I immediately thought about Abbot Elementary. I think the continuing success of that show is so incredibly important. It’s such a funny but also very earnest and sincere show. Can’t wait to see more of it
It’s also crazy how the school is suddenly fixed once the white teacher “gets through” to the poc students. Portraying the issue as being the students being unguided black folk and not the entire school system
And then there's the reverse of that for example the movie To Sir with Love where Sidney Poitier plays the Black teacher in the white lower income school where the kids are a problem
As an educator outside the US, I dislike this genre not only for the many good reasons you present, but also because it perpetuates the misconception that all students need to succeed is one inspiring teacher. That is simply not true. Kids need libraries, modern classrooms, well-equpied labs and gyms, a low teacher-student ratio, counselors, therapists. They need eight hours of sleep at night and three nutritious meals each day, and they need a safe, loving and stable environment. All of these factors influence how and how well a student learns and behaves, but they all require significant funding. Claiming one inspiring teacher can make all the difference is simply a distraction from the real issues that many education systems face around the globe.
For real. All an inspiring teacher can do is encourage you to make more of the opportunities you already have. If you don't have those already, then that one teacher isn't gonna be able to do much no matter how hard they try.
Personally, I think in America these movies are so popular because they perpetuate the idea of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" by pretending in a fantasy; that underprivileged kids just need one good white teacher to show them that *they* should just *try harder* rather than admitting the whole damn system is against them and THAT is what we should be talking about.
I teach outside the US as well ☺️ In developing countries the parents are trying so desperately to emulate the west, it leads to so much stress on the children and the family network. I do my best to help the students and their families 🌺
In high school, we had this one substitute teacher who thought she was the teacher from freedom writers. She had everyone stand in a line and asked how many of us lost people on gang violence. Literally everybody except one girl sat down. The teacher looked shocked that there was only one person, and that girl looked annoyed at being singled out. We all knew already that she had family involved in one of the local gangs, either the bloods or crips, I can't remember. That girl always had the highest grades though, I think she was actually valedictorian. Long story short, that sub didn't get the savior narrative she was hoping for.
@@morbidsearchWhen the teacher in Freedom Writers asked that question, it was one question she asked out of many, and it’s implied the point of the exercise was to get the students to realize how much they had in common despite being different races. I’m guessing that the above person’s teacher tried a similar exercise since the one in the movie was effective but she missed the point of it
I need to tell you, my science teacher in middle school thought she was this type of teacher. She wanted us to take part in some sort of citywide call to action for an eco friendly future. She got it in her head that we could express ourselves through breakdancing, so she marched us down to the auditorium, put us in a circle, and told us to perform one by one. We were like,11. About 70% of the class was brown or black. We all stared at each other in confusion. She was embarrassed.
I kind of want to see a movie where a teacher from an inner city school gets a job offer from a private school to teach because the rich kids keep pushing any teacher they hire into leaving. The inner city teacher is used to teaching in low-funded schools where kids want to learn but have to make do with little, and seeing these rich kids throw away all of the resources they’re given because they don’t care or think it’s owed to them makes the inner city teacher mad.
I'm surprised there hasn't been a film like that out there already but that is a good idea for a movie . Maybe you should look at some videos or books about script writing and try to get it written yourself and get it copyrighted . Good script writers with a great idea can make decent money especially if it actually does become a successful film and you make sure your name is listed in the credits as the script writer or the one who wrote the screenplay .
You might also like the movie To Sir with Love starring Sidney Poitier as the black teacher in the white lower income neighborhood where the kids are problematic .
@@nadinaventura they really are. I didn't go to a rich school but I dated this upper middle class guy and he dropped out of high-school 3 times because he didn't like it/wasn't feeling it. Our friends and I (most of us were around poverty level and worked really hard to stay at our school) were like wtf. He had so many opportunities he pissed away.
As a Black man teacher, you are right. I definitely encounter white women with the savior complex in the school system. The part that got me was how Holly wood doesn't show the black teachers in the "Urban" schools who have been there helping kids everyday
Lean on Me, a 1989 movie, is the only movie that had a black male stakeholder fighting to fix a school. I have not seen any since that have reflected the reality you shared. It's messed up and distorts the truth.
@@motaku220 I tried to see that show based on recommendation of my daughter, who is more astute than I am. I watched maybe the first five minutes of one episode and turned it off. The front end showed a teacher leaving the classroom all of a sudden due to an unruly class. This to my thinking it glamorized what unruly kids can do. B.S. on that!
so we’re finally discussing the “white teacher saviour swoops in to save a bunch of inner city kids from themselves” movie genre 😂 i hate the condescending tone and how they treat the kids like the aggressors as if they weren’t victims of their own environment + big ups to you for including coach carter and school of rock, they’re both gems that deserve more recognition!
Honestly, I want a film, where a white savior is pretending to support MLK/Malcolm X/Marcus Garvey/Huey P. Newton/ some lesser-known civil rights leader, but the twist is that said white savior is actually a government agent trying to hold back progress, while only caring about their own ego. You just know Jordan Peele could write it.
Yeah don’t worry they have plenty of guilty white suburban kids making Tiktok about how super not racist they are……we don’t need these white teachers now
Like I remember watching so many of those as a kid and it never sat right with me bc like the black kids are suffering from poverty not “ they’re mean to white kids and need to be better” or “ I can fix them” when they’re not even really misfits they’re just kids
This. And the history of Black teachers before/during/after Brown v Board of Education… which for SOME REASON 🤔 was never something I was taught about.
What about Sidney Poitier as the black teacher in the white lower-income school in England in the 1960s ? I don't think she mentioned it here and that was a great film .
This year, I'm going to be a Black teacher in a school that serves predominantly refugee and low-income kids, and this essay gave me so much to consider!
Have you ever seen the movie from the 1960s with actor Sidney Poitier called To Sir with Love ? You might really love it and feel inspired by on the days that you feel depressed about your work . He is a black teacher and a white lower income School in England where the kids are very hard to deal with at times
As a white teacher in a big city, this isn’t just a movie trope. The pressure to teach underprivileged kids and “save them” is HUGE, especially from other white teachers..
I used to wonder where our teachers came from. They were pretty abusive to us, some did criminal things, our schools were basically a bin for you guys🤔. People kicked out of universities or colleges... coming down to take it out on us🤨
@@rainyfeathers9148 I’m sorry to hear that that was your experience. Where are you from? I think most teachers in general are well educated and want to help. It’s not an easy job. But there are those who abuse their power and it’s not right
Watching this video reminded me of a film I watched in a French class, Entre les murs (English title: The Class). It starts out like a white teacher savior story, with a young white man entering his first teaching job at the French equivalent of an inner city, mixed-race school hoping to change the world and lift up his students, but over time it shows just how biased his worldview is and the failure of the French education system. One of the most pivotal scenes is him calling one of his students (a 12-13 year old girl) a whore, and the student rightfully claps back at him for why he thought it was ok for him to call her that.
8:17 why am I not surprised that Hollywood producers were okay with fictionalizing a teacher's life story and wanted her to have an affair with a student?
oh my god, this gave me a realization. so im from a 3rd world country, and we had this white american teacher teaching us literature. she showed us so much of these movies (ex: freedom writers) and had us analyze and relate experiences abt it, and even compares us with them. i think she saw us as hostile monsters and herself as a white savior despite not doing anything to her n even respecting her 💀💀💀💀💀💀
It’s a moment I will not forget. Had a College a professor once who internalized this narrative. I wanted to learn from him and liked the subject matter of the class. I recall I would raise my hand a lot and include thought provoking input. He looked me in my eye and said: “Why do you sound so white!” It stung a bit I responded: “I think I sound intelligent,” intelligence doesn’t have a nationality it’s a mind set. Complexion doesn’t always correlate with complication and living in a metropolitan area doesn’t always need rescuing. *rant over*
Dennis plum it doesn’t matter she shouldn’t have been talked to in that manner by someone who’s suppose to be a professional. I have yet to see a white person do anything good for another race without bringing it up a million times. A lot of black folks are middle class more than you’d think.
@Dennis Plum It depends on what you mean by "rescuing". If you mean rescuing of the historical and racial effects of redlining and poor socio-economical outcomes literally crafted by racist policies and actions, then yes. There's a lot that these communities DO do to improve things. We as human beings can implement help and proper institutions at a effective rate, but the politics and lasting division is what helps keep that away.
Abbott Elementary is the only media I know of that flips these tropes on its head and has a black woman as the teacher protagonist. I especially love how the kids are humanized in the show, instead of being framed as just "bad kids," even when they do act up.
@@TheLily97232I love this show. The same dude is in Abbott elementary but obviously he's an adult. It took me forever to figure out where the hell I knew him from 😂
I went to a mostly black school and had a white savior teacher play "freedom writers" for us in my English class, not even a month later she went off on these black girls calling them stereotypical black names and began crying after that. she never came back to class after that. I was 15 when she showed the film but I could already feel the condensing feeling when she showed us that film. She really thought to herself that SHE was the white savior coming into an urban school to save these kids but left being seen as a backwards racist. Anyone else have any similar cases?
There's a term that was coined by an academic librarian several years ago called "vocational awe". The librarian, Fobazi Ettarh, writes about the widespread dissolution and burnout among librarians who entered the career path because they believed they were being called on high to Defend the Hallowed Halls of Knowledge. You can see the same thing in teachers who see it as a secret duty (or, dare I say, burden) to uplift and inspire children in underfunded schools only for them to quit shortly after when the reality sets it; not that the kids are beyond saving, but that teaching is just a job. It's an important job, but shrouding the realities of day to day responsibilities in layers of mysticism, or in this case, Hollywood Magic, leaves everyone worse off.
There's also an aspect that teachers deserve to be treated like garbage _because_ it's a sacred job. It's the mentality that "essential workers" should be paid with respect instead of money because if people took the job because of the pay, then they won't do the work as well.
To add to what guy said, the idea that "teaching is more than a job" is weaponized to get as much as they can out of a teacher, sometimes without any compensation. If you are really in it "for the kids" then you should be willing to stay after school for hours everyday for extra-curriculars. Getting behind on work, well you can work all weekend to catch up (unless we have an event this weekend... we could use more volunteers). We generally call these teachers "martyr teachers". They are teachers that buy into the concept being sold to them that they are taking on this sacred duty and burn themselves out trying to do as much as they physically can. Staying at work to 7 o'clock every night is unhealthy. It is quite worse when people are neglecting their own children to do it. But, the concept is so embedded into the profession that you are treated as being selfish when you start setting boundaries between your private and professional lives.
Yes! My mom was a white teacher and an unprivileged school, and it was HARD but not for the reasons movies make it seem. No one was racist towards her, least of all the *children* she taught, and the hardest part was getting the county to care enough about the kids to provide them with what they needed. At the same time she taught at another school that was in a more privileged neighborhood, the school was nicer, cleaner, and newer, and the classrooms were better stocked with supplies, and everything she asked the county for, she got. She was sick of getting denied for things for the underprivileged school, so she started requesting things for the other one and brining them to underfunded school, because despite having more than enough, it was easier to get things approved for it. She loves her kids, but HATES teaching.
I wanted to be a librarian for so much of my life. I was definitely giving it some sort of magical reverence that I know the job could never come close to living up to.
I'm dyslexic and autistic I spent all my time at school in the bad "unteachable" classes I have myself been called unteachable meany times and I have often come across teachers with a savior complex and often they aren't prepared to teach a class like mine. In there heads I think they see us as happy, innocent cute kids in need of saving or just bad kids who need some tough love and don't know how to react when they see us for what we are. It's been really damaging to mine and a lot of others education and its something that has always upset me. Edit: thanks for all the likes :)
i watched freedom writers when i was 12 years old, and i remember loving it and feeling like it was an impactful way of looking at racial injustice, but this was such a good examination of the genre! made me reflect on past movies i've watched
I'm always so jealous of people who say they had teachers who changed their lives or helped them succeed ... like, I hated almost every single teacher that I had, and I was a very hard-working, well-behaved student but struggled at points due to undiagnosed-ADHD and a really bad homelife and my teachers varied in their helpfulness from completely useless to actively abusive and harmful.
I had so many teachers that were jerks but the ones that stood out the most to me were the ones that acted like I insulted them by asking for help common example I have bad eyesight I am nearsighted and even with my glasses on if I wasn't in the front row I struggled to see the board this was on my file if they placed me in the back I would bring up that I could not see and so many teachers would say things like "no I won't move you you just want to sit with your friends" or "privileges" and blah blah blah then later those *same teachers* would be like "Why didn't you say anything before that you couldn't see the board before? You're just lying because you didn't want to do the work"
Same and it was wild bc the racist white teachers would give help to the white adhd kids even tho we literally were actually the same. I was labeled as difficult and had behavioral issues
Honestly , after reading many of these comments all I can say is "a teacher is f*** is she cares and f*** if she doesn't care. Just look at most of these comments and how people describe their teachers. Even those that probably were genuine and tried to make a difference just get insulted or labeled as "creeps" or "martyr." I think some teachers do have good intentions, but then there's the other spectrum of the nasty teachers who do not care. It's like a teacher can't win, no matter what. If they try to form close bonds with the kids and care, they're creeps. If they only "do their job" and teach && not care about anything else, they're assholes. Lol they can't win. Smh
As a poor kid whose schools profiled me for special ed because I was free lunch (no testing my academic ability, emotional stability, or intelligence), I am always suspicious about school movies. And you are dead on right about films not critiquing the system. Actors and directors tend to have parents in the educational field. I will share this video. As always, you are a great and fine intellect.
If you've never seen the movie from the 1960s To Sir with Love starring Sidney Poitier you might like it very much and he plays a black teacher in a white lower income school where the kids are a problem
White teachers were incredibly racist and condescending to me throughout my life, these movies are pure propaganda. The only teacher that made a positive impact in my life was an older Black woman who encouraged my creativity and writing, and is who I am dedicating my first published book to.
