10 Movies That Perfectly Portray What It Means To Be A Teacher
If you ask me, the ones that impact our formative years as much as (if not more) our parents are our teachers. These authoritative figures just don’t teach us the difference between right and wrong or just educate us, but they also shape us into the people we are eventually going to become. And so having a good teacher, who not only knows how to hold their pupils’ attention but also knows how to befriend and understand them, is extremely important. In fact, it is this very quality that makes a teacher unforgettably extraordinary.
And it is our world of cinema that has brought some of these extraordinary and great teachers to the screen. These movies on teachers perfect capture the essence of what a great teacher is and how it is them who shape us and our future.
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So today, on National Teachers’ Day, here are some of my all time favourite movies on teachers that has made me grateful for the professors I’ve had:
1. Dead Poets Society
Dead Poets Society is hands down my favourite on the list. The movie tells a story of a teacher named John Keating aka Caption, My Captain, who blows his students’ mind with his unconventional teaching methods and his never-ending passion for literature. He fires up their imagination, educates them about some of the greatest works ever, and teaches them a lesson about resisting conformity during the 1950s era (the time period in which the movie was set). Honestly, if there is a teacher that I yearn to have in my life, then it is him.
2. Hichki
This is one movie that has inspired me beyond words. Hichki tells a tale of a Naina Mathur who wants to be a teacher but is constantly rejected because she suffers from Tourette Syndrome. But things change for the better when she gets a job and has to manage a class of students that come from the nearby slums and are unruly and downright difficult. However, she takes up the challenge and not only wins the hearts of students, befriending them, but also encourages them to strive for a better future.
3. Taare Zameen Par
Taare Zameen Par is a story about how a teacher, Ram Shankar Nikumbh, with enough patience and compassion changes the life of an eight year old boy, Ishaan Awasthi, who is thought to be a lazy trouble-maker. This inspirational movie is about a teacher seeing beyond the surface. What I love the most about this movie is that it shows that being good in academics is not everything, with the right kind of support from the teachers, the child can realise their potential at a young age.
4. Super 30
Super 30 is most definitely a different movie then the rest on the list. This one is about a man’s journey of becoming a teacher and how that changed the course of life for all his students. Anand Kumar who comes from a poor family and is a pure genius when it comes to mathematics. After a series of ups, downs, and disappointments, he finally gets the job of a teacher at a coaching school but leaves it when he realises that students that came from poor families were being thrown out as they couldn’t afford the fees. He believes that everyone should have the right to education and with that belief he starts his own classes. His fun, easy, and practical approach help the students grasp concepts better and they eventually go ahead and crack the IIT exam.
5. McFarland USA
To me, McFarland USA is such an touching story about Jim White who moves with his family after losing his job as a football coach. Once at the new place, he finds a group of seven kids – who people have no hope from and think them to be useless – and sees some potential in them. He takes them under his wing, trains them, and turns them into one of the best cross-country teams there is.
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6. Whiplash
Now, before you tell me that there is a lot of problem with Terence Fletcher, the teacher, conductor, and bandleader, let me tell you that I am aware and I don’t disagree. But there is no denying that he was one of the best teachers that pushed his pupils to the extreme because he saw potential in them. He pushed them to not just be good but great. His tough-love and his passion for teaching turns one of his students, Andrew Neiman, to be one of the greatest drummers of his time.
7. Dangerous Minds
Dangerous Minds as a movie is one of its kind. The story revolves around an ex-Marine, Marine LouAnne Johnson, who turns a teacher in an inner-city school. To start off with she finds it incredibly difficult to connect with students who don’t respect her but after many attempts, she eventually finds a way through. It is during that time she discovers that one of the way of being and feeling alive in the classroom is by making students feel good about themselves. She pushes them to trust themselves and be more self-confident.
8. Chhalaang
Chhalaang is all about how unorthodox methods of teaching can actually be of some good use. The story follows the life of Mahender Singh Hooda aka Montu who is a lazy, unprofessional, and uninspired physical training instructor (PTI), but when his job and love interest is threatened by another PTI teacher, he is motivated to be the best teacher out there. He trains a reach of weaker students using unconventional and never-heard-before training regimes (suggested by his love interest who is also a teacher). He wins the challenge against the other teacher but in the process realises that the other teacher knows a lot more than him and asks him to stay so he can learn. The movie about unorthodox teaching Allah highlights how a peron (including a teacher) is always a student first and that learning should never stop.
9. Harry Potter series
Professor Minerva McGonagall, Remus Lupin, Albus Dumbledore, Professor Rubeus Hagrid, Professor Secerus Snape, and many many more are teachers that shaped Harry Potter, Hermoine Granger, and Ronald Weasely into the people they become. There is no movie(s) that better showcase the importance of having extraordinary and magical teachers by your side, teaching you than this movie series.
10. Top Gun: Maverick
The action packed movie, Top Gun: Maverick, shows how Pete “Maverick” Mitchell is given an assignment to train a group of elite TOPGUN graduates that is put together by Air Boss Vice Admiral who not only dislikes him but also isn’t a fan of his unorthodox teaching methods. But like other teachers on the list, even he doesn’t back down and makes many attempts to win the respect of his sceptical students.
