Teachers in the Hood: Fiction or Reality???

In the article, "Teacher in the 'Hood: Hollywood's Middle Class Fantasy" discusses how the teachers are portrayed as "teacher-heros" in the classroom. In other words, the teacher who enters into an urban setting and makes a difference in his or her student lives. Now the question we should asked ourselves is: Is this Fiction or Reality??? Is it fiction because of the way Hollywood portrays what a teacher SHOULD act in the classroom or make a difference in all his or her students' lives? or Is this a reality because teachers are "teacher-heros" and make a difference in the schools and in the classrooms? Welll some people say its fiction and some may say it is fiction. Some may say its fiction because they may have grew up in an urban setting and felt like the teacher never made a difference for them, they are close-minded because they may not know how teachers are in the urban settings, or Hollywood puts too much emphasis on teachers in the urban settings. Some may say its reality because maybe there was a teacher in his or her lifetime and made a difference for them, but depending if the student wants to make a difference in his or her life.

According to Bulman, he said "urban high school settings genre films have been one of Hollywood's most trusted formula." In my opinion, I believe this is a true statement. Not only in the urban high schools areas, but in urban settings such as the projects, drugs being exchange, and predominately black man are the ones who locked up or the ones selling drugs, and the black women are portrayed as having too many children or on welfare. (Ok, going off topic, but I had to write it in.) In Hollywood, these films are filled with students who come from a socially trouble background and in other people's opinion are known as the "low achieving" students. For example, the movie "Dangerous Minds," Michelle Phiferer plays the "teacher-hero" and makes a difference in her students life. Thats good because she cares about her students, however Hollywood left out plenty obstacles teachers face when trying to make a difference in his or her students' lives. It does not take an hour and half to change a students life..it can take months, or maybe years to help make a difference.

It seems that Hollywood makes everything in the urban high school setting picture perfect. Now lets talk about reality. There are some teachers who do not have that amount of experience teaching in urban schools are sometimes less respected by the students. The students believe that the teacher with less experience will not make a difference in their lives. In class, we spoke about "students who live in an urban settings do not like change because they feared they will not be able to challenge the system," but I believe students look for change. Most students who come from an urban setting look for change. Sometimes they are tired of looking at the same setting in which they live and want to live a good life. For example, my best friend lives in the projects in Paterson and everyday he wishes he lived in a safe environment. He wants something different and so he applied himself in graduating high school and is currently student at Montclair State University, however, he feels that he will always stay in the projects.

Hollywood does portrayed some reality in the urban high school settings. For example, the struggle and the change of a student's mind. Not just student in the urban setting suffer from not achieveing to their educational goal, but students in the suburban and rural suffer, also. The reason Hollywood focus on the urban setting is once again it portrays poverty, drugs, and students who feel they can not amount to anything.

Now the question we should ask ourselves: How can we should the producers of Hollywood, urban high school students and setting are not the ones with difficulty in school? We should try to convince them about the suburban and rurals areas? Lets think about it and make a difference.