"School" and "Only a Teacher". (Reviews).

(2 made-for-TV movies)

During the first week of school this past fall, my local public television station broadcast three documentary specials about schools. The films ran literally back to back, and by the time I finished watching the first two (each about historical and contemporary issues in schools), I was too tired of the business to watch the third film (a documentary of the experiences of first year teachers in a city school system). I teach courses about the history and politics of schooling, so if it was hard for me to watch all those hours of documentaries about education, I wonder how much attention the films received from parents, students, or teachers during that busy first week of school. In the months since, there has been no re-broadcast of these documentaries, even though educational issues have been in the news constantly. In Ohio, where I live, the past eight months have seen the signing of one federal education bill in a local high school building, two state court decisions about a nine-year-old school funding c ase, and on-going debates about vouchers and charter schools in our major cities, not to mention continual public debates over proficiency testing, multicultural relations, teacher quality, and school safety. Yet none of these documentaries has appeared again to help Ohioans contextualize these major policy issues.

My reflections about T.V. programming leads me to wonder how educational politics might change if media coverage about schools went beyond back-to-school interest stories, sports, test results, and school violence. What would happen to citizens' understanding of their rights and responsibilities in educational policy making if they were more familiar with the complexity of issues raised in a policy like vouchers? How might a deeper understanding of the historical origins of the public school system help the public understand school finance issues? Could familiarity with the drama of educational battles of the past inspire new activism for school reform? What if the "History Channel" replaced some of its coverage of the Battle of the Bulge in 1945 with the battle over desegregation at Little Rock in 1957?

This is not to say that historical documentaries in and of themselves can enlighten us to the ultimate truth about American education. Indeed, one of the dangers of documentary films is that they can give the illusion of truth even as they shape history in particular ways by the inclusion and exclusion of stories, arguments, and perspectives. More dangerous than no history may be the presentation of one version of history as "the truth." In my mind, a good documentary, like a good written history, suggests that there are multiple versions of a historical story, and it encourages its audience to reflect, debate, and develop a more complex way of thinking about history. So, then, a good documentary about education would do more than present a simple chronological unfolding of events in a video format, and instead would link the past with the present, raise questions as much as answers, and inspire the viewer to turn off her television and go make history in contemporary schools.

Two of the films that were shown on my local station last Fall--"School" and "Only a Teacher"--present the full range of possibilities for documentary film about education. "School" presents historical narrative as a sequential series of unfolding events. "Only a Teacher" offers a more complicated, and interesting view of history that is intersected with contemporary lives and educational debates. "School" focuses on political themes in educational history, methodically tracking major events in the legal and institutional development of the country's public school system. "Only a Teacher" approaches education "from the bottom up," centering on historical and contemporary experiences of classroom teachers. "School" delivers a good survey of major figures and concepts in American educational history; "Only a Teacher" provides the gritty experiences of the unknown schoolteacher. If "School" provides us with important facts and figures, "Only a Teacher" provides us with quandaries to engage with, reflect upon, an d debate. If "School" tells us one version of what educational policy intended, "Only a Teacher" shows us how teachers have struggled to interpret and enact those policies.

Of the two films, "School" is most like a traditional textbook transferred to film. In four discrete one-hour segments, the series covers major historical and contemporary issues in American education, focusing (for good reason, I believe) on the twentieth century. Like most history textbooks, the series follows a standard chronological approach, which, although not particularly creative, is effective in introducing the broad sequence of events. Episode 1 (1770-1890) is a serious, scholarly study of the class and religious based education of early America, the nationalistic impetus of the early republic, and Thomas Jefferson and Horace Mann's efforts to inspire a citizenry to support a public education system. Episode 2 (1900-1950) covers the Americanization of immigrants, new models of standardizing the curriculum and school management, the development of the IQ and other tests, vocational education and life adjustment education of the 1950s, and the effect of Sputnik in 1957. Episode 3 (1950-1980) focuses o n the issues of equality raised in the 1950s and 60s, centering on the major civil rights cases, including Brown v. Board of Education, the Chicano takeover of Crystal City, Texas schools in 1968, and gender inequities addressed by Title IX. To a lesser extent, the episode discusses the topics of bilingual education and the education of children with disabilities. Episode 4 (1980-2001) covers the recent issues of "free market reform"--the notion that adopting competitive delivery systems into the public school "monopoly" will force schools to improve. School choice, vouchers, charters, private for-profit school management corporations, and home schooling are covered in detail with commentary by major policy analysts and scholars who present what appears to be a balanced discussion of all the conflicting views.

