Frank McCourt and Other Teachers

"Long before he was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, the late Frank McCourt was a teacher in the New York City schools. Relationships formed with 12,000 mostly teenaged students over 30 years form the basis for his new memoir, Teacher Man. McCourt tells Jacki Lyden about life in the classroom." Listen here, from All Things Considered (1/14/06 - 8:14)

Musings

1. How would you characterize McCourt's attitude towards teaching in his interview or reading the Prologue to his book, Teacher Man (available here)? Would such an attitude likely to make him a good or a bad teacher?
   
   
2. David Brown's retrospective piece (All Things Considered, 8/4/06) on the Kashmere High School soul band--dubbed the "greatest high school band ever"--reveals the value of audio files in delivering a wealth of information in compact form (in this case, 8:19 minutes). Much of the piece here is a touching interview with the 92-year-old master teacher, Conrad Johnson, someone who dared to break the mold—and that’s exactly what Johnson did with the Kashmere band, producing a full, commercial-sounding funk band when other high school bands were playing tired and timid semi-classical pops standards. In your own words, what made Johnson such an inspiring teacher?
   
   
3. Try reminiscing about a favorite teacher of your own, especially one as eccentric one like Conrad Johnson.
    
4. Identify the outstanding characteristics of any of the following teachers: math teacher George Nobl, Kimberly Oliver, the 2006 Teacher of the year (NPR interview, 6/5/06 - 6:31), a math teacher, Louis Leithold, music teacher Johanna Grussner, or Alix Black discussing her teacher-mom. Compare or contrast any two of these teachers.
    
5. Here's a list of films about educators from UAB and one from Amazon.com. Here's a list of books about great teachers, from Amazon's listmania: Very Special Teachers. Describe a noted teacher from one of these films or books.

Steven Spielberg

In 1984, the already popular American film director Steven Spielberg sat down for an interview with the BBC's Anthony Holden. Spielberg's dual position as immensely popular entertainer and a serious artist is apparent in how the BBC introduces this discussion: "Steven Spielberg's highly entertaining and suspense-packed films, have been criticized for a tendency towards escapism and sentimentality. However he is probably the most commercially successful film director of all time."

Five segments of the interview are available online:

• his father introducing him to the cosmos (4:43)
• ET and religious symbolism (3:23)
• Indiana Jones - fears and flaws (2:57)
• his sense of responsibility to his audience, Walt Disney and his forthcoming production of Peter Pan (2:45
• Gremlins and commercialisation (3:14)

Musings

• There is a form of film criticism (called auteur theory--the French word for "director") that looks at films as the personal statement of their directors. In these interviews Spielberg discusses a number of personal feelings (regarding wonder, childhood, fears, and so forth) that have clearly helped shape his films. Draw a connection on your own between one or more statements by Spielberg and one or more of his films. You can read more about Spielberg at Wikipedia.
  
  
• Auteur theory also impacts how we view two or more films by any director--that is, two different films as coming from a single creative source (the film's director). AllMovie.com defines directors as "Supervisors par excellence, . . . responsible for everything that goes before the camera including action and dialogue. The director . . . . is responsible for the function of the entire crew bringing about the desired results through technique and interpretation. Lighting, camera positions, sound and movement are all within the purviews of directorial dictums."
  
  Consider any two films by Spielberg as an expression of a single creative source. (Spielberg's filmography here.) Note that this response can involve contrast or difference as well as similarity, even on such a basic point as the movie being a commercial or critical success versus a commercial or critical failure.
  
  
• Consider two films by another director, and how they show something interesting if see see them as part of a single creative output. Here is a list of "great directors," and here a list of the five people nominated for an Oscar as "Best Director."