developmental perspectives on authority.

Question property statistics

The following properties of classroom discourse during question-and-answer sessions werecoded:

• Source of question – teacher or student.• Response – was the question answered; if by a student, who was the student; were

there multiple responses?• Authenticity – was the question a test question, in other words, did it have a

predetermined answer, or was it authentic?

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• Uptake – did the question incorporate a student’s previous response; if so, was theuptake genuine uptake, or was it test uptake, with the student’s previous responseentirely predictable?

• Cognitive level (reporting vs. thinking) – cognitive level distinguishes recitations,or reports of what happened, from unknown information such as an analysis,generalization, or speculation based on the text.

• Nature of response – if a student question, did the teacher answer the question, closethe question down and move on to another question, or open the question up forothers to answer; if a teacher question, was the student’s answer elaborated on by theteacher, or simply evaluated as correct or incorrect?

Teacher perspectives on authority are revealed in the nature of classroom discourse dur-ing question-and-answer sessions. An incorporative, non-dialogic approach is exemplifiedby the use of ‘normal’ questions: teacher test-questions that are non-authentic, low cogni-tive level, and do not involve uptake (Nystrand, 1997). The expression of the developmentalapproach in classroom discourse is dialogic instruction. Dialogic instruction is exemplifiedwhen teachers facilitate substantive engagement by posing authentic questions, and ques-tions with uptake, and where students pose questions as well. When question-and-answersessions are dialogic, they often give way to discussions (Nystrand et al., 2003). Whilemuch recent work on classroom discussion complicates Nystrand’s basic categorization byexploring the distinctive qualities of talk operating in different classrooms for differentpurposes (Adler & Rougle, 2005; Buty & Mortimer, 2008; Skidmore, 2000; Wells, 1999),we maintain our use of his categories as best suited for this comparison of Hollywoodpedagogy with thousands of observations of American classrooms.

Results

After presenting a quantitative summary of our findings, we provide a qualitative overviewof depictions of developmental instruction in these Hollywood teaching narratives. First,we provide examples of incorporative approaches depicted in the film and the tipping point,the Hollywood teachers’ shift to a developmental perspective on authority. Second, wediscuss several foil characters, which provide compelling counter examples to the develop-mental protagonists. Finally, we discuss the prototypical ending to the Hollywood teachernarrative, where psychic rewards reinforce the teachers’ developmental approach.

Quantitative summary of instruction in film sample

The nature of instruction in our sample of films is summarized quantitatively in Figures 1and 2. Dead poets society, which did not have a tipping point, is excluded from thissummary. Figure 1 shows time summary statistics for a set of common instructionalactivities in this sample of films before and after the teachers adopted a developmentalperspective on instruction. After the tipping point, classroom instruction becomes inter-active in nature, with more time spent in discussion and question-and-answer sessions.There is also less time spent in discipline and interruption. Although there is a substantialamount of time spent in procedures and directions after the tipping point, this time is gener-ally used to set up a developmental classroom activity, rather than non-interactive seatworkor a test/quiz. The two largest blocks of procedures and directions after the tipping pointoccurred in Up the down staircase, where Miss Barrett is setting up a courtroom role-play

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0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000

Total Time in Sec

After

Tipping Point

Before

Tipping Point

Seat WorkOther

Reading AloudDiscussion

Question & AnswerLecture

InterruptionDiscipline

Procedures & Directions

Seat WorkOther

Reading AloudDiscussion

Questiorn & AnswerLecture

InterruptionDiscipline

Procedures & Directions

Figure 1. Time summary statistics.Note: Dead poets society, which does not have a tipping point, is not included.

0 .2 .4 .6 .8

Proportion of total questions

After

Tipping Point

Before

Tipping Point

Elaborated

Cognitive Level

Uptake

Authentic

Student

No Response

Normal

Elaborated

Cognitive Level

Uptake

Authentic

Student

No Response

Normal

Figure 2. Question properties.Note: Dead poets society, which does not have a tipping point, is not included.

based on events in Silas Marner; and in Freedom writers, when Erin Gruwell explains theFreedom Writer’s Diary and at the start of the ‘toast to change’ episode. The time sum-mary statistics, particularly the large amount of discussion, indicate a strong shift toward adevelopmental approach in these films.