"School" tells a narrative of political history, and in so doing, it presents a specific message about American education, even as it claims to present a neutral truth. One way in which this illusion of objectivity happens is that each hour-long episode is essentially a self-contained package. While this makes the film a useful one for educators who can use chunks of the film in class, it also continues the unfortunate effects of a poor textbook: historical events are not connected to one another. Indeed, all of Episode 4 exists as if it were made in a vacuum from the ideas presented m earlier episodes, and this leads to the kind of analysis that cripples most current debates about educational reform. Most notably, a recurring theme of the entire series is that American education has become more equitable as the result of government initiative or collective democratic organization. The film argues that it was such democratic struggles, and not competitive private interests, that furthered both excellence and equity in American public schools. But in Episode 4, the filmmakers drop this theme and try to present free market school reforms as simply an honest debate between people with different opinions. How much more provocative the filmmakers would have been had they turned back to history and asked what Horace Mann or the Chicano student organizers at Crystal City High School would have thought about school vouchers--a concept which goes against all principles of common schooling for all children. How interesting it would have been to apply the originating motives for religious freedom in early America to current debates about the use of vouchers for religious schools. Instead, the filmmakers present these contemporary debates as if they were irrelevant to the historical context of American public schooling. The filmmakers thus abandon the history project that they set out to do: history has apparently taught us nothing, except that Thomas Jefferson thought one way and Ronald Reagan thought another. This is histo ry at its most textbook-like: a litany of events following the time-line, with little connection between each period, and little acknowledgement of the stories and perspectives that were excluded.

Nonetheless, other parts of the film work much more successfully as discrete historical case studies. In episode 1, for example, we learn about an otherwise obscure African American family in early 19th century Boston who successfully sued the city to stop racially segregating public schools. The Roberts case led to the first law abolishing racial segregation in the nation. In a dramatic segment on the effects of IQ testing on Mexican American students, we hear two brothers recall their experiences at school in Los Angeles in the late 1930s. When the elder brother enlisted in World War II, he observed the way that poorly educated soldiers were more likely to be sent to the battlefront. He returned home to pressure the school counselor to move his younger brother out of the vocational track (to which most Mexican American students were automatically relegated) into the college preparatory track. This happened, and the younger brother grew up to earn a Ph.D. in history at Harvard, a position on the Los Angeles board of education where he fought to ban IQ testing, and in 1979, was appointed as United States Ambassador to Mexico. This is a powerful story about how testing has historically limited the possibilities of students of color, except for those who stood up to fight. In a similar story about Title IX, we learn about the high school student who in 1974 sued to have a girls' basketball team at her school. She won, and also won one of the first college athletic scholarships for women, and later went on to success as an economics professor, thereby leaving the viewer with the inspiring message that citizens can challenge inequities in schools--either as an individual or through the courts--and that change can happen. What makes these sections so appealing is that they draw on the lives and experiences of actual people, and they describe not educational prescriptions but actual change.

"Only a Teacher" follows a more thematic approach to its subject of teachers. This three part series intentionally interweaves the history of the occupation of teaching with contemporary teachers' experiences, and it extends beyond the study of political and institutional issues to the cultural representation of teachers in the media, students' experiences of teachers, and teachers' own lives. Drawing on a unique mixture of personal testimony, oral history, and images from popular culture, the series examines society's complex and contradictory attitude toward the occupation of teaching; the difficult and stressful work of teachers; the missionary zeal that is required of good teaching; and the meaning that teaching has held for women and men over time. This is a film about the social history of teaching and about the nature of teaching as work.