Sounds like you could use a read of "Don't Make the Black Kids Angry." You're right. They are propaganda. Because majority black schools get the most federal funds and produce the worst results.
Its a mix with me, I had both white and black teachers give me a hard time, I reckon mostly white teachers trashed my education, but got the same problems with black teachers as well. In the end there were a few white teachers that actually helped me and the odd black one. I think society has a lot to answer for.
As a Brazilian, I immediately smiled when you mentioned Ms. Morello (Everybody Hates Chris is extremely popular here). She really is a great caricature of the issues you talked about.
@@depressedphilosopherbitch7581 unfortunately I can't vouch for the rest of South America, but, yeah, every young person here has a lot of EHC catchphrases burned into their memory lol
1. um um um casey warner claimed this video so even though i'd rather they're not be ads on it, you might see some ads, if so say thank you to casey warner we love that & 2) had to take down the last upload because of a black screen issue, an issue that is partly unresolved because i gave up on fixing it after five attempts. most of it is recovered but there's like two minutes of blank space which should be fine if you only put on my videos for asmr ☺️
I was halfway done, closed out to do something else for 10 minutes, and then it was gone, haha. Glad it's back up! What I'd watched was great, excited to finish the last half.
Haha I was wondering yesterday if the black screen part was intentional or not. Your words are the important part so I didn’t mind, fantastic video and very informative
Great video, thank you. I had the "great" experience of being the whitest student in a 90% non-white class taught by a white savior. It included being read erotic novels to "open the minds" of the muslim students, being told "there was a good documentary on tv yesterday, but of course none of you have seen it" and when reading an article about rich white american people he named me, a double nationality european with no connection to the story, as an example. When I complained about that he said he did it to make those issues approachable for the rest of the class, as it was so far removed from their experiences. He was awarded with something last year, the idiot.
So what was the result of him reading erotic novels to Muslim students ... was there any backlash for example parents of their students complaining about him ?
Really grateful for your inclusion of Philippine history through an enlightened discussion. As a Filipino, I notice our history, as rich as it is, usually gets overlooked in favor of other narratives. I can tell that you spent time researching on what our colonial history was like, and it's really admirable to see the care you put into discussing it.
No we are nice people in the sense our politness is about making other comfortable, we are still controlled by european representants who inforce a fake democracy. Never forget most white people especially french were put on that land cause they were "pest", it wasn't a choice
I spent years thinking "White Man's Burden" was satire. I was shocked to learn that Kipling was sincere. It's how I learned that no person of any profession or art is immune to white supremacy.
In my first high school English teaching job in rural Wyoming (the second whitest of all US states, after West Virginia) my mentor teacher was a Black woman who was the most educated member of the faculty (including the principals). Her experiences with the school/district itself attempting to discredit and remove her from her position were extensive and truly shameful. Her Doctoral work in education was an examination on and reflection of the experiences of Black teachers who teach in predominantly white schools and communities. She was brilliant, dedicated, caring, and infinitely patient. She also put up with zero bad-faith bullshit and was possibly one of the bravest human beings I've ever met (threat of violence is never far in a rural town the further you exist from the XY intersection of "white" and "male," and she had the bullet holes in windows of her house to prove it). I was never half the educator she was, and I never made it half as far as she did before I burned out from the lackluster state of the American education system (in spite of the efforts of so many wonderful teachers I had the privilege to work with). Hollywood doesn't have the guts to tell her story as an educator, or the stories of any of the other teachers she interviewed for her thesis, and we're all so much poorer for it.
As a white dude, I remember watching some of these movies when I was a kid, before I had any awareness of the existence of systemic racism. I honestly hadn't thought much about Freedom Writers since I saw it as a 12 year old. But looking back now, I'm shocked as to the sinister condescension that pervades that whole movie- and how I never questioned it. Thank you for making this video and continuing to help open my eyes on racism and other topics.
I would argue beyond the white man's burden to suggest that the white savior teacher movie presents cultural depictions of the "white woman's burden", where white women are thought to possess an especially "civilizing" role on Black and Brown children by serving as maternal figures and articulate their role in assimilation through a gendered aspect ( see Margaret Jacobs on maternal colonialism). The scenes in which the white teacher comes into conflict with Black parents, especially Black mothers and grandmothers, can be read as a rearticulation of white supremacist discourses in which Black woman-led households and family structures are decried as the root cause of the failure of students and posits the white woman, as a representative of the cisheteropatriarchal nuclear family structure, as a solution to the "tangle of pathology" that white people have described the Black and Brown family as, since the Moynihan report was released in 1965.
"Cisheteropatriarchal structure" Fucking love your post modernist bullshit. It's like reading a Leftist meme: a paragraph with no meaning and big terms you think are intellectual. You're right. White people shouldn't teach black kids. We shouldn't be around each other at all. Time for segregation.
It also reinforces the benevolent sexism of the patriarchy that women are inherently more intellectual, maternal and emotional, which is often used to justify shutting women out of male dominated fields (and attitudes like "women should stay at home and raise the kids because they're just naturally better at it") and in turn demonizes men as inherently dumb and aggressive or being unable to be a caregiver and thus be forced into overly masculine roles and jobs - hence all the male mental health problems.
In Germany we have the "Fuck you Goethe" franchise, which utilizes the fish out of water trope in the opposite way, because the "unconventional" teacher is an unqualified ex-prisoner that only has to teach due to shenanigans but ends up connecting and uplifting his class. (Only his class is a problem class in a Gymnasium (german upper education)
One atypical example of this genre that stands out to me is Zhang Yimou 's "Not One Less," which I first saw thanks to my own "hero teacher" in eleventh grade (shoutout, Mr. Bruce!) It's about a teenaged girl who gets subbed in to teach the village school when the regular teacher leaves for a month, and who is promised a bonus if none of the students have dropped out by the time he gets back. One of the students does, inevitably, drop out and run away to the city to find work, and the girl - Minzhi - follows him to bring him back. The interesting thing about this movie is that it's the opposite of a fish out of water - this is Minzhi's village, she knows these kids - and that while the quality of the education is never really the issue at hand, it does make a compelling argument for community-based teaching rather than airdropping teachers in from out of town. (Mr. Bruce also had us read "White Man's Burden," and Henry Labouchère's parody/rebuttal, "Brown Man's Burden." That was a great class.)
My white history teacher taught us about the Filipino struggle for independence from the US and that led us to talking about the "White Man's Burden" poem. I was very surprised at how adamant he was to really drill into us to critically think about our government and to not fall prey to extreme patriotism. It was a hard class and I was not a star student, but I appreciated all of that nuance, even as a kid.
@@taekwongurl You need to think critically, eh? Patriotism is bad - for white people only. If you're Tibetan and don't want the Chinese erasing your culture or ethnically replacing you that's OK, you can be as nationalist as you want.
Also, it just goes to show much racism in the UK and wider European sphere is not given as much of a spectacle, but it has been and still very much is alive and well
Movies with outdated stereotypes and tropes like the ones shown here are the reason that shows like Abbot Elementary are so important. Showing the antithesis of every part of this trope while highlighting modern issues like charter schools and outdated materials all while making the characters complex and realistic, is far more accurate and important.
They aren't movies with outdated tropes. They are really old movies with tropes from their time. This video essay is about the past, but i'm not sure the author or the audience understand that.
The last residential school in Canada was actually closed in 1996. I really appreciate that you brought up the boarding/residential/technical schools. They went by many names. The one my family is affected by went by at least 6 different names over time to make records as confusing as possible to search. I've been thinking of "good white teachers " a lot lately. My brother just graduated from elementary school and is moving onto middle school, and most of the kids in the school are Indigenous, Black or mixed. The school is known for being inclusive and the best school in the city for kids with learning disabilities. Every teacher at the school but one was a blonde white lady (a ginger white lady lol). We've had a lot of issues with his teachers and seeing them in person just made it click. And I just feel like these movies inspired a generation of white savior teachers to go teach brown kids and it makes me so mad. My Great Granny wanted to be a teacher really badly, but she was stolen away and forced to attend a residential school and they actually didn't give any students at the school high school diplomas, because guess what they didn't actually really do any schooling. Sorry this is a tangent, I'm just happy that other people are talking about the historical context of it all. Not just the residential schools obv, that is just the aspect I am personally thinking about all the time. "Nice white ladies " give me the creeps, it really just comes back to the poem you shared about the white man's burden lol
After watching this, I feel robbed of potential movies that could've been so much better. Yes, fish out of water is a delightful trope, yes, everyone loves seeing teachers and students fight through injustice and unfair circumstances: so where are all the inspirational stories of excellent black teachers in schools full of poor white kids? You want to have a scene where one of the parents is racist to a teacher, this one makes a whole lot more sense. Also it'd be nice to have movies of black teachers being heroes in black schools, but we do love a fish out of water story. (Also also, I wouldn't normally be worried about this but just in case: the teacher needs to NOT die at the end. We don't need more stories about a POC heroically saving a bunch of white people before meeting some kind of tragic fate.)
I don’t know if this film is mentioned in the video, I’m only half way through, but To Sir, With Love is the only one I can think of where it’s a black teacher with white students. It’s another film based on a memoir but it’s in England. Edit: Ahhh, it is mentioned.
@@jackierosas9593 yeah, I made my comment about halfway through and missed a couple things. I don't watch a whole lot of sports/ coaching movies, so I didn't realize the situation was worse for black women than for black men (though, if we only let black men be heroic teachers if they're coaches or gym teachers, that's also not great).
Ever seen lean on me or sister act 2? Those two movies are good example of black teachers in black schools. Movies I wish we had more of 😔. But alas, check them out!
Honestly, it's wild that even *I* growing up thought it was weird how so many school-related movies from the 90s/2000s were about a white teacher "saving" a majority black class/school. I'm a white european kid, from a *very* white rural place. And even I noticed that was a bit odd. Bonus points for the action movies involving a white dude cosplaying as a teacher to "investigate a gang" and whatnot. (Looking at you "the Substitute" movies and probably others)
What about "To Sir with Love", starring Sidney Poitier as the nice BROWN teacher who tames and inspires rough, working class WHITE teens in an inner city school in London. It was made in 1967. Edit: actually the East End of London, but some Americans might not understand what the East End in the 60s and the past was like, and what it stood for, so I used the term "inner city" so they get an idea.
Does Sister Act count as a black woman teac...ok nevermind. I think this video was a missed opportunity to talk about how Abott Elementary is doing some real heavy lifting to dismantle the idea of the white savior and young saviour trope in general. The older black teacher even says that line, "You think you're the only one who wants to help these kids?" The show does a great job at showing how no one teacher is enough in a broken education system. They all have to learn from each other, fight the system and work together.
i had a whole section about sister act in the first draft of this script so yes! edit: i didn't see the rest of the comment before so i wanted to address your last part about missing an opportunity. abbott elementary is a great show! i wanted to include it but i ultimately didn't, deciding to focus more on nonfiction stories. i'm at a point where i've accepted that i can't please everybody with my videos. there's always going to be something i didn't talk about enough or something i talked about too much. the video might be worse off but i'm just happy to have gotten it out there because it was a struggle😩
As a white man who was born in 1970, I can ABSOLUTELY confirm the biases that media like this (and other portrayals of POC in the media I grew up with) imprints on you. I held, for longer than I care to admit, poorly conceived ideas of how people were through the media I consumed. I’ll say that Hollywood Shuffle was one of my first eye openers on this issue. But to the point, yes… examine all of the media you consume. Also, fantastic vid, even with the glitch. :)
Yeah, we can all fall victim to that. I remember being young and really racist against black men, because all I saw on TV was them being violent. This is coming from a black woman who had black men, her father included, around her entire life. TV can mess with your head. If I hadn't had anything to course correct me, who knows how long it would've taken me to see I was being silly.
Shit, even being poc doesn't save you from internalized racism either. I used to wish I was white so badly because I didn't think I was as pretty or as smart, and when other Black girls my age poked fun at me for "not being Black enough" (I liked to read instead of play basketball and I listened to generic pop music instead of rap music), I felt some sort of bigger resentment towards my own race. Luckily, I've since greatly matured, but I can't deny that the chokehold of how Black girls at the time were represented in television when I was a kid didn't damage me in some way and horrifically impact my relationships with other Black kids and myself.
On the subject of residential schools: the last one federally run in Canada (The Gordon Residential School) closed in 1996. Literally only 26 years ago.
(Pretty long story ahead) I definitely want more movies depicting the actual struggle of teaching, it’s a job as you put it, thankless. My mom was a kindergarten teacher, she’s fascinated by children’s ability to learn. She worked at a mostly Hispanic/Latino, bilingual and low income school in Texas. She had to buy most of the supplies herself, some of the teachers around her were mostly there to get the paycheck so she had to plan all of the teaching materials with what she was given for her class, and in the salary of a “teacher assistant”. She was more of a full time teacher there and the only reason she wasn’t promoted as a full teacher was because she didn’t know a lot of English, so she couldn’t do her teacher certification. I saw her come home with a ton of work, I would help her with cut outs and drawings for activities, and help her make decorations every special day. She would also go late at night for her English classes. Her work never left her at home, and it was also physically taxing as she now has back problems, and is currently recovering from a surgery. She loves children, and enjoyed teaching them, she is saddened that she can’t do it anymore thanks to her back. She would come home telling us about her students, their stories, if they were struggling at school, and the victories she had with them. She thought of them everyday, thinking ways to make her classes more interactive and fun while being informative and fulfilling. She even had to deal with a kid who was racist towards her because she didn’t speak a lot of English, and yet she was able to offer empathy and a smile, listening to the kid’s struggles while being firm with them. My mom was able to do something for these kids not because she thought she was saving them, but because she wanted them to succeed. She saw the potential all her students had, and never gave up on them. She did her job, and a lot of parents thanked her as her teachings were told from her students to their parents. And the “actual” teacher that my mom was “assisting” was a white bilingual lady, who didn’t do a lot of teaching, as most students were behind before my mom began to work with them. And a lot of parents felt the lady wasn’t very interested in their children, and the students didn’t talk about her as much. But my mom’s experience made me appreciate teachers even more, because they do so much with so little given to them. Sorry for the long story, I just wanted to share my mom’s experiences. But thanks for reading till the end!