Figure 2 uses question properties as an indicator of the nature of classroom discoursebefore and after the tipping point, reinforcing the dramatic shift revealed in the timesummary statistics. Before the tipping point, classroom discourse is characterized by a

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relatively high proportion of teacher test-questions, unanswered questions and few studentquestions. After the tipping point, teacher questions become more dialogic in nature, withalmost 80% being authentic. There is also a greater proportion of student questions afterthe tipping point. Many of the questions are still at a low cognitive level, however.3

Overview of Hollywood teacher narratives

Tipping points and the Hollywood teachers’ journey from incorporative to developmental

With the exception of Dead poets society, where Mr Keating embraces a developmentalif not dialogic approach right from the beginning, each film had a pronounced tip-ping point where the previously incorporative teacher came to adopt a developmentalapproach. To sir, with love and Freedom writers provide particularly clear examples ofthis narrative structure. In To sir, with love, Mr Thackeray saves a class of working classstudents in London from themselves. Although not quite as disruptive as the ‘Lads’ inWillis’ (1977/1981) Learning to labor, Mr Thackeray’s students might be straight out ofBeachside comprehensive (Ball, 1981), or Hargreaves’ (1967) and Lacey’s (1966) classicstudies of oppositional peer culture in British schools. To sir, with love has a pronouncedtipping point, where Mr Thackeray abandons an incorporative approach to instruction infavour of an overtly developmental one.

In the early instructional scenes in this film, Mr Thackeray attempts to have studentsread aloud, copy off the blackboard and engage in recitation. Mr Thackeray’s incorporativeapproach meets with firm resistance from the students. The tipping point in this film occursafter scenes in which the students saw the leg off of his desk and burn feminine hygieneproducts in the classroom’s old coal fireplace. Boiling with rage, Thackeray reproaches thegirls as ‘filthy sluts’ and storms out of the room. After rueful reflection on the incidents, heconcludes that he has been treating them as children when, in actuality, they will be leavingschool soon and are very nearly adults.

In the next instructional scene Mr Thackeray introduces his new approach to the stu-dents. He does not cede any ground on behaviour. If anything, he has become stricter withrespect to classroom rules, requiring students to address each other formally. He sells thisto them by arguing that the behaviour he wants them to adopt is the behaviour that is intheir own best interests in the outside world. He brusquely tells the girls that if they do notchange their behaviour, men will take advantage of them. Although he holds his grounds onrules of decorum, he completely shifts the balance of authority over the curriculum to hisstudents. Dumping the school books in the trash can, he proclaims, ‘We are going to changewhat we do in here. We’re just going to talk.’ A student inquires, ‘What are we going to talkabout, sir?’ Thackeray replies, ‘About life, survival, love, death, sex, marriage, rebellion,anything you want.’

The change in authority relations in the classroom, as revealed in the time summaryand question property statistics, is dramatic. Time spent on disciplining students dropsfrom being the dominant activity to almost zero. To sir, with love contains more discussionthan any other film, almost 11 minutes. Whereas classroom discourse in the early part ofthe film included only one single teacher test-question, after the tipping point almost 80%of the questions are student questions, and the majority involve uptake and are authen-tic; in fact, there was not a single normal, teacher test-question. Despite Mr Thackeray’sinsistence on proper behaviour, his approach to instruction is both developmental anddialogic.

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Freedom writers, a film based on the real-life account of Erin Gruwell’s experience inLong Beach, California, provides an equally dramatic tipping point. This most recent ofour films follows the standard narrative formula: idealistic teacher with no experience isplaced in a difficult teaching situation, surrounded by hostile colleagues invested in incor-porative and authoritative models of authority. With her caring persona and developmentalteaching methods, this teacher single-handedly resolves her students’ hostility to each otherand their refusal to invest in school, and is showered with rich psychic rewards from herstudents.

