| In School of Rock, released on video earlier this month, Jack Black’s character, Dewey Finn, pretends to be an accredited substitute teacher in order to make some quick money, and in doing so becomes someone we all wish could have been our teacher growing up. But is this burned out metal guitarist who uses prep-school kids as his own backing band someone our principals would have wanted? Furthermore, could he get away with it today if he had been a real teacher?
On the surface, the answer seems easy. Hollywood movies have taught us that stodgy administrators or uptight parent councils must ultimately crush that exciting non-conformist teacher. But let’s talk about real life.
Yes, it is quite unlikely that Finn would have made it past the first or second day. School principals tend to take a dim view of teachers who shut their doors during the day and leave as soon as the bell rings. Also, very serious legal action can result from impersonating a teacher (as the film accurately portrays), or being an unlicensed teacher. Plus, in this day and age, a teacher should never utter a phrase like "I was touched by your children and they touched me," no matter what the context.
This is no surprise, but what about the actual teaching aspect of the movie? Few would be able to decipher the new terms, paradigms and philosophies in the classroom these days such as multiple intelligences, co-operative learning, active learning and differentiated instruction. To begin with, the idea of multiple intelligences suggests that children can excel in more areas than just book learning and that teachers need to reach these areas. Finn may be misappropriating class time to live his own rock and roll dreams with his fraudulent creation of Project: Rock Band, but it allowed students to experience success in a wide range of areas such as music, economics, fashion and technology. Co-operative and active learning suggests that kids learn best from each other and when they are fully committed to and involved in their learning. Clearly, by the end of the movie, when the students are writing songs and teaching them to each other, they are demonstrating that they have learned and mastered the lessons of Project: Rock Band. Finally, differentiated learning is the belief that not all students learn best through book reading or lectures and includes using "music to teach the boring stuff."
However, all of these slogans mask the fact that teaching excellence consists of two basic elements: mastery of the curriculum (knowing your shit) and student engagement with curriculum (getting the kids to love it). Any principal would love to have a teacher on staff that has these two down cold. Perhaps Black’s character is in a little over his head as an elementary school generalist, but everything else points to success as a music teacher. He has good classroom management techniques, quickly establishes his classroom expectations and finds unique and creative ways to involve all of his students in classroom activities. Furthermore, his claims of using "unusual teaching methods" are not that unusual or farfetched, and surprisingly, among the skills of most recent university educated teachers.
Sean Marchetto is a not-so-unusual teacher for the Calgary Separate School District |
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