Left a comment on the last video so going to leave one here again: While I'm not a teacher in the US, I am one in Germany and you raise so many important points that people really need to consider when they go into teaching. While being properly paid is not an issue here, it's still a job that can be made difficult by many factors. And it's so important to put your students first through all of this. As people and not as projects. Thanks for creating such an important video and sharing your input (And sorry the black screen is still causing you slightly issues, but glad you could fix it aside from the 2 minutes left)
Love this. I can’t speak of the US, but about where I’m from- The contrast is stark between public schools and private schools in PR, and I remember it being really is obvious when teachers that came from a privileged background viewed me and my class as troubled children before we even did anything. Really is a shame when people go into underfunded districts to live out their savior dreams, without addressing their implicit biases.
This is my mom’s favorite genre of film, and perfectly sums up her brand of racism. She doesn’t “hate” people of color, she just thinks they need “help” in the form of white charity 🙄 I grew up watching these movies, and always felt a little icky about them, but it wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized why. I might send her this video honestly. Also, have you seen the film Music of the Heart? (Meryl Streep as a violin teacher in Harlem.) If my memory is correct and I’m not looking through rosy nostalgia glasses, I think this film does a better job of showing a white teacher in a mostly non-white school just being a teacher. She has selfish/personal reasons for wanting the kids to succeed, and doesn’t go into it with the goal of saving them. Also, Angela Basset plays the principal of the school. If you’ve seen it, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts! If not, I (hesitantly) recommend it. Hesitantly, because I haven’t seen it in about 15 years so I’m not sure if it hold up 😅
@IntrepidTit oh I challenge her all the time. I don’t think we have a single conversation that doesn’t result in me trying to educate her on why she’s problematic.
@IntrepidTit your preoccupied with black peoples affairs show you’re a white savior. They are too inept to take care of their own problems, that’s why they need your help!
You might want to have her watch the movie To Sir with Love , with Sidney Poitier as the black teacher in a white lower income school in England where the kids are a problem if she hasn't seen it yet . Excellent movie and it might open her eyes a little bit
I'm not American, but as someone who has quit teaching recently, I admire and feel sad for teachers who put it all into their classes. There's endless work and preparation that goes unpaid, and often you have to pay out-of-pockets for things you need in class. After a few years, I just had to leave. The fact that some teachers can be so selfless in a system that doesn't support them is admirable/tragic to me.
I'm a Canadian teacher and I quit once COVID hit. Teachers were pawn of the government and it felt like we were being sent in to die. I also had daily panic attacks and couldn't sleep because if the amount of work. I never ever want to return to Education. Trying to find a better more healthier way for both student and teacher.
My mother had been teaching for 25+ years. With the administrative work piling up higher every year, the unpaid preparation and out-of-pocket expenses, she could no longer afford her job. She loved the kids but started to resent giving her everything without even a thank you in return. Paying rent, groceries, everything was always counting pennies... She's a freelance author now (educational books and methods) and earns so much she goes on holiday every two months. She more than deserves it, no-one works harder than her, but it does feel quite ... wrong. The work she does now is way less impactful for society, no one depends on her now, yet her income has quadrupled? It will forever confuse me how governments worldwide are entirely unwilling to invest in the literal future of their country.
I just left teaching after 5 years. Taught grades k-8 in the Bronx and Brooklyn over those years. The burnout came way quicker than I thought and seeing as how a good chunk of my time teaching was during COVID (try conducting zoom with kindergarteners) along with coping with the death of my mother, I can’t believe I lasted as long as I did. I had to get out of the classroom for my sanity. The work is difficult but rewarding. I just think that I can serve my community in another role (that will definitely pay better too).
I'm an elementary school teacher in Argentina, and although my country is very far from being the USA, it's just heartbreaking to see the amount of similarities we have, especially about lack of funding, support or actual interest from the administration, the hostility and/or indifference from parents, (I even work at a private school, and still make less than the minimum wage, and have to buy materials out of pocket) etc etc. Anyway, I was so sure Will Schust*r from Gl*e was gonna pop up at some point as an example with his bullshit speech about "all of them being a minority" because they were part of the glee club 💀💀 Amazing video as always 🔥🔥
Oh my god will’s a perfect example of the savior teacher trope. He was the Spanish teacher despite knowing little to none, was absolutely useless in helping his students when they needed it (very first episode had him walking away from Kurt getting bullied), he actually put DRUGS in his student’s locker to blackmail them to join his bum club, and yet he acted like glee club single-handedly saved all his students
I got to finish it before it was taken down but I know reuploads tend to hav rough stats so I’m back again to give it the support it deserves! As a black educator, this video is so important
My girl scout leader's son was on of the middle class white kids in the class based on the Freedom Writers movie. According to him, the teacher kept trying to get him to write about some deep-rooted trauma and he was like "I don't have any problems..." 🤣
I haven’t watched the video yet but I’m a black female who went to majority black schools in Inglewood California. Didn’t have a black teacher until my first semester at community college. I never really thought about this topic, when seeing movies with black students and white teachers I always accepted it as realistic.
I remember as a kid before being bussed out to school in a white neighborhood, the only white people I ever saw in real life were always school teachers, doctors, or cops. One white teacher I loved because she didnt look down on us or think we were stupid for not knowing education wise what white students did. She was my favorite teacher & gave me arts & crafts & new perspectives outside of “just do what the school system wants”. Sadly a lot of the kids - we were predominantly Mexican - were the biggest assholes and super racist. Even to me, a fellow Mexican, theyd bully and harass me because I got along with that teacher, even say “you’re not a real Mexican” because I liked things other kids stereotypically werent into. Maybe if all those events happened today my teacher wouldve been called a white savior but honestly she was just a good kind caring woman and a refuge from a horrible school of little monsters and from other teachers that long had given up on its students. It is sad though, that a great many white teachers sent to bad neighborhoods do feel that savior entitlement. That “Im gonna save these kids” mentality without actual empathy. Thats why my teacher I took to greatly, she actually gave a damn.
I think the problem people have with these movies is that they show an unrealistic representation of these teachers "saving the school". Your teacher sounds lovely and not like a "white savior" at all. I'd love to see you and her's story, and clashes with the other "savior" types in school, on the big screen.
Not here to shade your comment or experience, but it’s kind of rich that one of the most liked comments for this video is defending a white teacher against this trope and shaming students of color for being terrible and “racist”. Wonder if there is some denialism from some watching this video.
@@julias.6658 Even if that story was attempted to be told, a major studio would find a way or change a lot of what real life was like into a "white woman saves a poor Mexican child" narrative. Even finding ways to disparage say Mexican culture & people. & I say that wholeheartedly acknowledging how the student body back then & even today the negatives of Mexicans / Mexican Americans is real. But that's not an excuse to then be racist to all Mexicans or reframe a narrative to be super racist.
@IntrepidTit Yes, it’s denialist to promote the “not all…” and “POCs are racist too!1!1!1” trope on a video like this. I’m also not a fan of shitting on kids who were likely just responding to the racism and animosity they were experiencing from mainstream society.
Somewhat of a shame you didn't mention The Stolen Generation in Australia when talking about the white saviour. The name is pretty literal, with a generation of indigenous kids being stolen from their families to grow up in boarding schools where they were to be basically forced to abandon their culture and act the way the "white" way. These schools were absolutely brutal and scarred god knows how many kids both physically and mentally. I suggest everyone watch the amazing Rabbit Proof Fence to get an idea of how things were in Australia. I love my country, but we have a disgusting past that we still haven't fully atoned for and indigenous people still face horrible discrimination and generally live in poverty
I remember being in the looney bin in 10th grade and reading all the shitty donated books from their library in between psyche evaluations and group therapy and whatevs and one of the books WAS the actual Freedom Writers book. The entries themselves from the kids themselves were pretty interesting and insightful, but as the book progressed and the teacher lady was getting brand and publishing deals and kids were graduating and all that jazz, there was still an influx of entries of kids who were still wrapped up in their dookie casadilla of societal ills and were just not getting ANYTHING out of whatever she was doing. The way it accidentally deconstructs the “white teacher savior in inner city school” will never leave the back of my mind.
Having read up on the real Erin Gruell, the reasons her students actually liked her is because of the ways she was the polar opposite of her movie counterpart. There 100 entries in the Freedom Writers’ Diary, only two are hers and neither of them discuss her personal life at all, just talk about the project itself. The rest are by students. In the film, only two of the students’ stories are covered as subplots in the fictional Erin Gruell’s story. She passed the mic in real life, but the movie is, well, yeah…
Stand and Deliver is a really good movie, but the dude, Jaime Escalante, the real teacher, in the end was all about the celebrity, and nobody liked to deal with him so they just gave into his whims. My second year of high school, before I changed to a performing arts high school, fall of 1995, Mr. Escalante started teaching at my high school. He demanded the best classroom on campus, demanded the most modern amenities, things that in the mid 90s were almost unheard of to have in a classroom because they were too expensive, demanded a specific set of students (typically students with better math levels, very little diversity, mostly white students with very little discipline problems, and mind you this was a school where there was already a small white student body anyways, it was mostly latino and asian), and even with all this, he almost never actually taught, instead he showed videos of lectures he already had on file while he sat in his office next to the classroom reading. I only stayed the first semester that year before changing schools, so I didn't get to see the full affect, only heard second hand what was going on, but........ I think he only lasted one year there before he was told to find another school because that school didn't really have the funding for his whims and his students didn't improve exponentially, I mean they were already pretty high level and good students on their own already, but they didn't progress higher, and some actually regressed. So being in that environment, and growing up in a time where there were a butt ton of teacher inspirational movies come out, I was so disillusioned to them, because I knew what these teachers were really like. I knew the best teachers were the ones that you never hear about in the media that basically give themselves so much to their students they lose their own selves in the process and you never ever hear about them, they are the teachers that go back to the schools that they themselves graduated from sometimes not because they missed that time in their lives that much but because they felt they had something to contribute.
As someone who was motivated to do AP Calc in high school (and then failed it, but went on to succeed in single variable calc in freshman year of college), this was rather depressing to find out. After all, a part of my motivation to take on calculus was being inspired by the Stand and Deliver movie.
i taught for a few years at the college i graduated from because i realized that the mentors i had, other students esp students of color and lgbtqia+ students didn't have those at the undergrad level. especially another woc who taught mental health in our context, not excluding us woc. best few years of my life, i was so happy doing that.
I am pretty sure it was intentional subversion. There was a lot of that in movies and TV of that time, plus or minus about three years from 10 Things I Hate About You, and it gave me some hope in my teens.
I went to a "Christian" (read: Dubya-era GOP) school for my middle school years. In 8th grade we went over imperialism and "The White Man's Burden" was presented in our textbook (which contained the phrase, "From a Christian Perspective") unironically.
There is still an effort to chase black employees in white school neighbourhoods. Cecelia Lewis was asked to apply as an administrator in Georgia and has been harassed because white parents tought she would teach CRT to their kids. They treated her so bad that she left. And it starter again in the next school she went to. The scarcity of black and brown teacher is not random it's purposeful
I'm from Oregon and noticed we had almost all black men employed as sports coaches or truancy officers both in my middle and high school years. There was only one black teacher I ever knew of, and she didn't seem to work there for very long. It was pretty hard not to notice this if you actually looked.
I only knew 1 black teacher my entire growing up--and no other races except white. But my towns population and school had about 50% white, rest being minority races.
When the Rudyard Kipling poem appeared, I thought it was satirical, a brutal takedown of the white saviour narrative. You can imagine my shock when you called it an anthem for white saviour types. It was so over the top in its racism and jingoism that I assumed it had to have been sarcastic, only for the reality of the poem's original intention to slap me in the face.
There was this one movie I watched about a chilian maths teacher who was teaching Latin American kids in America(you showed a clip but I cave remember the name) . He changed the way teachers traditionally taught maths and these kids turned out to be geniuses they just needed someone to unlock their potential. It honestly made me believe that anything was possible through my own hard work
I think you're talking about the film Stand and Deliver . If so someone in the threads in the comments section talked about being in one of his schools and how he actually was pretty screwed up . It's here in the comments somewhere not too far from the top you might want to look for it and it was surprising what he had to say
Not me watching this when i had a teacher who actually was like this who helped me get my life straight when i was in high school and even checked on me when i entered the navy. I'm pretty sure these movies were made in good faith, and the real crime was portraying that teachers actually made enough to support themselves as well as the student. Also, "stand and deliver" was loved by all Millennial kids.
This kind of resonates with me because I remember my teachers from high school and middle school. I had some teachers complaining how they were being handed the "worst" students that the city had to offer and how they compared themselves as "glorified" babysitters.
Picture some teachers- one gets every ESL kid, and teaches kids who aren't even potty trained by 6. One gets punched, kicked, bitten, and gets no support because she "doesn't understand their struggle". One has 3 paras for 2 SPED kids, and complains that her class is unteachable with those two in the room. You'll never guess who has the savior complex for inspiring all her disadvantaged students
As a teacher this one did hit me different. Being in university and having so many awesome classes, awesome teachers and learning so many pedagogical methods to be able to teach any kind of kid were the initial experiences that kind of inspired me to imagine myself as that "savior" character like in these films. It's hard(for me at least) to separate that desire to be the savior and the legitimate concern/appreciation of the impact a job like mine has on some of these kids but I'm also pretty new to the profession so I guess that's one of the things I need to improve on this learning curve.