Like Mr Thackeray, Erin Gruwell does not find her way immediately, and Freedomwriters devotes more time than any other of our movies to scenes showing her early strug-gles. These scenes with her students are marked with her attempts to keep order, transmitcontent knowledge in an incorporative fashion and battle her students’ open hostility andapathy. Time is spent in discipline and in interruptions (usually fights that engage stu-dents both in and out of the classroom). There is more lecture than question and answer,although she does attempt to engage her students with authentic questions, most of whichgo unanswered.

The tipping point scene is quite powerful and dramatic, involving challenges fromboth sides, uptake and discussion. It shows her moment of realization as occurring in herclassroom, with her students. As she prepares to start a traditional grammar lesson, oneof her Hispanic students draws a racist caricature of one of the Black students and it cir-culates hand to hand until it ends up on the targeted student’s desk. Gruwell confiscatesit, and it evokes an angry lecture, where she dismissively compares their gang culture andits attendant racism with that of the Nazis in the Holocaust. This prompts a heated dis-cussion where students challenge her authority and she elicits a statement of their ethos ofrespect through fighting and dying. Still resisting this expression of their world view, shetells them:

You know what’s going to happen when you die – you’re going to rot in the ground. And peopleare going to go on living. And they’re going to forget all about you. And when you rot – doyou think it’s going to matter that you were an original gangster? You’re dead . . . and nobody,nobody is going to want to remember you – because all you left behind in this world is this(holds up drawing).

After a moment of shocked silence, one boy raises his hand and asks her what the Holocaustwas. The tipping point occurs when Gruwell, instead of taking on the role of subject matterexpert and answering the question, responds with an authentic question of her own: “Howmany of you know what the Holocaust was?” Only the single White boy in the room raiseshis hand. She follows with, “How many of you have been shot at?” and almost every handin the class is raised.

After this, the range of activity types in the classroom changes immediately as shetakes on the developmental task of aligning her curriculum with her students’ passionsand preoccupations. The first class we see after this moment is organized around the ‘linegame’, where students show their agreement or disagreement with questions about youthculture and experiences with the legal system and violence by stepping up to the line tapeddown the middle of the room (we coded this as a question-and-answer session). Not onlymust she engage her students with her and in the academic enterprise, as most of ourother teachers do, but she has to deal with the open hostility they show each other in thetense times immediately after the Rodney King verdict and the gang warfare that followed.The line game is her first attempt to get them to realize what they have in common: allhave lost someone to gang violence, and membership in the group of those who have lost

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multiple friends and family members crosses racial lines. At the end of this episode, shegives them the journals in which they can write their own stories; stories that will laterform the basis of the published Freedom writers’ diary (Freedom Writers, 1999). Laterscenes show students engaged in studying The diary of Anne Frank, capped by a visit toa Holocaust museum; raising money to bring Miep Gies, the Franks’ protector, to visittheir classroom from Amsterdam; studying the Civil Rights movement; and always writingabout their experiences in and out of school. The film-makers compress time by showingthe variety of her teaching methods in a montage: dancing, watching films, reading aloudfrom their diaries, word-processing their stories for the first version of the Freedom writ-ers’ diary. Unlike some of our films, where it is outside the classroom that the teacher hasmost of her impact, it is clear that the classroom is the special place in this movie, withover 40 minutes devoted to classroom scenes. Gruwell’s caring is shown through instruc-tion: her authentic questions are followed by intense and respectful listening to studentviews.

The incorporative foil

In each film, one or more incorporative foils provide a counter-example to the develop-mental protagonist.4 Mr Grandey in Dangerous minds and Mr Barringer in Up the downstaircase highlight the potential pitfalls of an overly incorporative approach.

Throughout Dangerous minds, the almost comically soft-spoken principal,Mr Grandey, is the authoritative foil to Ms Johnson, resisting her attempts to alterthe curriculum in a way that she believes will engage her students. Mr Grandey standsin stark contrast to the responsive Ms Johnson; his conception of learning and studentdevelopment is reduced to students’ strict adherence to the administration’s rules. Thetragic fallacy of Mr Grandey’s approach is made clear when he turns Emilio, a troubledstudent seeking help, away from his office for failing to knock. Not an hour later, Emiliois dead, a victim of gang violence.