The three episodes are organized around general themes: Episode 1, "A Teacher Affects Eternity," centers on the ways in which teaching has developed historically as a social service occupation. Historical segments tell the story of the early feminization and missionary aspect of teaching in segments on the northern teachers who went South after the Civil War to teach freed slaves, African American teachers' community work under Jim Crow, and teachers' merging of academic and cultural instruction when teaching immigrant children. Bracketing these historical stories are the voices of contemporary teachers and students in a working class school in Massachusetts who tell the modern version of education's relationship to community and social change. These are stories of inspiration, but also of struggle, as teachers across time experience both independence in the classroom and oppression in the school system. Teachers tell their tales of both pride and doubt about the extent to which they should or can leave the s tandard curriculum to care about children's fuller lives. Teachers may affect eternity, we learn, but it is not always an easy or natural process. Episode 2, "Those Who Can... Teach," focuses on the broad issue of whether teaching is an occupation or a profession. The episode revolves around the professional and personal experiences of four intern teachers in a Cincinnati public school during one year. Interspersed with their stories are historical vignettes about the development of teacher education, and the origins of the teacher union movement as a way to lobby for improved working conditions and schooling. Implicit in this episode is the question of whether teaching is a series of singular skills for classroom work, or a professional position with responsibilities that extend outside the classroom to educational reform, professional improvement, and social justice. Episode 3, "Educating to End Inequality," highlights the work of teachers at three schools: a Native American school in Santa Fe, an elementar y school in North Carolina in the 1970s in the process of integration, and an alternative high school in New York City. Each vignette continues the exploration of what it means to be a teacher in these particularly vibrant and progressive situations. These are studies of teachers who redefine education by responding to society's expectations and challenges.

The lively style and eclectic organization of "Only a Teacher" reflects the nature of teacher's work. This is an invigorating, visually appealing, and exciting film to watch. It can be exhausting to watch, too, because, like the work of the teacher, the film races us through the intensity of the classroom, to the contradictory cultural expectations of the job, to the stress of difficult working conditions, to the emotional power of working with children. The filmmakers further enliven the presentation by interspersing clips from old newsreels, movies, television episodes of "The Little Rascals" and "Our Miss Brooks," and other media representations of teachers that are both comical and powerful in their stereotyping. Students and teachers are filmed in their own settings--a group of teachers are filmed in their weekly after-school gathering at the local pub, for example--and interviews with Robin Williams, Lily Tomlin and Frank McCoutt reveal the way that teaching can be described with both humor and pain. Th e requisite "talking heads" in this film are a diverse array of retired teachers, union leaders, principals, and scholars, and they are allowed to betray passion, personality, and wit in their presentations. And significantly, as the credits roll at the end of each episode, students talk about what they like to see in their teachers. Ultimately, the title of the series becomes ironic: this series is not only about teachers--it is also about students and schools, and about society's image and expectations of public education.

When considering these two films, it's interesting to note other significant ways in which they differ. The "talking head" experts who dominate "School" include a mostly male line-up of some of the most famous and senior academics, policy analysts, and representatives of Reagan and Bush's educational cabinet; "Only a Teacher" tends to rely on less prominent younger female scholars, and on dozens of current and retired teachers. The production of "School" was accompanied by a beautiful, glossy coffee-table book; the producers of "Only a Teacher" created a clip reel and study guide for K-12 teachers. The release of the "School" book and film brought waves of discussion on education list-serves and in academic conferences; "Only a Teacher" has led a less celebrated life. In effect, each film represents in its production and reception much about the way that our country views education: the film about teachers, students, and day-to-day experiences in the classroom has been largely overshadowed by a film about pol icy and national politics. On the other hand, neither film has received even one-tenth of the attention garnered by recent documentary series about baseball, jazz, arid the Hudson River. All of those films speak elegantly to the significance of their subjects in American history and culture. But clearly, in both past and present, baseball players hold more popular appeal, and media draw, than do classroom teachers.

One final irony that may or may not be significant: the narrators of both films are women actresses--Meryl Streep for "School," and Stockard Channing for "Only a Teacher"--and both films were produced and directed by women. I don't know if it's good news or bad news that the feminization of education continues in its film representation.

KATE ROUSMANIERE is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership, Miami University, Ohio, where she teaches courses in the history of education and multicultural education to teachers.