Teachers and the media

We need to be wary of how Hollywood and the media portray our profession. The following excerpt from a 2004 English Journal article by Kenneth Lindblom, "All I Need to Know about Teaching I Learned from TV and Movies," is telling:

If, through representations of teaching and learning in popular culture, ordinary people come to believe that teaching is a natural talent that does not require much professional development, they may be loath to pay for it. If they come to believe knowledge is simply knowing isolated facts, they may clamor for even greater amounts of testing. If they believe teachers should be treated as saints, in the profession only for the chance to do noble work, they may be less willing to understand the need for pay raises. I enjoy as much as anyone the shows and films that include teachers, but their impact gives me pause.

In the wake of the recent success of Freedom Writers, Lindblom's words ring loudly.