Inspirational Teacher Movies
Alex Jenkins
Van Halen tells us that, �right now our government is doing things we think only other governments do�right now someone is working too hard for minimum wage�� We know this. We hear it every day from inspirational teacher movies. But there�s nothing we can do, it seems. That stems from a lack of understanding of the wide scope of �the problem,� and its many faces. The 2000 TV-movie �based on a true story,� Cheaters, is an excellent mediation on the nature of ethics, spirituality, immigration, and the faces and existence of the so-called American dream. Its most interesting purpose, however, for current purposes, is that it problematizes the ever-popular inspirational teacher movie.
The movie discusses the Cheating scandal in Chicago after the 1994-95 competition, in which a poor general-enrollment school, Steinmetz�s academic decathalon team beat the school who had won for the previous nine years, a magnet school called Whitney Young. The victory was exposed as a fraud, and the film discusses the issues surrounding the whole event. The movie is set up as sort of a satire of a long tradition of inner city teacher movies and books, such as Stand and Deliver, Finding Forrester, Dangerous Minds, and the books of Jonathan Kozol.
Precisely the problem with movies such as Stand and Deliver is that it refuses to portray the students as people, with flaws�it�s as though, for the purposes of the movie, the kids� personalities and intellects have been abused by a poor system, and one miracle worker, Jaime Escalante, can �fix,� the wrongdoing, by reshaping their minds. However, I beg you to notice that these kids are aged 16 to 18. They are not stupid. I think Stand and Deliver is entertaining and valuable for the purposes of educating those of us who haven�t noticed that the American public school system suffers from intense segregation and inequality, but does not carry a realistic call to action.
Cheaters addresses Stand and Deliver specifically when they decide to speak with a lawyer about their situation. They watch it to do �research� on how to handle the corrupt head of the academic decathalon, who wants them to re-test to prove that the scores are genuine. They notice a key line, which they then appropriate. Jaime Escalante says, ��If my kids didn�t have Hispanic surnames and come from [poor] schools, these scores would never have been questioned.� This is in reference to the calculus AP that the brilliant kids in Stand and Deliver did so well on. One of the Polish boys, Dominic, says to the media, �If we didn�t have Polish last names and come from poor schools, these scores would never have been questioned.� True as this may be, the primary purpose for the scene is to show that Stand and Deliver is not real life. In real life, at least for the most part, there will be people out to get you and defame you, no matter what your ethnic background.
The scene also serves to raise the question of race and immigration. Why is the story about the Hispanic kids taught by the Mexican teacher somehow so much more heartwarming than the story about Polish and Anglo kids taught by A Polish teacher any less riveting? Have we forgotten, in the affair of political correctness, that not all underprivileged kids are black or Hispanic?
Finding Forrester, a similar movie to Stand and Deliver, often marketed next to Cheaters, accomplishes a similar purpose. In Finiding Forrester, a young black student can only be appreciated for his basketball playing abilities, but once he meets a kindly inspirational teacher figures, he discovers he is brilliant, and, ultimately, gets credit for it, and goes off to an expensive school, presumably to be fabulously wealthy and successful. But the problem with these films is that the great realization in both is the fact that kids from poor schools are intelligent, and their intelligence is being squandered by �the system.� So what?
Jonathan Kozol�s books accomplish the same thing. �It�s hard, after a time like this, not to feel honored that the children would permit you to be present when they open up this way�� All these inspirational teacher stories rely on a very predictable plot�the kids have been denied their right to education, and one dedicated man can �save� them for all time. Another major theme in his books is that of contemporary segregation--that all these kids are black, and are the victims of a racist society. Cheaters exposes these issues. For one, in Cheaters, there is no hero. The teacher, of course, helped the kids to cheat their way to the top; the kids cheated; the screenwriting brat who exposes the truth to the journalist has no concept of loyalty, and only does what he does out of resentment for not going to nationals, and not getting the recognition; the Whitney Young team is rich and privileged, and can only go to nationals every year because they are pampered brats, and finally, our last hope, the board of education president who says that �when she was in school�honor was held in high esteem� it turns out, is jailed when she is found guilty of tax fraud.
The film discusses the idea in a very self-aware manner�Irwin Flickus, an obnoxious attention-seeking kid grows upset when he is dropped from the team, for his honestly earned low scores at the regional competition. Because of this, he ultimately exposes to the media the details of the scandal in a manipulative essay that contains the accusation that Dr. Plecki �forced� him and the rest of the team to cheat, and that Flickus �now knows what it is like to sell his soul to the devil.� People from the media and city, of course, love this story because it finally provides them with a coherent narrative, however contrived. As one of the team members, Darius, points out, �Alright, let�s examine the essay for a moment. First of all we have this tragic hero, Irwin Flickus. Then there�s this suffering victim�Irwin Flickus. Finally, we have this redemptive act performed by�Irwin Flickus. I mean, it�s kind of an interesting profile, don�t you think?� I do indeed. Sadly, the media did not.