I only discovered your channel fairly recently, and haven't been through all of your previous videos yet, but what I've seen so far has been nothing short of deeply thought provoking. Good stuff, thanks.
I was a teacher for four years. I quit because I became that teacher who just sits at the desk listlessly, not engaging. Teachers are so undervalued, and I got burned out so quickly. I now work at a pet store for the same wage and better health insurance. I also really dislike most of these movies. I have listened to TedTalks and read articles written by black women who have done the work to improve the lives of ALL of their students. And then these movies come along and spotlight stories like the principal who expelled dozens of kids so that he could improve the school's test scores (which didn't work in real life, but of course the movie said it had a huge, wonderful effect).
I'm working on a Master's degree in Adult Education. Last semester I watched Freedom Writers for one of the assignments. What struck me, beyond the racism and saviour trope, is the idea of teaching as a vocation. This is a common idea that is celebrated in teacher education. The idea that teaching is a calling and that one must give up all other parts of one's life is harmful. It leads to burnout (really just too tired to be exploited by the system any longer). It also ignores the reality that teachers have a life beyond the school, they are also parents, partners, and care givers in their own families.
Would be interesting if they did a show or film of the issues regarding education through being a POC (Black, Latino in particular) in an affluent area. Because then the issues are also systemic but it’s not fetishizing poverty, it’s showing how resistant the system is to diversity. I’ve been told NOT to teach “divisive” literature (Morrison, Baldwin, Chavez, even some white people such as Sinclair) despite affluent schools not being dictated by rigid curriculum.
I wished you could have fit in "Lean on me" Morgan Freeman's character in that movie hates black people more than most white racist characters in these. It's comedic how unlikable he is in it.
LOL. I believe he’s based on a real principal at Eastside High. My mom graduated right before he came to “clean up” the school. Who even knows if the real guy was even like the portrayal? I hope not. I know he did get into trouble for locking up the school to keep drug dealers out.
Literally went to a school of just black and brown kids to teach a special programing I do. This school had only white teachers and faculty (except the lunch ladies 🙄 ) in the school. They would also yell at the kids constantly, which I didn't like. They were OK, but like, NO, wasting your gas to drive over from your rich city over to teach these "impoverished kids" is not the flex you think it is Karen. They need to be tough by teachers from their own community, and there are people available for that. The fact that this is still happening to witness day was very jarring for me.
Yes, those poor white Karen's not realizing kids a full standard deviation below the national average are going to be tamed by yelling. Of course you don't like it. You're fine with all the public fights and barely there reading scores.
UM. Do they need to be taught or do they need to be taught by their community? Because their cummunity will be teaching them no matter what. It sounds like their teachers are bad teachers because they can't manage a classroom without yelling constantly, not because they they're white. I mean, I don't know, maybe they had a bad attitude and rubbed you the wrong way. But I'm not sure that statement at the end makes sense. If I want to learn micro-biology and I love in a small town and no one knows how to do it do I need a teacher who knows how to teach the subject or do I need to be taught by someone from my community, who likely doesn't know how to teach me what I need to know?
@@rachelclark6393 UM. As a person who lives in a metropolitan city, there is no reason for there not to be a single person of color within their teachers, especially if the group is almost exclusively black and brown kids. I got to so many schools, and at most all of the schools I teach there are a diverse range of teachers with different ages, backgrounds; and are both male and female. If a school only employs exclusively boomer white women teachers, specifically to a majority black/brown audience... I personally would not feel safe sending my kid there. It would feel like I would just setting them up to face microaggressions constantly. Obviously the critique might be different if it was a small town, but I'm sure these white women who already come from the "rich side of the city" (also a predominately white area in a major city because of redlining), I would doubt they would be near a small town of just black/brown folks anyway. These are just observations though, since I've never taught at a school in a small town. Also, it would be different if they were teaching to majority white students as well.
@@saxviars9749 I see your point, and I think I understand it, but I guess what I am trying to say is that the issues of poor teaching in underfunded schools and racial injustice.... To me seem to be separate issues that intersect sometimes. I'm not at all saying it doesn't happen, mind you. I'm sure that it does. But I don't think every white woman teaching brown kids is inherently racist, or that if a white woman teaching brown kids doesn't teach them well that the issue is with racial profiling or stereotyping rather than poor teaching skills. I had a friend who tried teaching during the pandemic. It was a disaster, and I understood from what she told me that it was the system which was truly making it impossible to teach. Covid measures made it worse, of course, but even without those, she would have struggled. I went to both public and private schools, so I experienced a range of teachers of all colors. My public school had more white teachers than my private school. I suspect this is in part because the private schools were actively hiring with diversity in mind, and the public schools weren't nearly so choosy. Regardless, in my experience, teachers are either determined and devoted or lazy, petty, and unhelpful. And that depends on the teachers, not the race of the teacher. There may actually be reasons for a public school in a metropolitan area to have a vastly higher pool of teachers from one race than another. I'd be interested to see how many black kids in the inner city become teachers, and then to see where those black teachers go to teach. I know they exist, but in what numbers, and where do they go? Because it might be that there are more white teachers getting into the profession and that the black teachers, being the minority, might get snapped up disproportionately to schools concerned with advertising a diverse staff. White teachers in comparison, might have a much larger field to compete with and therefore might just mostly be going wherever they can get a job And the schools which constantly need teachers would be the schools which had poor conditions to teach in, causing high teacher turnover. Low pay, no ac or heat, no budget, rowdy or under performing student body, disinterested parents, hostile administration, etc. I think all this stuff compijnds itself and creates a vicious cycle, too. So I feel like, although this discussion is valid and has merit, the real question should be focused on how to improve school outcomes in general. And I feel that that issue has more to do with what kids are actually learning than who is teaching them, unless the teacher in question has proven they are a poor teacher. I hear an awful lot of kids who don't really learn anything in school, for a variety of reasons. And an awful lot of kids who get their education on tiktok. I myself remember learning things which were ftsught in a fashion that made it clear I wasn't expected to be able to use the knowledge practically. I was just test prepping, essentially. So naturally, I retained none of it. I think there's somereal conversations to be had there, and clearing up the performance issues might make some of these more difficult issues easier to understand and fix.
Thank you!! I’m an after school art teacher at a low income school in chicago. I loooooove this job. Videos like this help me do my job better so thank you thank you for researching & creating a cohesive investigation into this topic!!
As a substitute teacher of 7 years who is currently moving on, this video HIT. Everything you described at the end as far as the teacher experience is on the money. I subbed at the one of the best schools in my state and it still had students it was failing, either due to flaws in the system or just plain negligence. It's an all too important job that doesn't get the respect or support it deserves. And the breakdowns of the white savior teacher films were flawless as usual✨✨
I did not go to an inner city school, no I went to a rural school until middle school. and underfunding is a jerk. its like a slow creep that takes more and more until my senior year of high school where the students had to go on a boycott so the schools throughout the state could actually get money into the classrooms for basic class supplies. it takes good teachers, it takes a desire to learn, it takes funding and it takes respect for students and teachers. anyways thank you for the video. very informative.
this is why i think abbott elementary is important. it shows that the teachers care about the kids, but the lack of funding in the school can sometimes make it hard for teachers to give them everything that the students need
I'm not growing up in the US, I'm from China. When I was in elementary school they hired a white male teacher to teach us English conversation class. But he one time yelled at us then typed some words in translator said “we're too loud and it's annoying cuz he lost his passport recently and he's very upset”. Like I know being too loud in class is wrong but he literally picked only that day to yell at us. And after that day he don't teach us anymore (maybe the passport issue), and our chinese teachers even gaslighting us like “We are the shame of this country cause we made a foreign white man cannot stand us” and I was like - ????? Can we just get some rest from the model minority myth? If one day of being too loud can make you quit fully why he even came here to teach? *What made me really disappointed more is our teacher trying to say it's all our fault and we are the bad influence of chinese people* like WTH we were all only 11 years old ? And they don't even give us another chance. And that white teacher even showed up in our class's group photo shoot, at the time I realized he'd already found his passport back and still refuse go back to teach us, but he's still being employed and got paid by the school this entire time? My brain cells are gone... really... After watching your analysis of this trope I just wanna say - Fiction is fake, but the fakeness is real
I am a very big fan of your work! I am indigenous and I like that you mentioned the relevance of residential schools to this topic. However, the statement at 28:30 "They (residential schools) operated from the late 1800s up until the 1960s." is inaccurate. The last residential school actually didn't close until 1996. I appreciate that you acknowledged your limited knowledge on the subject and linked an article to better explain it, but said article doesn't actually mention this fact. I've met millennial-aged residential school survivors, the myth that these things happened "a long time ago" is harmful to the native community. I don't blame you for saying the wrong timeline, it seems like an honest mistake, and there is a lot of misinformation out there. I was just hoping you could add a disclaimer somewhere so no one is misled. I really hope this doesn't come off as mean at all 'cause I really do love your videos but I felt like I needed to say something. (great video btw!!)
I love the fact that Abbott Elementary is totally against this trope and talks about underpayment of schools. Abbott Elementary is great. !
I love Abbott Elementary!
YEEEEEEEEEAS! UP UP ♥
queen quinta!
I was just thinking about it!! It's one of the best shows I've watched in a while and I can't wait for the new season
I immediately thought about Abbot Elementary. I think the continuing success of that show is so incredibly important. It’s such a funny but also very earnest and sincere show. Can’t wait to see more of it
It’s also crazy how the school is suddenly fixed once the white teacher “gets through” to the poc students. Portraying the issue as being the students being unguided black folk and not the entire school system
And then there's the reverse of that for example the movie To Sir with Love where Sidney Poitier plays the Black teacher in the white lower income school where the kids are a problem
THIS
just say students of colour
HOW DO I REACH THESE KEEEDS?
@@stellviahohenheim Cartman is the only one
As an educator outside the US, I dislike this genre not only for the many good reasons you present, but also because it perpetuates the misconception that all students need to succeed is one inspiring teacher. That is simply not true. Kids need libraries, modern classrooms, well-equpied labs and gyms, a low teacher-student ratio, counselors, therapists. They need eight hours of sleep at night and three nutritious meals each day, and they need a safe, loving and stable environment. All of these factors influence how and how well a student learns and behaves, but they all require significant funding. Claiming one inspiring teacher can make all the difference is simply a distraction from the real issues that many education systems face around the globe.
For real. All an inspiring teacher can do is encourage you to make more of the opportunities you already have. If you don't have those already, then that one teacher isn't gonna be able to do much no matter how hard they try.
Personally, I think in America these movies are so popular because they perpetuate the idea of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" by pretending in a fantasy; that underprivileged kids just need one good white teacher to show them that *they* should just *try harder* rather than admitting the whole damn system is against them and THAT is what we should be talking about.
Say it out loud for the people in👏🏾 the👏🏾 back👏🏾
I teach outside the US as well ☺️ In developing countries the parents are trying so desperately to emulate the west, it leads to so much stress on the children and the family network. I do my best to help the students and their families 🌺
👏👏👏
In high school, we had this one substitute teacher who thought she was the teacher from freedom writers. She had everyone stand in a line and asked how many of us lost people on gang violence. Literally everybody except one girl sat down. The teacher looked shocked that there was only one person, and that girl looked annoyed at being singled out. We all knew already that she had family involved in one of the local gangs, either the bloods or crips, I can't remember. That girl always had the highest grades though, I think she was actually valedictorian. Long story short, that sub didn't get the savior narrative she was hoping for.
I'm sorry but this is hilarious 😁😁
I haven't seen Freedom Writers but what was her intended outcome for this exercise?
@@morbidsearchWhen the teacher in Freedom Writers asked that question, it was one question she asked out of many, and it’s implied the point of the exercise was to get the students to realize how much they had in common despite being different races. I’m guessing that the above person’s teacher tried a similar exercise since the one in the movie was effective but she missed the point of it
Thats so embarrassing im dying
Lol this is so embarrassing... Sounds like the students taught her a lesson.
I need to tell you, my science teacher in middle school thought she was this type of teacher. She wanted us to take part in some sort of citywide call to action for an eco friendly future. She got it in her head that we could express ourselves through breakdancing, so she marched us down to the auditorium, put us in a circle, and told us to perform one by one. We were like,11. About 70% of the class was brown or black. We all stared at each other in confusion. She was embarrassed.
Wow. Like, WTF?!?!
She damn better be.
That sounds mortifying (For the students). The teacher should have know better.
I meant to say *known better
🤮 wtf🤣. When yall all around the colored folk it's yall can't help. A whole bunch of shape-shifting starts 🌟
I kind of want to see a movie where a teacher from an inner city school gets a job offer from a private school to teach because the rich kids keep pushing any teacher they hire into leaving. The inner city teacher is used to teaching in low-funded schools where kids want to learn but have to make do with little, and seeing these rich kids throw away all of the resources they’re given because they don’t care or think it’s owed to them makes the inner city teacher mad.
I'm surprised there hasn't been a film like that out there already but that is a good idea for a movie .
Maybe you should look at some videos or books about script writing and try to get it written yourself and get it copyrighted .
Good script writers with a great idea can make decent money especially if it actually does become a successful film and you make sure your name is listed in the credits as the script writer or the one who wrote the screenplay .
You might also like the movie To Sir with Love starring Sidney Poitier as the black teacher in the white lower income neighborhood where the kids are problematic .
I'm afraid it would turn into a horror kid. But yeah, rich kids in rich schools are the worst, usually.
@@gardensofthegods I actually do want to write and direct my own films/shows, so I might.
@@nadinaventura they really are. I didn't go to a rich school but I dated this upper middle class guy and he dropped out of high-school 3 times because he didn't like it/wasn't feeling it. Our friends and I (most of us were around poverty level and worked really hard to stay at our school) were like wtf. He had so many opportunities he pissed away.
