A Few Good TEACHERS

The clip above is from one of my all time favorite movies A Few Good Men. This scene appears at the end and serves as a climax to the entire movie. If you haven't seen it, I am sorry for spoiling it for you. PLEASE NOTE that the plot line of this movie has nothing to do with education, but I think this scene sometimes captures the essence of how those in education sometimes feel about those who claim that public education is failing.

I've been toying around with the idea of this blog for awhile and thought initially that I was going to write it from the perspective of a high school principal. It would certainly be very easy to write from this perspective, because it is fairly easy to villainize those that make decisions for large organizations. After careful consideration, however, I think a better connection to this particular scene can be made to all of those in education. Simply substitute yourself in Jack Nicholson's character and put anybody who questions how school's operate/function in the role of Tom Cruise. If you break this scene down even more, there are a few lines in particular that I would like to explain further to elaborate on this extended metaphor.

"You can't handle the truth!"
The fact of the matter is that if you haven't been in front of a classroom of 30+ kids, you really can't fathom what it is like. People have asked me, "How hard can it really be? Just tell them to be quiet, pay attention, do the work." Funny thing about this though is that a lot of kids don't respond to this and unlike the business world, you can't fire kids. Kids come in to classrooms every day dealing with problems that many people never have to worry about it. Can you really expect a student to focus on academics when they didn't have a bed to sleep in last night, haven't had a meal in 4 days, have a parent who is dying, have a friend that committed suicide, have parents who are divorcing, etc., etc., etc. Now picture multiple students in your classroom at a time with these issues going on and you can quickly see that teaching the ABCs becomes a little more difficult than you might think.

"I have a greater responsibility than you can even fathom."
There are very few professions that can claim this. Education is at the core of a democratic society, and without it, democracy fails. What teachers do on a daily basis would make your head spin. Rather than go in to all the details, I think I will let Taylor Mali do it for me:

"You have that luxury of not knowing what I know."
In education, much like medicine, confidentiality is paramount. I can't tell you how many times, I get questioned regarding a decision I made or a decision that a staff member has made. I DO NOT MIND GETTING THESE QUESTIONS. In fact, I welcome them wholeheartedly. Too often, however, am I not able to elaborate on circumstances because of confidential information. In education, we have to make the best decisions we can with the information we have available to us. We are fallible, though, and we do make mistakes. At the end of the day though, we try our hardest to do the best we can.

"You want me on that wall. You need me on that wall."
Not everyone is cut out for teaching. It doesn't pay very well and it is sometimes a thankless job, but someone has to do it. Teachers are a different breed, so before you put them down, ask yourself if you could do the job better.

"I would rather you just said thank you and went on your way."
All teachers really want to hear is a thank you every now and then. This could come from a student, parent, colleague, or administrator. It is a simple phrase that makes the job of teacher that much more gratifying.

Finally, at the very end, Tom Cruise questions Jack Nicholson if he ordered the Code Red. I would like to substitute that with, "Did you educate those kids?" I think Jack's response is perfect. That is where the similarities end. Forget the fact that Col. Jessup gets handcuffed and carted off.

#OwnYourEpic #Embrace