If the foil in Dangerous minds epitomizes the incorporative emphasis on procedureand rule-following, Up the down staircase’s Mr Barringer stands as an example of ateacher with much scholarly expertise, but no respect for his students. In the beginningof the film he attempts to connect with Ms Barrett as a colleague with scholarly ten-dencies; however, from the start, he works to discourage her optimism and attempts toengage students. He leaves in disgrace after his callous correction of a student’s lovenote results in her suicide attempt. In contrast, Ms Barrett successfully engages her stu-dents – students Barringer had dismissed as incapable – in animated discussions of classicworks.

Psychic rewards

The six films we studied share a common denouement: the developmental teacher reapsthe psychic rewards of instilling a love of learning in previously disengaged students. Evenin Dead poets society, where Mr Keating is ultimately forced to leave Whelton Academy,the final scenes reveal the success of his approach.

Throughout the film, Keating’s goal is to imbue his students with a sense of intel-lectual initiative, breaking the crushing docility imposed by Whelton as a whole. Thesuccess of Keating’s developmental approach, from the audience’s perspective, hinges onTodd Anderson.5 The other students in the film readily appropriate Keating’s perspective,

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Table 1. Hollywood classrooms vs. the real world: the nature of classroom discourse (%).

CELA’sOpening National study Partnership for

Six Hollywood Dialogue sample (Gamoran & Literacy Cohort 2Question properties films samplea (Nystrand, 1997) Kelly, 2003) (Kelly, 2007)

Asked by teacher 62 92 82 92Uptakeb 44 18 31 9Authentic teacher 74 18 19 25

questionsHigh cognitive level 26 41 30 12

Notes: aStatistics are for after the tipping point. bAuthentic uptake only in Hollywood and Partnership samples.

especially outside the class as they revive the Dead Poets Society, while Todd Anderson,deeply uncertain of his own abilities, holds back. That Keating got through to Todd will berevealed in the film’s final scene where Todd risks the fury of Mr Nolan, the headmaster, toshow his loyalty to Keating.

Keating and Gruwell share a remarkable tenacity to persist as the lone developmentalteacher surrounded by an incorporative institution. The other Hollywood teachers experi-ence a crisis of confidence, and it is the psychic rewards of reaching students that convincesthem to remain in the teaching profession. Dangerous Minds provides a good example ofthis common plot. Ms Johnson’s initial reaction to Emilio’s death, and the other strugglesher students face, is to leave the school. Her students persuade her to stay, in a scene thatdemonstrates both their intellectual growth and their reliance on her. In the final instruc-tional scene, the students make a sophisticated parallel between their own lives and thetheme of a Dylan Thomas poem, comparing their loss of her with “the dying of the light”.Kallie tells her: “Cause you’re not the one who’s raging. We’re the ones who are raging.See, cause we see you as being our light”. Ms Johnson’s developmental approach is richlyrewarded.

Hollywood classrooms vs. the real world

How does the classroom discourse in the six Hollywood films compare to that of classroominstruction observed in actual American classrooms? The coding scheme employed in thisstudy was identical to that used by researchers at CELA in several large scale studies ofinstruction. Table 1 provides a comparison of the nature of classroom discourse in ourHollywood sample, after each film’s tipping point, with that of estimates available fromthe Opening Dialogue study (Nystrand, 1997), National study, and Partnership for Literacystudy.

Table 1 shows that after the tipping point in each film, classroom discourse was quitedialogic in comparison to the average English classroom. The Hollywood classroomsincluded twice the proportion of student questions, and more uptake than in any of the com-parison samples. The most striking difference was in the proportion of authentic teacherquestions. Nearly three-quarters of all questions asked by the Hollywood teachers after thetipping point were authentic. That is approximately three times the proportion asked byteachers in the classrooms CELA studied. However, somewhat fewer high cognitive levelquestions, those that called for an analysis or generalization rather than simple reporting ofinformation, were asked in the Hollywood classrooms.

