The Good, the Bad, the Ugly: Cinematic
Representations of High School English
Teachers
The Blackboard Jungle, released in 1955, is a film that
chronicles the struggle o f first-semester English teacher Richard Dadier
to teach basic language skills to a group o f students hostile to education
in general and him in particular. This film, says the trailer’s announcer,
addresses the problem o f juvenile delinquency, the “modern savagery” of
“teenage terror in the schools.” This film is considered the first to discuss
Problems in Am erica’s schools, and it also appears to be the first
American film to have an English teacher as a protagonist.1
Since the appearance o f The Blackboard Jungle, a good number
o f films have been made that chronicle the struggles o f high school
English teachers, typically novices, to convince resistant students that
English d ass has something valuable to offer. While the education
themes in these films have attracted some attention, little has been paid
to the portrayal o f the English teachers in them. As a first Step toward
remedying this state o f affairs, I offer a few observations on the
cinematic representations o f English teachers in films where they are
protagonists or major characters and point to a problem with these
representations.
M ost o f the storylines in these film s, be they com edies or
dramas, are essen tially the same: they dramatize the struggles o f
inexperienced teachers w h o are thrust into less-than-optim al teaching
conditions to engage at-risk students in English. This set o f
circum stances w ould seem contraindicated w here Student leam in g is the
objective, but despite their inexperience— and som etim es questionable
credentials— these teachers are all successful for essentially the sam e
reason: they care deeply (or in the case o f the com ed ies, com e to care
deeply) about their students, and they are w illin g to m ake w hatever
personal sacrifices are necessary to engage them. W ith one exception, all
the teachers in these m ovies are Outsiders, and because they are, neither
their m otivations nor m ethods are obstructed by the negative attitudes
toward the students that impair the efforts o f their more experienced but
less su ccessfu l colleagues. In these film s, experience is a liability;
inexpe ɥ