As a Black man teacher, you are right. I definitely encounter white women with the savior complex in the school system. The part that got me was how Holly wood doesn't show the black teachers in the "Urban" schools who have been there helping kids everyday
Lean on Me, a 1989 movie, is the only movie that had a black male stakeholder fighting to fix a school. I have not seen any since that have reflected the reality you shared. It's messed up and distorts the truth.
Well, you know Hollywood. It's still a racist place despite the seeming veneer of inclusion.
watch abbot elementary
Tbh, I have had the opposite experience. The black teachers hated teaching too. Everyone hated it haha
@@motaku220 I tried to see that show based on recommendation of my daughter, who is more astute than I am. I watched maybe the first five minutes of one episode and turned it off. The front end showed a teacher leaving the classroom all of a sudden due to an unruly class. This to my thinking it glamorized what unruly kids can do. B.S. on that!
so we’re finally discussing the “white teacher saviour swoops in to save a bunch of inner city kids from themselves” movie genre 😂 i hate the condescending tone and how they treat the kids like the aggressors as if they weren’t victims of their own environment
+ big ups to you for including coach carter and school of rock, they’re both gems that deserve more recognition!
Honestly, I want a film, where a white savior is pretending to support MLK/Malcolm X/Marcus Garvey/Huey P. Newton/ some lesser-known civil rights leader, but the twist is that said white savior is actually a government agent trying to hold back progress, while only caring about their own ego. You just know Jordan Peele could write it.
Finally? It’s BEEN talked about
Yeah don’t worry they have plenty of guilty white suburban kids making Tiktok about how super not racist they are……we don’t need these white teachers now
No really!!
Like I remember watching so many of those as a kid and it never sat right with me bc like the black kids are suffering from poverty not “ they’re mean to white kids and need to be better” or “ I can fix them” when they’re not even really misfits they’re just kids
I'm so happy you centered the black woman teachers who are so often overlooked in these stories
Same!
This. And the history of Black teachers before/during/after Brown v Board of Education… which for SOME REASON 🤔 was never something I was taught about.
Literally!
Same
What about Sidney Poitier as the black teacher in the white lower-income school in England in the 1960s ?
I don't think she mentioned it here and that was a great film .
This year, I'm going to be a Black teacher in a school that serves predominantly refugee and low-income kids, and this essay gave me so much to consider!
Good luck and I hope everything goes well. Teachers don't get enough support.
Have you ever seen the movie from the 1960s with actor Sidney Poitier called To Sir with Love ?
You might really love it and feel inspired by on the days that you feel depressed about your work .
He is a black teacher and a white lower income School in England where the kids are very hard to deal with at times
congrats and good luck in your new job!!
Congrats. I hope you have a great school year :)
I wish you luck!
As a white teacher in a big city, this isn’t just a movie trope. The pressure to teach underprivileged kids and “save them” is HUGE, especially from other white teachers..
I used to wonder where our teachers came from. They were pretty abusive to us, some did criminal things, our schools were basically a bin for you guys🤔. People kicked out of universities or colleges... coming down to take it out on us🤨
@@rainyfeathers9148 I’m sorry to hear that that was your experience. Where are you from? I think most teachers in general are well educated and want to help. It’s not an easy job. But there are those who abuse their power and it’s not right
@@rachelparks1934 Okay white woman, tell us how long you'll teach in a black school until you move to a white or Asian one.
So they think minority teachers are lazy an dumb
@@jborrego2406 Inner city schools sure do beg to differ, eh?
Watching this video reminded me of a film I watched in a French class, Entre les murs (English title: The Class). It starts out like a white teacher savior story, with a young white man entering his first teaching job at the French equivalent of an inner city, mixed-race school hoping to change the world and lift up his students, but over time it shows just how biased his worldview is and the failure of the French education system. One of the most pivotal scenes is him calling one of his students (a 12-13 year old girl) a whore, and the student rightfully claps back at him for why he thought it was ok for him to call her that.
Is that the one with the Algerian and Senegalese French kids?
8:17 why am I not surprised that Hollywood producers were okay with fictionalizing a teacher's life story and wanted her to have an affair with a student?
Lord have mercy.
They're really telling on themselves
oh my god, this gave me a realization. so im from a 3rd world country, and we had this white american teacher teaching us literature. she showed us so much of these movies (ex: freedom writers) and had us analyze and relate experiences abt it, and even compares us with them. i think she saw us as hostile monsters and herself as a white savior despite not doing anything to her n even respecting her 💀💀💀💀💀💀
that’s so embarassing for her omg literally admitting to seeing herself like that
God jesus
literal clown behavior omg- 💀
Oh nooooo no no no😬
come on, that's just embarrassing... sadly there are a lot of teachers with this shitty saviour mentality
It’s a moment I will not forget. Had a College a professor once who internalized this narrative. I wanted to learn from him and liked the subject matter of the class. I recall I would raise my hand a lot and include thought provoking input. He looked me in my eye and said: “Why do you sound so white!” It stung a bit I responded: “I think I sound intelligent,” intelligence doesn’t have a nationality it’s a mind set. Complexion doesn’t always correlate with complication and living in a metropolitan area doesn’t always need rescuing. *rant over*
Man, that had to be a punch in the gut. I'm sorry.
Dennis plum it doesn’t matter she shouldn’t have been talked to in that manner by someone who’s suppose to be a professional. I have yet to see a white person do anything good for another race without bringing it up a million times. A lot of black folks are middle class more than you’d think.
Ooh yikes😬
@Dennis Plum Rescuing? These communities have adults in them, they don't need to be rescued, they need to be listened to and taken seriously.🤔
@Dennis Plum It depends on what you mean by "rescuing". If you mean rescuing of the historical and racial effects of redlining and poor socio-economical outcomes literally crafted by racist policies and actions, then yes. There's a lot that these communities DO do to improve things. We as human beings can implement help and proper institutions at a effective rate, but the politics and lasting division is what helps keep that away.
Abbott Elementary is the only media I know of that flips these tropes on its head and has a black woman as the teacher protagonist. I especially love how the kids are humanized in the show, instead of being framed as just "bad kids," even when they do act up.
Everybody hates Christ makes lots of fun of this trope too
Omg I love everybody hates Chris😭 whenever I see this trope I think of the teacher in that’s show
That is a funny show but I can't watch it because it triggers me. Lol I hated teaching so much it was the total wrong fit for me
@@TheLily97232I love this show. The same dude is in Abbott elementary but obviously he's an adult. It took me forever to figure out where the hell I knew him from 😂
I went to a mostly black school and had a white savior teacher play "freedom writers" for us in my English class, not even a month later she went off on these black girls calling them stereotypical black names and began crying after that. she never came back to class after that. I was 15 when she showed the film but I could already feel the condensing feeling when she showed us that film. She really thought to herself that SHE was the white savior coming into an urban school to save these kids but left being seen as a backwards racist. Anyone else have any similar cases?
There's a term that was coined by an academic librarian several years ago called "vocational awe". The librarian, Fobazi Ettarh, writes about the widespread dissolution and burnout among librarians who entered the career path because they believed they were being called on high to Defend the Hallowed Halls of Knowledge. You can see the same thing in teachers who see it as a secret duty (or, dare I say, burden) to uplift and inspire children in underfunded schools only for them to quit shortly after when the reality sets it; not that the kids are beyond saving, but that teaching is just a job. It's an important job, but shrouding the realities of day to day responsibilities in layers of mysticism, or in this case, Hollywood Magic, leaves everyone worse off.
There's also an aspect that teachers deserve to be treated like garbage _because_ it's a sacred job. It's the mentality that "essential workers" should be paid with respect instead of money because if people took the job because of the pay, then they won't do the work as well.
To add to what guy said, the idea that "teaching is more than a job" is weaponized to get as much as they can out of a teacher, sometimes without any compensation. If you are really in it "for the kids" then you should be willing to stay after school for hours everyday for extra-curriculars. Getting behind on work, well you can work all weekend to catch up (unless we have an event this weekend... we could use more volunteers).
We generally call these teachers "martyr teachers". They are teachers that buy into the concept being sold to them that they are taking on this sacred duty and burn themselves out trying to do as much as they physically can. Staying at work to 7 o'clock every night is unhealthy. It is quite worse when people are neglecting their own children to do it. But, the concept is so embedded into the profession that you are treated as being selfish when you start setting boundaries between your private and professional lives.
Yes! My mom was a white teacher and an unprivileged school, and it was HARD but not for the reasons movies make it seem. No one was racist towards her, least of all the *children* she taught, and the hardest part was getting the county to care enough about the kids to provide them with what they needed. At the same time she taught at another school that was in a more privileged neighborhood, the school was nicer, cleaner, and newer, and the classrooms were better stocked with supplies, and everything she asked the county for, she got. She was sick of getting denied for things for the underprivileged school, so she started requesting things for the other one and brining them to underfunded school, because despite having more than enough, it was easier to get things approved for it. She loves her kids, but HATES teaching.
I wanted to be a librarian for so much of my life. I was definitely giving it some sort of magical reverence that I know the job could never come close to living up to.
Paris Syndrome, but for teaching. Wow.
I'm dyslexic and autistic I spent all my time at school in the bad "unteachable" classes I have myself been called unteachable meany times and I have often come across teachers with a savior complex and often they aren't prepared to teach a class like mine. In there heads I think they see us as happy, innocent cute kids in need of saving or just bad kids who need some tough love and don't know how to react when they see us for what we are. It's been really damaging to mine and a lot of others education and its something that has always upset me.
Edit: thanks for all the likes :)
I'm really sorry that has been your experience. That was really well written and I am happy to see that yoire being forthcoming with your experience.
i deal with a learning disorder myself i am dyslexia too.
@@catalinagatita thank you it means a lot!
@@MsDisneylandlover I wish you the support system and academic success that you deserve, Marshan!
@@rosiemorton7144 you're welcome, what you're experiencing is valid and you deserve changes.
hollywood is always about individual heroism and never about the failures of the system
i watched freedom writers when i was 12 years old, and i remember loving it and feeling like it was an impactful way of looking at racial injustice, but this was such a good examination of the genre! made me reflect on past movies i've watched
HI OLIVIA
Same !
More like, what movies did your schools make you watch
Tbf freedom writers is based on a real story
I live in a suburb or Houston, but on 7th grade I found out that I live "in the inner city" , according to a math teachers Facebook bio at our school
thank you for this, this is hilarious
Which suburb? I'm also from houston
Umm why are you stalking a teacher?! That's a bit creepy.. you do realize teachers have lived outside of school... Smh
@@truth.is.here23 Stalking because they saw someone's page? You don't look at peoples pages?
I'm always so jealous of people who say they had teachers who changed their lives or helped them succeed ... like, I hated almost every single teacher that I had, and I was a very hard-working, well-behaved student but struggled at points due to undiagnosed-ADHD and a really bad homelife and my teachers varied in their helpfulness from completely useless to actively abusive and harmful.
I had so many teachers that were jerks but the ones that stood out the most to me were the ones that acted like I insulted them by asking for help common example I have bad eyesight I am nearsighted and even with my glasses on if I wasn't in the front row I struggled to see the board this was on my file if they placed me in the back I would bring up that I could not see and so many teachers would say things like "no I won't move you you just want to sit with your friends" or "privileges" and blah blah blah then later those *same teachers* would be like "Why didn't you say anything before that you couldn't see the board before? You're just lying because you didn't want to do the work"
Same and it was wild bc the racist white teachers would give help to the white adhd kids even tho we literally were actually the same. I was labeled as difficult and had behavioral issues
Same however the ones that did inspire me somewhat were always people of color, the white ladies were fucking awful always.
Me too 😢
Honestly , after reading many of these comments all I can say is "a teacher is f*** is she cares and f*** if she doesn't care. Just look at most of these comments and how people describe their teachers. Even those that probably were genuine and tried to make a difference just get insulted or labeled as "creeps" or "martyr." I think some teachers do have good intentions, but then there's the other spectrum of the nasty teachers who do not care. It's like a teacher can't win, no matter what. If they try to form close bonds with the kids and care, they're creeps. If they only "do their job" and teach && not care about anything else, they're assholes. Lol they can't win. Smh
As a poor kid whose schools profiled me for special ed because I was free lunch (no testing my academic ability, emotional stability, or intelligence), I am always suspicious about school movies. And you are dead on right about films not critiquing the system. Actors and directors tend to have parents in the educational field. I will share this video. As always, you are a great and fine intellect.
If you've never seen the movie from the 1960s To Sir with Love starring Sidney Poitier you might like it very much and he plays a black teacher in a white lower income school where the kids are a problem
White teachers were incredibly racist and condescending to me throughout my life, these movies are pure propaganda. The only teacher that made a positive impact in my life was an older Black woman who encouraged my creativity and writing, and is who I am dedicating my first published book to.
What's the book about?
Wow that's really a shame you went through that with those effed up people ... just thinking about it sounds depressing and maddening .
Sounds like you could use a read of "Don't Make the Black Kids Angry."
You're right. They are propaganda. Because majority black schools get the most federal funds and produce the worst results.
Its a mix with me, I had both white and black teachers give me a hard time, I reckon mostly white teachers trashed my education, but got the same problems with black teachers as well. In the end there were a few white teachers that actually helped me and the odd black one. I think society has a lot to answer for.
Maybe you were an annoying brat with an attitude …..
As a Brazilian, I immediately smiled when you mentioned Ms. Morello (Everybody Hates Chris is extremely popular here). She really is a great caricature of the issues you talked about.
I heard that EHC was popular in South America. It's popular in the US too!
@@depressedphilosopherbitch7581 unfortunately I can't vouch for the rest of South America, but, yeah, every young person here has a lot of EHC catchphrases burned into their memory lol
@@depressedphilosopherbitch7581its absurdly popular in Brazil is craaazyy
@@callmemako3510Brazil and Southern America as a WHOLE got great taste when it comes to media, I swear.