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Over a decade of research in American classrooms has led CELA researchers to con-clude that it is difficult for teachers to engage in dialogic instruction.6 Dialogic instruction’srelinquishing of authority runs counter to many teachers’ incorporative model of instruc-tion. This is perhaps one reason that true discussions in classrooms are so rare, 53 secondsper day on average in the Opening Dialogue study, for example. Dialogic instruction entailsa major shift in students’ approach to classroom instruction as well, from a passive role toan active one. With the exception of Dead poets society, these films portray a model ofclassroom instruction that students do not encounter in classrooms very often. The CELAresearchers would have to scour dozens of classroom observations before finding even asingle episode of instruction comparable to the ones depicted by Hollywood.

Discussion

With the exception of Dead poets society, these prominent Hollywood teacher narrativesdepict each teacher’s journey from an ineffective, incorporative approach to a develop-mental approach that engages students and ultimately produces the psychic rewards thatallow these teachers to keep teaching in difficult situations. We conclude our analysisby: (1) reconsidering these two perspectives on authority in relation to the content of thecurriculum in Hollywood classrooms; (2) revisiting the importance of social context inHollywood’s normative statement; and (3) discussing the model of educational change,broadly defined, that is implicit in Hollywood’s depiction of classroom instruction.

Sticking to tradition: Hollywood teachers are only so developmental

Compared to foil characters like Barringer in Up the down staircase, Westin in To sir,with love, and Vice Principal Wolters in Mr Holland’s opus who seem uncaring or considerstudent engagement as synonymous with disorder, the Hollywood hero-teacher seems strik-ingly developmental. Mr Keating in particular, is fixated on fostering students’ ability tothink for themselves, while Ms Gruwell’s classroom epitomizes a caring ethos. However,these students are encouraged to “think for themselves” within a very traditional curricularframework in most cases: Mr Holland uses rock and roll to teach about Bach and scale pat-terns, Ms Johnson teaches Dylan Thomas, Mr Keating does not ever leave the nineteenthcentury. Mr Thackeray, the only one of our teachers to jettison the traditional curriculum,advises his students to rebel responsibly in a time of widespread youth rebellion duringthe 1960s, a context never mentioned in the film (Trier, 2001). The purpose of most ofthese teachers is often incorporative in a very basic sense: they want the students to cometo embrace particular traditional texts. The triumph of the students in the underachievingNew York and Los Angeles schools in our pictures is one of finally mastering the academiccurriculum so they can graduate from high school and go on to college. While this is aworthy goal, enabling students to meet and succeed society’s expectations, it deviates froman important precept of developmental instruction: altering the curriculum to build fromstudent interest.

We might conjecture that the reason Hollywood portrays urban students tackling DylanThomas is to convey to the audience that these students are engaged in “real” school work,where real schooling is about learning certain academic material (Metz, 1989). Progressiveeducators stress the importance of culturally relevant teaching (Ladson-Billings, 1994) ora pedagogical approach where there is a correspondence between curriculum elements andthe concerns and experiences of students. Yet, the more dominant cultural model of good

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teaching portrayed in movies is one where the teacher inspires students to work hard tomaster challenging content: calculus or classic literature. So it is refreshing when asked byPrincipal Jacobs what he would say to the board of education about the appropriateness ofteaching rock and roll, Mr Holland replies, “Mrs Jacobs, you tell them that I am teachingmusic. And that I will use anything from Beethoven to Billy Holliday to Rock and Roll, ifI think it will help me teach a student to love music.” Most other Hollywood teachers donot embrace this foundation of developmental instruction as fully as Mr Holland.