The most basic problem with some of the reviews of Cheaters is that they contain a very primitive concept of morality. One such review from the Christian Courier on the Web, by Wayne Jackson, entitled �Teaching Kids to Cheat,� states �What has happened to old Ben Franklin�s maxim: �Honesty is the best policy?� And what of Alexander Pope�s noble line: �An honest man is the noblest work of God?� The Chicago educator should have remembered the words of Montaigne: �All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not honesty.�� On the most basic level, this is oversimplification, and on a closer look, this is ridiculous. Nick Hornby articulates this concept well in the following passage from his book, High Fidelity:
�I do not know what, precisely, Laura said, but she would have revealed at least two, maybe even all four, of the following pieces of information:
1. That I slept with somebody else while she was pregnant.
2. That my affair contributed directly to her terminating the pregnancy.
3. That, after her abortion, I borrowed a large sum of money from her and have not yet repaid any of it.
4. That, shortly before she left, I told her I was unhappy in the relationship, and I was kind of sort of maybe looking around for someone else.
Did I do and say these things? Yes, I did. Are there any mitigating circumstances? Not really, unless any circumstances can be regarded as mitigating. And before you judge, although you have probably already done so, go away and write down the four worst things that you have done to your partner, even if�especially if�your partner doesn�t know about them. Don�t dress these things up, or try to explain them; just write them down, in a list, in the plainest language possible. Finished? OK, so who�s the arsehole now?�
What Hornby is pointing out is fore fronted in Cheaters. Every person that states that �cheating is wrong� or that he �only seeks justice� is found to have an incredibly impure motivation. The most glaring example is that of the school board president, a woman who states something to the order of, �This just shows me how far we�ve come. When I was in school, cheating was a monumental offense, and honor was held in high regard�� Of course, at the end of the movie, we discover that she was later jailed after pleading guilty to income tax evasion.
The film does not hide, however, from emotional appeal. The most overt example of this is the song that plays as the Steinmetz kids take the tests at the state competition, �Look Who�s Perfect Now,� by Transistor. You misters wearing a crown, push me around, dragging me down�you mister head of the class, never come last, pain in the ass. You mister never to fall, standing so tall, knowing it all�you mister living a lie, flying so high, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.� Anyone who didn�t smile and curtsey in high school can probably relate to this part of the film. The odd thing, however, is that, as Dr. Plecky, the academic decathlon coach articulates, �Winning does matter. Cheaters do prosper.� And of course, this is yet another thing that is true only for Whitney Young-esque students. From the first academic decathlon meeting, the concept is satirized�they watch a film explaining the competition, which ends with the statement, �Academic decathlon�building skills that work in corporate America.� Finally, at the end of the movie, a man comes on the radio to say, �Oh, yes, I�m really hurting. I cheated in high school, got into a good college. I cheated in college, and got into a great law school. I cheated in law school and got a job at a great law firm. Now I�m pulling in�[obscene amount of money, you get the idea].�
The point is that these weren�t good kids sneaking into the system because their brilliance had been underscored, at least not primarily. Dr. Plecky calls the action more of �a civil disobedience�I just know that sometimes you need to break the rules in order to change them. They�ll also have to justify holding a competition when the same team wins year after year. They�ll have to justify warehousing you while a chosen few get a quality education�� But, unlike in other stories that contain this sentiment, Cheaters offers further reasoning as to why the system is the way it is, and how to change it, beyond just getting old white men to teach the underpriviledged black and Hispanic kids.
Why is the system this way? The most interesting answer Cheaters offers is the nature of immigrant culture and Catholicism. The most heartbreaking moments of the film make reference, vague and explicit, to Polish Catholic immigrant culture. The first of these is when Dr. Plecky�s aging mother has discovered the scandal, and asks, �How could you betray those kids?� The second is when the school district lawyers are begging the team members to sign a confession, and the only one they break is by manipulating his religious sensibilities. The lawyer says, �Dominic you�re a good Catholic like me�� and continues to appeal to the poor boy�s last remaining hope. He signs the confession, and the search for the truth is over. Of course, almost immediately after, a journalist asks the lawyer such questions as, �is it true that one of the team members is a bisexual witch� and �is it true that there was a sexual relationship between Dr. Plecky and one of the students?�
The �good Catholic� lawyer enjoys this, and compares the team members to a cult.
The other element of immigrant culture is that these kids have many more responsibilities than pampered rich kids. For example, the one Polish girl has to take care of her sister, as she is part of a single parent home, etc. The same girl gets an awful score on her speech at the regional competition, because she has trouble pronouncing English words. Such would never happen to the Whitney Young students, Asian, black, or white, and they represent all of these. This film is overtly about race, by having an entirely white team, which is undoubtedly the victim of the system.
What is the call to action here? It's very simple: think before you judge. Vague as this may sound, it could cause a world of difference in educational policy.
At any rate, Cheaters is a film invaluable to any member of the educational system, at any level. I recommend reading the books of Jonathan Kozol, watching Stand and Deliver, and taking their messages seriously, but at last, when you long for more from a film, watching Cheaters.
Works Cited
Stockwell, John. Cheaters. 2000.
DeLillo, Don. �In The Ruins of the Future: Reflections on terror and loss in the shadow of September.� Harper�s, December 2000.
Kozol, Jonathan. Ordinary Resurrections-Children in the Years of Hope. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc. 2000. 388 pgs.
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