How realistic are "movie teachers"? Do they portray real-life teachers correctly?

Jack Black in School of Rock, Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society, Hilary Swank in Freedom Writers, and more all are cinematic portayals of teachers, and what they all have in common is that they have nothing in common with actual teachers and the work they do, said PopMatters.com. Writer Pamela Monk looked at all of these cinematic teachers and said the real life of a teacher in America has "neither had the highs nor the lows portayed in cinema, whether the teacher in the movie is a saint, a villain, or a fool, or some amusing/horrifying combination."

Monk highlighted "myths" that are taken from these cinematic, educational movies, and then shared the "realities" in contrary to those myths. Monk looks at one of the myths, "papers grade themselves. Movie teachers might mention that they are swamped, and the audience might see a shot or two of papers piled on a desk."

"All sorts of studies have been done trying to quantify just how much time teachers spend marking papers," Monk said of the reality. "One example helps quantify the issue at hand: one study found that teachers on the average, teach eight hours per day, then spend three to five hours more contacting parents, prepping for class, and grading. Even considering the fact that teachers get weekends off, out of every 60 hour week a teacher spends 20 above and beyond the classroom. That’s 33.3% of the time. For a two hour movie to accurately portray this, viewers would have to endure 40 minutes of a teacher phone calling, poring and scribbling."

Read the full story. 

Article by Kassondra Granata, EducationWorld Contributor