1. um um um casey warner claimed this video so even though i'd rather they're not be ads on it, you might see some ads, if so say thank you to casey warner we love that & 2) had to take down the last upload because of a black screen issue, an issue that is partly unresolved because i gave up on fixing it after five attempts. most of it is recovered but there's like two minutes of blank space which should be fine if you only put on my videos for asmr ☺️
That sucks, your videos are amazing.
I was in the middle of watching it yesterday when it was taken down! Sorry for all the trouble you go through but your content is always incredible ❤️
I was halfway done, closed out to do something else for 10 minutes, and then it was gone, haha.
Glad it's back up! What I'd watched was great, excited to finish the last half.
@@TheInvisibleShadow95 Same here.
Haha I was wondering yesterday if the black screen part was intentional or not. Your words are the important part so I didn’t mind, fantastic video and very informative
Great video, thank you. I had the "great" experience of being the whitest student in a 90% non-white class taught by a white savior. It included being read erotic novels to "open the minds" of the muslim students, being told "there was a good documentary on tv yesterday, but of course none of you have seen it" and when reading an article about rich white american people he named me, a double nationality european with no connection to the story, as an example. When I complained about that he said he did it to make those issues approachable for the rest of the class, as it was so far removed from their experiences. He was awarded with something last year, the idiot.
"there was a good documentary on TV.. " ok so record it for your students, so they can see it too!!
So what was the result of him reading erotic novels to Muslim students ... was there any backlash for example parents of their students complaining about him ?
Surprised the Muslims didn't behead him like Samuel Paty.
All cultures are equal and all that.
@@gardensofthegods Yes, they beheaded him. Or bitched and moaned over seeing an ankle.
Good creative writing exercise but this didn’t happen
Really grateful for your inclusion of Philippine history through an enlightened discussion. As a Filipino, I notice our history, as rich as it is, usually gets overlooked in favor of other narratives. I can tell that you spent time researching on what our colonial history was like, and it's really admirable to see the care you put into discussing it.
same 💜💜. It is always vivifying to see analysis of histories other than euro-american history.
Yes! I agree! As a filipino too, you’re right; our history is usually always brushed over, so it was refreshing to see it included.
I'm very grateful it was included because I went to school in the US and never heard about this!
Residential Schools for Indigenous people were, actually, running up until the 1990s in Canada. But, hey, they're the nice country, right?
No we are nice people in the sense our politness is about making other comfortable, we are still controlled by european representants who inforce a fake democracy. Never forget most white people especially french were put on that land cause they were "pest", it wasn't a choice
TILL 1990?! didn't know thanks for this educated comment
@@WildArtistsl I think it was 1996 specifically, if I remember correctly.
Oh SHIT I remember when Molly of Denali covered something like that.
'White man's burden' needs to be turned into a meme, comic or tee shirt. It's so unintentionally hilarious.
I spent years thinking "White Man's Burden" was satire. I was shocked to learn that Kipling was sincere. It's how I learned that no person of any profession or art is immune to white supremacy.
Freedom Writers was a staple of almost every english class I took in high school. English teachers loved that movie
In my first high school English teaching job in rural Wyoming (the second whitest of all US states, after West Virginia) my mentor teacher was a Black woman who was the most educated member of the faculty (including the principals).
Her experiences with the school/district itself attempting to discredit and remove her from her position were extensive and truly shameful.
Her Doctoral work in education was an examination on and reflection of the experiences of Black teachers who teach in predominantly white schools and communities.
She was brilliant, dedicated, caring, and infinitely patient. She also put up with zero bad-faith bullshit and was possibly one of the bravest human beings I've ever met (threat of violence is never far in a rural town the further you exist from the XY intersection of "white" and "male," and she had the bullet holes in windows of her house to prove it).
I was never half the educator she was, and I never made it half as far as she did before I burned out from the lackluster state of the American education system (in spite of the efforts of so many wonderful teachers I had the privilege to work with).
Hollywood doesn't have the guts to tell her story as an educator, or the stories of any of the other teachers she interviewed for her thesis, and we're all so much poorer for it.
As a white dude, I remember watching some of these movies when I was a kid, before I had any awareness of the existence of systemic racism. I honestly hadn't thought much about Freedom Writers since I saw it as a 12 year old. But looking back now, I'm shocked as to the sinister condescension that pervades that whole movie- and how I never questioned it. Thank you for making this video and continuing to help open my eyes on racism and other topics.
I would argue beyond the white man's burden to suggest that the white savior teacher movie presents cultural depictions of the "white woman's burden", where white women are thought to possess an especially "civilizing" role on Black and Brown children by serving as maternal figures and articulate their role in assimilation through a gendered aspect ( see Margaret Jacobs on maternal colonialism). The scenes in which the white teacher comes into conflict with Black parents, especially Black mothers and grandmothers, can be read as a rearticulation of white supremacist discourses in which Black woman-led households and family structures are decried as the root cause of the failure of students and posits the white woman, as a representative of the cisheteropatriarchal nuclear family structure, as a solution to the "tangle of pathology" that white people have described the Black and Brown family as, since the Moynihan report was released in 1965.
"Cisheteropatriarchal structure"
Fucking love your post modernist bullshit. It's like reading a Leftist meme: a paragraph with no meaning and big terms you think are intellectual.
You're right. White people shouldn't teach black kids. We shouldn't be around each other at all.
Time for segregation.
This was a whole phd dissertation!
You intellectuals and your commie language.😂
White women are a force to reckon with
It also reinforces the benevolent sexism of the patriarchy that women are inherently more intellectual, maternal and emotional, which is often used to justify shutting women out of male dominated fields (and attitudes like "women should stay at home and raise the kids because they're just naturally better at it") and in turn demonizes men as inherently dumb and aggressive or being unable to be a caregiver and thus be forced into overly masculine roles and jobs - hence all the male mental health problems.
yes yes can’t wait to watch this!!!
O god Shan and Yara. Love ya!
In Germany we have the "Fuck you Goethe" franchise, which utilizes the fish out of water trope in the opposite way, because the "unconventional" teacher is an unqualified ex-prisoner that only has to teach due to shenanigans but ends up connecting and uplifting his class. (Only his class is a problem class in a Gymnasium (german upper education)
Ah, an overlap with A japanese manga GTO
Like School of Rock? Haha
@@kostajovanovic3711 comics name is great teacher onizuka no one is going to understand if you just say gto
And he has a so called "migration background" so it's also not a white savior type thing
I love that movie, its so funny
One atypical example of this genre that stands out to me is Zhang Yimou
's "Not One Less," which I first saw thanks to my own "hero teacher" in eleventh grade (shoutout, Mr. Bruce!) It's about a teenaged girl who gets subbed in to teach the village school when the regular teacher leaves for a month, and who is promised a bonus if none of the students have dropped out by the time he gets back. One of the students does, inevitably, drop out and run away to the city to find work, and the girl - Minzhi - follows him to bring him back. The interesting thing about this movie is that it's the opposite of a fish out of water - this is Minzhi's village, she knows these kids - and that while the quality of the education is never really the issue at hand, it does make a compelling argument for community-based teaching rather than airdropping teachers in from out of town.
(Mr. Bruce also had us read "White Man's Burden," and Henry Labouchère's parody/rebuttal, "Brown Man's Burden." That was a great class.)
My white history teacher taught us about the Filipino struggle for independence from the US and that led us to talking about the "White Man's Burden" poem. I was very surprised at how adamant he was to really drill into us to critically think about our government and to not fall prey to extreme patriotism. It was a hard class and I was not a star student, but I appreciated all of that nuance, even as a kid.
@@taekwongurl You need to think critically, eh?
Patriotism is bad - for white people only. If you're Tibetan and don't want the Chinese erasing your culture or ethnically replacing you that's OK, you can be as nationalist as you want.
Zhang Yimou wrote a teacher film? This I gotta find!
Beryl Gilroy is one of those names that need more attention in Guyanese history and cultural talks. Nice to see part of her story told here.
Also, it just goes to show much racism in the UK and wider European sphere is not given as much of a spectacle, but it has been and still very much is alive and well
Movies with outdated stereotypes and tropes like the ones shown here are the reason that shows like Abbot Elementary are so important. Showing the antithesis of every part of this trope while highlighting modern issues like charter schools and outdated materials all while making the characters complex and realistic, is far more accurate and important.
They aren't movies with outdated tropes. They are really old movies with tropes from their time. This video essay is about the past, but i'm not sure the author or the audience understand that.
The last residential school in Canada was actually closed in 1996. I really appreciate that you brought up the boarding/residential/technical schools. They went by many names. The one my family is affected by went by at least 6 different names over time to make records as confusing as possible to search. I've been thinking of "good white teachers " a lot lately. My brother just graduated from elementary school and is moving onto middle school, and most of the kids in the school are Indigenous, Black or mixed. The school is known for being inclusive and the best school in the city for kids with learning disabilities. Every teacher at the school but one was a blonde white lady (a ginger white lady lol). We've had a lot of issues with his teachers and seeing them in person just made it click. And I just feel like these movies inspired a generation of white savior teachers to go teach brown kids and it makes me so mad. My Great Granny wanted to be a teacher really badly, but she was stolen away and forced to attend a residential school and they actually didn't give any students at the school high school diplomas, because guess what they didn't actually really do any schooling. Sorry this is a tangent, I'm just happy that other people are talking about the historical context of it all. Not just the residential schools obv, that is just the aspect I am personally thinking about all the time. "Nice white ladies " give me the creeps, it really just comes back to the poem you shared about the white man's burden lol
After watching this, I feel robbed of potential movies that could've been so much better. Yes, fish out of water is a delightful trope, yes, everyone loves seeing teachers and students fight through injustice and unfair circumstances: so where are all the inspirational stories of excellent black teachers in schools full of poor white kids? You want to have a scene where one of the parents is racist to a teacher, this one makes a whole lot more sense.
Also it'd be nice to have movies of black teachers being heroes in black schools, but we do love a fish out of water story.
(Also also, I wouldn't normally be worried about this but just in case: the teacher needs to NOT die at the end. We don't need more stories about a POC heroically saving a bunch of white people before meeting some kind of tragic fate.)
I don’t know if this film is mentioned in the video, I’m only half way through, but To Sir, With Love is the only one I can think of where it’s a black teacher with white students.
It’s another film based on a memoir but it’s in England.
Edit: Ahhh, it is mentioned.
@@jackierosas9593 yeah, I made my comment about halfway through and missed a couple things. I don't watch a whole lot of sports/ coaching movies, so I didn't realize the situation was worse for black women than for black men (though, if we only let black men be heroic teachers if they're coaches or gym teachers, that's also not great).
Hollywood movies are fundamentally about the experiences of the white middle class, which reflects in the kind of stories it produces and distributes
Ever seen lean on me or sister act 2? Those two movies are good example of black teachers in black schools. Movies I wish we had more of 😔. But alas, check them out!
@@Dany_C. I was just about to mention Lean On Me. Good example.
Honestly, it's wild that even *I* growing up thought it was weird how so many school-related movies from the 90s/2000s were about a white teacher "saving" a majority black class/school. I'm a white european kid, from a *very* white rural place. And even I noticed that was a bit odd.
Bonus points for the action movies involving a white dude cosplaying as a teacher to "investigate a gang" and whatnot. (Looking at you "the Substitute" movies and probably others)
Coach Carter leaned into Channing being a hood white boy before so we have to admire the vision.
Hi! I think you're referring to Lean on me, With Morgan Freeman ?
Lean on Me is one of my favorites
I swear for years Channing Tatum played the most confused white boy.
What about "To Sir with Love", starring Sidney Poitier as the nice BROWN teacher who tames and inspires rough, working class WHITE teens in an inner city school in London. It was made in 1967.
Edit: actually the East End of London, but some Americans might not understand what the East End in the 60s and the past was like, and what it stood for, so I used the term "inner city" so they get an idea.
@@austincde I was gonna say, I saw a different movie lmao
Does Sister Act count as a black woman teac...ok nevermind.
I think this video was a missed opportunity to talk about how Abott Elementary is doing some real heavy lifting to dismantle the idea of the white savior and young saviour trope in general.
The older black teacher even says that line, "You think you're the only one who wants to help these kids?" The show does a great job at showing how no one teacher is enough in a broken education system.
They all have to learn from each other, fight the system and work together.
i had a whole section about sister act in the first draft of this script so yes!
edit: i didn't see the rest of the comment before so i wanted to address your last part about missing an opportunity. abbott elementary is a great show! i wanted to include it but i ultimately didn't, deciding to focus more on nonfiction stories. i'm at a point where i've accepted that i can't please everybody with my videos. there's always going to be something i didn't talk about enough or something i talked about too much. the video might be worse off but i'm just happy to have gotten it out there because it was a struggle😩
sister act tho ❤
@@Yharazayd i love it here. Thank you.👍🏾
@@Yharazayd Thank you! I thought of Sister Act 2, too.
@@Yharazayd Now seeing this. I understand. I did appreciate your video. ❤️
As a white man who was born in 1970, I can ABSOLUTELY confirm the biases that media like this (and other portrayals of POC in the media I grew up with) imprints on you. I held, for longer than I care to admit, poorly conceived ideas of how people were through the media I consumed. I’ll say that Hollywood Shuffle was one of my first eye openers on this issue.
But to the point, yes… examine all of the media you consume.
Also, fantastic vid, even with the glitch. :)
We get it, you have white guilt.
Now pray to St. Floyd..
Yeah, we can all fall victim to that. I remember being young and really racist against black men, because all I saw on TV was them being violent. This is coming from a black woman who had black men, her father included, around her entire life.
TV can mess with your head. If I hadn't had anything to course correct me, who knows how long it would've taken me to see I was being silly.