The radical move: developmental pedagogy in urban classrooms

The urban context in which many of the Hollywood portraits of instruction occur is a cru-cial element of Hollywood’s normative statement about developmental instruction. Bulman(2005) found that films about working class and minority students tended to focus onacademic achievement (utilitarian individualism) rather than personal expression and ful-filment (expressive individualism), which is reserved for middle-class teenagers. Whilewe agree that films about middle-class teenagers are almost entirely preoccupied withexpressive individualism, the urban films in our sample do not show a simple-mindedutilitarianism. Rather, the urban films show teachers who, in spite of their colleagues’approaches and belief, choose literature that is often considered out of reach of underclassstudents (with the exception of Mr Thackeray). In addition, they choose a developmen-tal approach that encourages students to find personal connections with this literature andengage students in dialogic interaction around the high-level content.

The research on under-resourced schools and low-tracked classrooms suggests thatthis type of instruction is very rare, indeed. Incorporative and authoritative styles ofauthority are most likely to be exercised in the low-tracked classes and the low-resourcedschools largely occupied by poor and minority students, while developmental modes ofauthority are more frequently seen in middle-class schools or high-tracked classes (Oakes,1985; Page, 1991). These are also the classes where teachers more frequently engage indiscussion, as research shows teachers feel that low-track students do not have the abil-ity or the self-discipline to engage in discussion (Caughlan, 2003; Caughlan & Kelly,2004; Nystrand, 1997). This is unfortunate, as research on discussion in different schoolsindicates that low socio-economic status (SES) and low-tracked students are capable ofengaging in discussion (Adler & Rougle, 2005; Langer, 1995) and actually benefit as muchor more from dialogic instruction as other students (Applebee et al., 2003).

The urban context of films like Dangerous minds and Freedom writers reinforces thefundamentally developmental notion that student disengagement is not an immutable prod-uct of social disadvantage. Instead, the students in these films are shown to be highlyresponsive to a developmental approach. The social context of Ms Gruwell’s and MsJohnson’s classrooms makes their developmental approach all the more radical.

Hollywood’s model of educational change

What is responsible for the dramatic change in these Hollywood teachers’ perspectives onauthority? Concerning this question, Hollywood has very little to say. The teachers’ changeis in response to their initial lack of success. But what allows the teachers to react in aninnovative rather than a conservative manner? With the exception of Mr Holland, who isdirectly influenced by his colleagues’ intervention, Hollywood portrays the tipping point asa spontaneous reaction. Ms Barrett in Up the down staircase just shows up one day with asuggestion box. In the case of Freedom writers, we were struck by the role the students play

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in Ms Gruwell’s transition. For all their academic shortcomings and oppositional alignmentto school, these students are not afraid to have their voices heard, and they force Ms Gruwellto confront their perspective. Good teachers, heroic teachers, are ones that care about theirstudents, and that adopt a developmental approach when an incorporative one fails, but itis mostly unclear why these particular teachers are able to make that transition.

These films, by making developmental instruction appear as the brilliant inspirationsof those not jaded by the institution of schooling, actually help maintain an illusion ofdevelopmental instruction as inspirationally derived, and outside the normal business ofschools. The foil figures in these films indicate that charisma and innovation are in shortsupply in our teaching force. In this we agree with Bulman (2005) and others: these filmspresent change as something the individual brings about; no larger vision of social changeis depicted. Hollywood puts a lens in one room, with one charismatic teacher, and neveraddresses the institutional changes that would have to occur at the building, district andcommunity levels in order to make hope and achievement available to all the students inthese often troubled schools.

Inspiration and innovation are also presented as somewhat ephemeral, as we do notsee these teachers implementing dialogic practices day in and day out, with several classesper day over the years. As the statistics on the prevalence of discussion indicate, this isa somewhat realistic portrayal (Applebee et al., 2003; Nystrand, 1997). Teachers considerdiscussion as a peak moment in their teaching, and memorable, but do not feel as thoughthey have much to say about when it occurs (Caughlan, 2003). Teachers report that dis-cussion relies on chance, on the ‘chemistry’ in a room with just the right combination ofstudents.