Shit, even being poc doesn't save you from internalized racism either. I used to wish I was white so badly because I didn't think I was as pretty or as smart, and when other Black girls my age poked fun at me for "not being Black enough" (I liked to read instead of play basketball and I listened to generic pop music instead of rap music), I felt some sort of bigger resentment towards my own race. Luckily, I've since greatly matured, but I can't deny that the chokehold of how Black girls at the time were represented in television when I was a kid didn't damage me in some way and horrifically impact my relationships with other Black kids and myself.
The last residential school in Canada was closed in the 1996, horrifying.
1997
On the subject of residential schools: the last one federally run in Canada (The Gordon Residential School) closed in 1996. Literally only 26 years ago.
I went to PWIs my entire schooling (97-2011)and these movies always struck me as completely fictitious given how racist my teachers were.
(Pretty long story ahead)
I definitely want more movies depicting the actual struggle of teaching, it’s a job as you put it, thankless. My mom was a kindergarten teacher, she’s fascinated by children’s ability to learn. She worked at a mostly Hispanic/Latino, bilingual and low income school in Texas. She had to buy most of the supplies herself, some of the teachers around her were mostly there to get the paycheck so she had to plan all of the teaching materials with what she was given for her class, and in the salary of a “teacher assistant”. She was more of a full time teacher there and the only reason she wasn’t promoted as a full teacher was because she didn’t know a lot of English, so she couldn’t do her teacher certification. I saw her come home with a ton of work, I would help her with cut outs and drawings for activities, and help her make decorations every special day. She would also go late at night for her English classes. Her work never left her at home, and it was also physically taxing as she now has back problems, and is currently recovering from a surgery.
She loves children, and enjoyed teaching them, she is saddened that she can’t do it anymore thanks to her back. She would come home telling us about her students, their stories, if they were struggling at school, and the victories she had with them. She thought of them everyday, thinking ways to make her classes more interactive and fun while being informative and fulfilling. She even had to deal with a kid who was racist towards her because she didn’t speak a lot of English, and yet she was able to offer empathy and a smile, listening to the kid’s struggles while being firm with them.
My mom was able to do something for these kids not because she thought she was saving them, but because she wanted them to succeed. She saw the potential all her students had, and never gave up on them. She did her job, and a lot of parents thanked her as her teachings were told from her students to their parents. And the “actual” teacher that my mom was “assisting” was a white bilingual lady, who didn’t do a lot of teaching, as most students were behind before my mom began to work with them. And a lot of parents felt the lady wasn’t very interested in their children, and the students didn’t talk about her as much.
But my mom’s experience made me appreciate teachers even more, because they do so much with so little given to them.
Sorry for the long story, I just wanted to share my mom’s experiences. But thanks for reading till the end!
You write that book for your mom and try to sell to Netflix. At least some representation in the media!
@@syasyaishavingfun that would be great to do! I definitely consider doing it.
Left a comment on the last video so going to leave one here again:
While I'm not a teacher in the US, I am one in Germany and you raise so many important points that people really need to consider when they go into teaching. While being properly paid is not an issue here, it's still a job that can be made difficult by many factors. And it's so important to put your students first through all of this. As people and not as projects.
Thanks for creating such an important video and sharing your input
(And sorry the black screen is still causing you slightly issues, but glad you could fix it aside from the 2 minutes left)
One of our Teachers watching this, really gives me hope. Danke dir!
Love this. I can’t speak of the US, but about where I’m from- The contrast is stark between public schools and private schools in PR, and I remember it being really is obvious when teachers that came from a privileged background viewed me and my class as troubled children before we even did anything. Really is a shame when people go into underfunded districts to live out their savior dreams, without addressing their implicit biases.
Bo Burnham said it last year;
"I'm white, and I'm here to save the day
Lord, help me channel Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side."
This is my mom’s favorite genre of film, and perfectly sums up her brand of racism. She doesn’t “hate” people of color, she just thinks they need “help” in the form of white charity 🙄 I grew up watching these movies, and always felt a little icky about them, but it wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized why. I might send her this video honestly.
Also, have you seen the film Music of the Heart? (Meryl Streep as a violin teacher in Harlem.) If my memory is correct and I’m not looking through rosy nostalgia glasses, I think this film does a better job of showing a white teacher in a mostly non-white school just being a teacher. She has selfish/personal reasons for wanting the kids to succeed, and doesn’t go into it with the goal of saving them. Also, Angela Basset plays the principal of the school. If you’ve seen it, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts! If not, I (hesitantly) recommend it. Hesitantly, because I haven’t seen it in about 15 years so I’m not sure if it hold up 😅
@IntrepidTit oh I challenge her all the time. I don’t think we have a single conversation that doesn’t result in me trying to educate her on why she’s problematic.
You’re not any less of a white savior
@IntrepidTit your preoccupied with black peoples affairs show you’re a white savior. They are too inept to take care of their own problems, that’s why they need your help!
@@timcombs2730 i agree, honesty @ the OC: what have you done to help disadvantaged people (not including ur mom)?
You might want to have her watch the movie To Sir with Love , with Sidney Poitier as the black teacher in a white lower income school in England where the kids are a problem if she hasn't seen it yet .
Excellent movie and it might open her eyes a little bit
I'm not American, but as someone who has quit teaching recently, I admire and feel sad for teachers who put it all into their classes. There's endless work and preparation that goes unpaid, and often you have to pay out-of-pockets for things you need in class. After a few years, I just had to leave. The fact that some teachers can be so selfless in a system that doesn't support them is admirable/tragic to me.
I'm a Canadian teacher and I quit once COVID hit. Teachers were pawn of the government and it felt like we were being sent in to die.
I also had daily panic attacks and couldn't sleep because if the amount of work. I never ever want to return to Education. Trying to find a better more healthier way for both student and teacher.
My mother had been teaching for 25+ years. With the administrative work piling up higher every year, the unpaid preparation and out-of-pocket expenses, she could no longer afford her job. She loved the kids but started to resent giving her everything without even a thank you in return. Paying rent, groceries, everything was always counting pennies...
She's a freelance author now (educational books and methods) and earns so much she goes on holiday every two months. She more than deserves it, no-one works harder than her, but it does feel quite ... wrong. The work she does now is way less impactful for society, no one depends on her now, yet her income has quadrupled?
It will forever confuse me how governments worldwide are entirely unwilling to invest in the literal future of their country.
I just left teaching after 5 years. Taught grades k-8 in the Bronx and Brooklyn over those years.
The burnout came way quicker than I thought and seeing as how a good chunk of my time teaching was during COVID (try conducting zoom with kindergarteners) along with coping with the death of my mother, I can’t believe I lasted as long as I did. I had to get out of the classroom for my sanity. The work is difficult but rewarding. I just think that I can serve my community in another role (that will definitely pay better too).
@@brooklynbutter5357 thank u for ur effort :)
@@Ebrahim_17 thank u for teaching
I'm an elementary school teacher in Argentina, and although my country is very far from being the USA, it's just heartbreaking to see the amount of similarities we have, especially about lack of funding, support or actual interest from the administration, the hostility and/or indifference from parents, (I even work at a private school, and still make less than the minimum wage, and have to buy materials out of pocket) etc etc.
Anyway, I was so sure Will Schust*r from Gl*e was gonna pop up at some point as an example with his bullshit speech about "all of them being a minority" because they were part of the glee club 💀💀
Amazing video as always 🔥🔥
Oh my god will’s a perfect example of the savior teacher trope. He was the Spanish teacher despite knowing little to none, was absolutely useless in helping his students when they needed it (very first episode had him walking away from Kurt getting bullied), he actually put DRUGS in his student’s locker to blackmail them to join his bum club, and yet he acted like glee club single-handedly saved all his students
I got to finish it before it was taken down but I know reuploads tend to hav rough stats so I’m back again to give it the support it deserves! As a black educator, this video is so important
My girl scout leader's son was on of the middle class white kids in the class based on the Freedom Writers movie. According to him, the teacher kept trying to get him to write about some deep-rooted trauma and he was like "I don't have any problems..." 🤣
I haven’t watched the video yet but I’m a black female who went to majority black schools in Inglewood California. Didn’t have a black teacher until my first semester at community college. I never really thought about this topic, when seeing movies with black students and white teachers I always accepted it as realistic.
"the savage wars of peace" ... I really just can't get past that. It's astounding that someone can feel justified in such a statement.
I remember as a kid before being bussed out to school in a white neighborhood, the only white people I ever saw in real life were always school teachers, doctors, or cops. One white teacher I loved because she didnt look down on us or think we were stupid for not knowing education wise what white students did. She was my favorite teacher & gave me arts & crafts & new perspectives outside of “just do what the school system wants”. Sadly a lot of the kids - we were predominantly Mexican - were the biggest assholes and super racist. Even to me, a fellow Mexican, theyd bully and harass me because I got along with that teacher, even say “you’re not a real Mexican” because I liked things other kids stereotypically werent into. Maybe if all those events happened today my teacher wouldve been called a white savior but honestly she was just a good kind caring woman and a refuge from a horrible school of little monsters and from other teachers that long had given up on its students.
It is sad though, that a great many white teachers sent to bad neighborhoods do feel that savior entitlement. That “Im gonna save these kids” mentality without actual empathy. Thats why my teacher I took to greatly, she actually gave a damn.
I think the problem people have with these movies is that they show an unrealistic representation of these teachers "saving the school". Your teacher sounds lovely and not like a "white savior" at all. I'd love to see you and her's story, and clashes with the other "savior" types in school, on the big screen.
Not here to shade your comment or experience, but it’s kind of rich that one of the most liked comments for this video is defending a white teacher against this trope and shaming students of color for being terrible and “racist”. Wonder if there is some denialism from some watching this video.
@@julias.6658 Even if that story was attempted to be told, a major studio would find a way or change a lot of what real life was like into a "white woman saves a poor Mexican child" narrative. Even finding ways to disparage say Mexican culture & people. & I say that wholeheartedly acknowledging how the student body back then & even today the negatives of Mexicans / Mexican Americans is real. But that's not an excuse to then be racist to all Mexicans or reframe a narrative to be super racist.
@IntrepidTit I think the commenter was noting a general trend
@IntrepidTit Yes, it’s denialist to promote the “not all…” and “POCs are racist too!1!1!1” trope on a video like this. I’m also not a fan of shitting on kids who were likely just responding to the racism and animosity they were experiencing from mainstream society.
Somewhat of a shame you didn't mention The Stolen Generation in Australia when talking about the white saviour. The name is pretty literal, with a generation of indigenous kids being stolen from their families to grow up in boarding schools where they were to be basically forced to abandon their culture and act the way the "white" way.
These schools were absolutely brutal and scarred god knows how many kids both physically and mentally.
I suggest everyone watch the amazing Rabbit Proof Fence to get an idea of how things were in Australia.
I love my country, but we have a disgusting past that we still haven't fully atoned for and indigenous people still face horrible discrimination and generally live in poverty
I remember being in the looney bin in 10th grade and reading all the shitty donated books from their library in between psyche evaluations and group therapy and whatevs and one of the books WAS the actual Freedom Writers book. The entries themselves from the kids themselves were pretty interesting and insightful, but as the book progressed and the teacher lady was getting brand and publishing deals and kids were graduating and all that jazz, there was still an influx of entries of kids who were still wrapped up in their dookie casadilla of societal ills and were just not getting ANYTHING out of whatever she was doing. The way it accidentally deconstructs the “white teacher savior in inner city school” will never leave the back of my mind.
Having read up on the real Erin Gruell, the reasons her students actually liked her is because of the ways she was the polar opposite of her movie counterpart. There 100 entries in the Freedom Writers’ Diary, only two are hers and neither of them discuss her personal life at all, just talk about the project itself. The rest are by students. In the film, only two of the students’ stories are covered as subplots in the fictional Erin Gruell’s story. She passed the mic in real life, but the movie is, well, yeah…
Stand and Deliver is a really good movie, but the dude, Jaime Escalante, the real teacher, in the end was all about the celebrity, and nobody liked to deal with him so they just gave into his whims. My second year of high school, before I changed to a performing arts high school, fall of 1995, Mr. Escalante started teaching at my high school. He demanded the best classroom on campus, demanded the most modern amenities, things that in the mid 90s were almost unheard of to have in a classroom because they were too expensive, demanded a specific set of students (typically students with better math levels, very little diversity, mostly white students with very little discipline problems, and mind you this was a school where there was already a small white student body anyways, it was mostly latino and asian), and even with all this, he almost never actually taught, instead he showed videos of lectures he already had on file while he sat in his office next to the classroom reading. I only stayed the first semester that year before changing schools, so I didn't get to see the full affect, only heard second hand what was going on, but........ I think he only lasted one year there before he was told to find another school because that school didn't really have the funding for his whims and his students didn't improve exponentially, I mean they were already pretty high level and good students on their own already, but they didn't progress higher, and some actually regressed. So being in that environment, and growing up in a time where there were a butt ton of teacher inspirational movies come out, I was so disillusioned to them, because I knew what these teachers were really like. I knew the best teachers were the ones that you never hear about in the media that basically give themselves so much to their students they lose their own selves in the process and you never ever hear about them, they are the teachers that go back to the schools that they themselves graduated from sometimes not because they missed that time in their lives that much but because they felt they had something to contribute.
man the one bit of decent Bolivian representation in media ended up being kind of a terrible person? :(
As someone who was motivated to do AP Calc in high school (and then failed it, but went on to succeed in single variable calc in freshman year of college), this was rather depressing to find out. After all, a part of my motivation to take on calculus was being inspired by the Stand and Deliver movie.
i taught for a few years at the college i graduated from because i realized that the mentors i had, other students esp students of color and lgbtqia+ students didn't have those at the undergrad level. especially another woc who taught mental health in our context, not excluding us woc. best few years of my life, i was so happy doing that.
Ever wonder WHY the math class was full of whites and Asians and not people who look like you?
Such a mystery.
Damn... I was so inspired to try in my calc class thanks to him. Sorry that happened
Thank you for centering black female teachers. I started teaching last year and I never had any black teachers growing up.
As a brown person, I’ve never had a nice white teacher in my life.
You do look annoying
So because you’ve never had a nice white teacher I guess they don’t exist, or they can’t possibly exist.
Watermelon Ice
This is my experience, I don’t need to validate white teachers any more than they already are.
@@gabrielanavarro5228 You people are hilarious
Liar. 😂
I wonder if 10 Things I Hate About You intentionally subverted this trope. Probably not, but the teacher is still the best character.
lmao that moment when he called out the main character 😳
I am pretty sure it was intentional subversion. There was a lot of that in movies and TV of that time, plus or minus about three years from 10 Things I Hate About You, and it gave me some hope in my teens.
I went to a "Christian" (read: Dubya-era GOP) school for my middle school years. In 8th grade we went over imperialism and "The White Man's Burden" was presented in our textbook (which contained the phrase, "From a Christian Perspective") unironically.
Hahahaha
There is still an effort to chase black employees in white school neighbourhoods. Cecelia Lewis was asked to apply as an administrator in Georgia and has been harassed because white parents tought she would teach CRT to their kids. They treated her so bad that she left. And it starter again in the next school she went to. The scarcity of black and brown teacher is not random it's purposeful
I'm from Oregon and noticed we had almost all black men employed as sports coaches or truancy officers both in my middle and high school years. There was only one black teacher I ever knew of, and she didn't seem to work there for very long. It was pretty hard not to notice this if you actually looked.
I only knew 1 black teacher my entire growing up--and no other races except white.
But my towns population and school had about 50% white, rest being minority races.
I’m sure someone has made this comment already, but we actually had residential schools in Canada well into the 1990s…
The last boarding school for native children (called residential schools in Canada) closed in 1996. MUCH later than the 1960s (28:31).
When the Rudyard Kipling poem appeared, I thought it was satirical, a brutal takedown of the white saviour narrative. You can imagine my shock when you called it an anthem for white saviour types. It was so over the top in its racism and jingoism that I assumed it had to have been sarcastic, only for the reality of the poem's original intention to slap me in the face.
There was this one movie I watched about a chilian maths teacher who was teaching Latin American kids in America(you showed a clip but I cave remember the name) . He changed the way teachers traditionally taught maths and these kids turned out to be geniuses they just needed someone to unlock their potential. It honestly made me believe that anything was possible through my own hard work
I think you're talking about the film Stand and Deliver .
If so someone in the threads in the comments section talked about being in one of his schools and how he actually was pretty screwed up .
It's here in the comments somewhere not too far from the top you might want to look for it and it was surprising what he had to say
Not me watching this when i had a teacher who actually was like this who helped me get my life straight when i was in high school and even checked on me when i entered the navy.
I'm pretty sure these movies were made in good faith, and the real crime was portraying that teachers actually made enough to support themselves as well as the student. Also, "stand and deliver" was loved by all Millennial kids.
This kind of resonates with me because I remember my teachers from high school and middle school. I had some teachers complaining how they were being handed the "worst" students that the city had to offer and how they compared themselves as "glorified" babysitters.
Picture some teachers- one gets every ESL kid, and teaches kids who aren't even potty trained by 6. One gets punched, kicked, bitten, and gets no support because she "doesn't understand their struggle". One has 3 paras for 2 SPED kids, and complains that her class is unteachable with those two in the room.
You'll never guess who has the savior complex for inspiring all her disadvantaged students
It's always the teachers with the best students who complain the loudest ime
i remember when Freedom Writers came out. My white english teacher showed us the movie so we could be nice to her lol.
Unfortunately as a Black Teacher in a predominantly Black low resourced school, I see this a on micro & macro scale daily.
As a teacher this one did hit me different. Being in university and having so many awesome classes, awesome teachers and learning so many pedagogical methods to be able to teach any kind of kid were the initial experiences that kind of inspired me to imagine myself as that "savior" character like in these films. It's hard(for me at least) to separate that desire to be the savior and the legitimate concern/appreciation of the impact a job like mine has on some of these kids but I'm also pretty new to the profession so I guess that's one of the things I need to improve on this learning curve.
I only discovered your channel fairly recently, and haven't been through all of your previous videos yet, but what I've seen so far has been nothing short of deeply thought provoking. Good stuff, thanks.
I was a teacher for four years. I quit because I became that teacher who just sits at the desk listlessly, not engaging. Teachers are so undervalued, and I got burned out so quickly. I now work at a pet store for the same wage and better health insurance.
I also really dislike most of these movies. I have listened to TedTalks and read articles written by black women who have done the work to improve the lives of ALL of their students. And then these movies come along and spotlight stories like the principal who expelled dozens of kids so that he could improve the school's test scores (which didn't work in real life, but of course the movie said it had a huge, wonderful effect).
28:31 Just to clarify, the last residential school closed in 1996, not the late 60s.
I'm working on a Master's degree in Adult Education. Last semester I watched Freedom Writers for one of the assignments. What struck me, beyond the racism and saviour trope, is the idea of teaching as a vocation. This is a common idea that is celebrated in teacher education. The idea that teaching is a calling and that one must give up all other parts of one's life is harmful. It leads to burnout (really just too tired to be exploited by the system any longer). It also ignores the reality that teachers have a life beyond the school, they are also parents, partners, and care givers in their own families.
Incredible work as always 💜
Would be interesting if they did a show or film of the issues regarding education through being a POC (Black, Latino in particular) in an affluent area. Because then the issues are also systemic but it’s not fetishizing poverty, it’s showing how resistant the system is to diversity. I’ve been told NOT to teach “divisive” literature (Morrison, Baldwin, Chavez, even some white people such as Sinclair) despite affluent schools not being dictated by rigid curriculum.
I wished you could have fit in "Lean on me" Morgan Freeman's character in that movie hates black people more than most white racist characters in these. It's comedic how unlikable he is in it.
Is Freeman the teacher in that movie?
@@Gloomdrake he's the tough principal who saves a school of misbehaving black kids
LOL. I believe he’s based on a real principal at Eastside High. My mom graduated right before he came to “clean up” the school. Who even knows if the real guy was even like the portrayal? I hope not. I know he did get into trouble for locking up the school to keep drug dealers out.
Literally went to a school of just black and brown kids to teach a special programing I do. This school had only white teachers and faculty (except the lunch ladies 🙄 ) in the school. They would also yell at the kids constantly, which I didn't like. They were OK, but like, NO, wasting your gas to drive over from your rich city over to teach these "impoverished kids" is not the flex you think it is Karen. They need to be tough by teachers from their own community, and there are people available for that. The fact that this is still happening to witness day was very jarring for me.
Yes, those poor white Karen's not realizing kids a full standard deviation below the national average are going to be tamed by yelling.
Of course you don't like it. You're fine with all the public fights and barely there reading scores.
Apparently teachers being white is a problem now. Can you people even hear yourselves 💀
UM. Do they need to be taught or do they need to be taught by their community? Because their cummunity will be teaching them no matter what. It sounds like their teachers are bad teachers because they can't manage a classroom without yelling constantly, not because they they're white. I mean, I don't know, maybe they had a bad attitude and rubbed you the wrong way. But I'm not sure that statement at the end makes sense. If I want to learn micro-biology and I love in a small town and no one knows how to do it do I need a teacher who knows how to teach the subject or do I need to be taught by someone from my community, who likely doesn't know how to teach me what I need to know?
@@rachelclark6393 UM. As a person who lives in a metropolitan city, there is no reason for there not to be a single person of color within their teachers, especially if the group is almost exclusively black and brown kids. I got to so many schools, and at most all of the schools I teach there are a diverse range of teachers with different ages, backgrounds; and are both male and female. If a school only employs exclusively boomer white women teachers, specifically to a majority black/brown audience... I personally would not feel safe sending my kid there. It would feel like I would just setting them up to face microaggressions constantly. Obviously the critique might be different if it was a small town, but I'm sure these white women who already come from the "rich side of the city" (also a predominately white area in a major city because of redlining), I would doubt they would be near a small town of just black/brown folks anyway. These are just observations though, since I've never taught at a school in a small town. Also, it would be different if they were teaching to majority white students as well.
@@saxviars9749 I see your point, and I think I understand it, but I guess what I am trying to say is that the issues of poor teaching in underfunded schools and racial injustice.... To me seem to be separate issues that intersect sometimes.
I'm not at all saying it doesn't happen, mind you. I'm sure that it does. But I don't think every white woman teaching brown kids is inherently racist, or that if a white woman teaching brown kids doesn't teach them well that the issue is with racial profiling or stereotyping rather than poor teaching skills.
I had a friend who tried teaching during the pandemic. It was a disaster, and I understood from what she told me that it was the system which was truly making it impossible to teach. Covid measures made it worse, of course, but even without those, she would have struggled.
I went to both public and private schools, so I experienced a range of teachers of all colors. My public school had more white teachers than my private school. I suspect this is in part because the private schools were actively hiring with diversity in mind, and the public schools weren't nearly so choosy.
Regardless, in my experience, teachers are either determined and devoted or lazy, petty, and unhelpful. And that depends on the teachers, not the race of the teacher.
There may actually be reasons for a public school in a metropolitan area to have a vastly higher pool of teachers from one race than another. I'd be interested to see how many black kids in the inner city become teachers, and then to see where those black teachers go to teach. I know they exist, but in what numbers, and where do they go? Because it might be that there are more white teachers getting into the profession and that the black teachers, being the minority, might get snapped up disproportionately to schools concerned with advertising a diverse staff. White teachers in comparison, might have a much larger field to compete with and therefore might just mostly be going wherever they can get a job
And the schools which constantly need teachers would be the schools which had poor conditions to teach in, causing high teacher turnover. Low pay, no ac or heat, no budget, rowdy or under performing student body, disinterested parents, hostile administration, etc. I think all this stuff compijnds itself and creates a vicious cycle, too. So I feel like, although this discussion is valid and has merit, the real question should be focused on how to improve school outcomes in general. And I feel that that issue has more to do with what kids are actually learning than who is teaching them, unless the teacher in question has proven they are a poor teacher. I hear an awful lot of kids who don't really learn anything in school, for a variety of reasons. And an awful lot of kids who get their education on tiktok. I myself remember learning things which were ftsught in a fashion that made it clear I wasn't expected to be able to use the knowledge practically. I was just test prepping, essentially. So naturally, I retained none of it. I think there's somereal conversations to be had there, and clearing up the performance issues might make some of these more difficult issues easier to understand and fix.
Thank you!! I’m an after school art teacher at a low income school in chicago. I loooooove this job. Videos like this help me do my job better so thank you thank you for researching & creating a cohesive investigation into this topic!!
As a substitute teacher of 7 years who is currently moving on, this video HIT. Everything you described at the end as far as the teacher experience is on the money. I subbed at the one of the best schools in my state and it still had students it was failing, either due to flaws in the system or just plain negligence. It's an all too important job that doesn't get the respect or support it deserves.
And the breakdowns of the white savior teacher films were flawless as usual✨✨
I was just complaining about this 😭😭😭😭
I love how you uploaded this just a few days after Primm Hood Cinema did his video on Lean on Me.
Man Lean on me was awful
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Canada, U.S., Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, and many, many other places. Residential and industrial schools were everywhere.
I did not go to an inner city school, no I went to a rural school until middle school. and underfunding is a jerk. its like a slow creep that takes more and more until my senior year of high school where the students had to go on a boycott so the schools throughout the state could actually get money into the classrooms for basic class supplies. it takes good teachers, it takes a desire to learn, it takes funding and it takes respect for students and teachers.
anyways thank you for the video. very informative.
this is why i think abbott elementary is important. it shows that the teachers care about the kids, but the lack of funding in the school can sometimes make it hard for teachers to give them everything that the students need
I'm not growing up in the US, I'm from China. When I was in elementary school they hired a white male teacher to teach us English conversation class. But he one time yelled at us then typed some words in translator said “we're too loud and it's annoying cuz he lost his passport recently and he's very upset”.
Like I know being too loud in class is wrong but he literally picked only that day to yell at us. And after that day he don't teach us anymore (maybe the passport issue), and our chinese teachers even gaslighting us like “We are the shame of this country cause we made a foreign white man cannot stand us” and I was like - ????? Can we just get some rest from the model minority myth? If one day of being too loud can make you quit fully why he even came here to teach? *What made me really disappointed more is our teacher trying to say it's all our fault and we are the bad influence of chinese people* like WTH we were all only 11 years old ? And they don't even give us another chance.
And that white teacher even showed up in our class's group photo shoot, at the time I realized he'd already found his passport back and still refuse go back to teach us, but he's still being employed and got paid by the school this entire time? My brain cells are gone... really...
After watching your analysis of this trope I just wanna say - Fiction is fake, but the fakeness is real
They want to impress the white man so badly 😶
I’m glad I’m not the only one who obsessively watch Coach Carter. My crying scene is when Cruz recites “Our Biggest Fear”.
fucking lost it at the chemistry bit in regards to Miss Dandridge and Mr. Belafonte
I am a very big fan of your work! I am indigenous and I like that you mentioned the relevance of residential schools to this topic.
However, the statement at 28:30 "They (residential schools) operated from the late 1800s up until the 1960s." is inaccurate.
The last residential school actually didn't close until 1996.
I appreciate that you acknowledged your limited knowledge on the subject and linked an article to better explain it, but said article doesn't actually mention this fact. I've met millennial-aged residential school survivors, the myth that these things happened "a long time ago" is harmful to the native community.
I don't blame you for saying the wrong timeline, it seems like an honest mistake, and there is a lot of misinformation out there. I was just hoping you could add a disclaimer somewhere so no one is misled.
I really hope this doesn't come off as mean at all 'cause I really do love your videos but I felt like I needed to say something. (great video btw!!)
The last residential school in Canada closed in 1997; that's just 25 years ago this year.