These movies are another form of the Hollywood romance, showing the courtship butnot the sustained work of marriage. The teacher’s decision to stay at the end of the semesteror year is like the decision to get married, but it is not the marriage, itself. It is not big newsthat Hollywood films tend towards the romantic. But the message sent to teacher candidatesin schools of education, who want to be John Keating or Erin Gruwell, is that you have tobe ground-breaking, you have to be different from your colleagues, most of whom arepresented as broken down workhorses who have not had a new idea in centuries, even if,as do most of the teachers in To sir, with love and Up the down staircase, they still careabout their students. The underlying message is that this is new-teacher stuff , and not to beexpected of the teaching profession as a whole.

However, these Hollywood films still make an important normative statement abouteducation. In a powerful and consistent fashion these films all indicate that the responsi-bility of addressing chronic low performance rests with schools, specifically the faculty,not with the students. Student disengagement and low achievement are not fundamentallya student or a social problem; they are a product of classroom instruction. In every casewhere students come into contact with this model of developmental teaching, they rise tothe occasion and master academically challenging content (content in To sir, with love is anexception). We are left to infer that had the teacher not adopted this perspective, these stu-dents would have remained in their cycle of low achievement. Thus, Hollywood contributesto normative beliefs about educational change that are consistent with certain modern the-ories of student engagement as positively affected by educational innovation (Frederickset al., 2004).

In conclusion, we see the Hollywood portrayal of teaching as contributing in power-ful but incomplete ways to a developmental cultural model of instruction. Hollywood’sportrayal is problematic in two specific ways: in refusing to acknowledge the very realobstacles both inside and outside the institution of school that contribute to poor stu-dent achievement; and in implying that innovation only results from individual inspiration.

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Much has been written about how poverty, inadequate health care, instability, poorly fundedschools, large class sizes and inexperienced teachers – to name just a few obstacles toachievement – have impacted urban students, and Hollywood’s failure to engage with theseas serious issues persists in film after film. Similarly, while dialogic instruction is uncom-mon, real-world examples are readily available which show that engaging instruction is notsolely the result of individual inspiration; it can be, and is, purposefully cultivated withinschools. For example, in the recent Partnership for Literacy project, CELA researchersworking with groups of teachers in middle schools demonstrated that the incidence of dia-logic discourse in classrooms could be increased with coaching and group support (Adler &Rougle, 2005; Adler, Rougle, Kaiser, & Caughlan, 2004). Many of these schools were inpoor urban districts.

Such work demonstrates that teachers in a building can work together to learn someof these techniques that seem so miraculous on-screen, and can develop and maintain adialogic ethos and technique. It is no more miraculous than the surgery that saves an eyeor a life in a medical film – dedicated professionals do it every day. Hollywood makes animportant contribution to cultural models of instruction and engagement, but the actualwork of implementing educational change remains.

Notes1. We recognize that I-R-E recitation has purposes beyond the strictly procedural, including acting

as a tool to scaffold students into complex disciplinary modes of discourse (e.g., O’Connor &Michaels, 1993; Sharpe, 2008; Wells, 1999). However, the dominance of procedural, nor-mal questions (Nystrand, 1997) and their correlation with incorporative modes of teachinghave proven strong enough in the research record that we feel justified in making thesegeneralizations.

2. See Nystrand (2004) for the CLASS 4.24 user’s manual.3. Time summary and question property figures for individual films are available from the first

author upon request.4. Indeed, with the exception of Mr Holland’s opus, where Glen Holland’s colleagues play a crit-

ical role in his professional development as does Ms Johnson’s colleague and friend Griffith inDangerous minds, professional networks are portrayed as obstacles to the teachers’ success inthe classroom.

5. This film stands out from the others in that while Keating’s perspective on student socializa-tion into adulthood is fundamentally developmental, the nature of his classroom activities, hisapproach, is often at odds with his perspective on learning. While the content of his class ses-sions encourages his students to generate their own ideas, the activity structure itself keeps MrKeating the focus of attention. His instruction takes mostly traditional, incorporative forms, pri-marily lecture. The small amount of interactive discourse in this film does, however, contain oneimportant example of dialogic instruction, the ‘sweaty toothed madman’ scene.

6. Galton, Hargreaves, Comber, Wall, and Pell (1999) also make the point that studies from variouscountries show a persistence of traditional forms of teacher–student interactions.

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