American Teacher
Dir: Vanessa Roth
Rating: 2.8/5.0
First Run Features
80 Minutes
Director Vanessa Roth wants to change the way you think about teachers in America. She begins her new documentary, American Teacher, with clips of former teachers speaking fondly about why they loved their jobs so much and a shot of Bill Gates instructing an audience that the single most important factor in providing good education is having good teachers. Roth presents statistic after statistic meant to demonstrate the plight of modern day educators. And she reminds us that the future of our nation depends almost solely on the quality of teachers in our public schools. But who is it that she is trying to convince? American Teacher began as a follow-up to Dave Eggers’, one of the film’s producers, book Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers. The filmmakers’ goal is to create a documentary that changes “the way we value teachers in our society.” They do this by following the lives of four American schoolteachers, mainly through interviews and some footage of the teachers “in action.” The idea is to capture what life is really like for educators – what time they get up, what time they get home, what planning periods are actually used for and how their chosen profession takes a toll on their home life. Peppered among the interviews are animated graphs displaying related statistics. For example, the average teacher works 10-13 hours a day, not six hours as many believe. Some of these statistics seem far-fetched (like the one telling you that a really good teacher adds $20K earning power onto every student), but overall, they provide a helpful context for the personal case studies. Early in the film, we are shown clips of pundits dissing teachers, all from the Fox News channel. I suppose these are the people Roth and Eggers are responding to; they’re the ones who insist teachers stay second-class citizens. But beyond these obvious detractors is society at large. In one tale from the documentary, a teacher is forced to quit her job because she can’t pay her bills and instead becomes a cell phone salesperson. The interviewee says, “Something is wrong with our society when selling cell phones is more important than teaching.” As one way to combat this problem, the film highlights one charter school in New York City that is offering $125,000 a year to attract the best teachers. The founders of the program tell us that the reason they are offering so much money is not because it will better motivate teachers, but because a higher salary has the power to change people’s perception of the profession. This reminded me of a clip I saw on YouTube with Matt Damon (the film’s narrator) where he railed against the idea of offering money as an incentive for teachers. He argued that the strategy is flawed because you can’t compare teaching to the business world. Teachers – at least good teachers – don’t teach for the money; they do it because they love it, because they have answered a “calling,” as one teacher from the film puts it. American Teacher alludes to the nuances that make up a teacher’s role, all of the things a teacher does beyond the classroom such as counseling, coaching and managing conflicts. But it would have been great to see and feel more about what it’s like to be a teacher. The movie is not as emotionally manipulative as Waiting for Superman, which I appreciated, but there is a lot missing from an accurate portrait of an “American Teacher.” Teachers often cry, sustain abuse from parents, regularly break up fights and take the problems and successes of their students home with them. It would have been powerful to see some of this instead of just hear teachers talk. One of the most emotional moments comes when one middle school history teacher speaks about the collapse of his marriage mainly due to financial worries and long hours away from home. These days, a strong persuasive argument depends on the amount of supporting evidence and on the quality of presentation, but also to the degree it can sway its viewers emotionally. I am a teacher, so Roth didn’t have to work very hard to convince me that teachers are terrifically misunderstood. But I imagine many of the people who will watch American Teacher are also people who do not need to be convinced. Maybe because I am a teacher, I feel that her documentary should be seen by as many people as possible. It’s also because I am a teacher that I wished for more moments where I could say, “YES! I know exactly how that feels!” I don’t know… perhaps the straightforward presentation and statistics are what’s needed to sway the Fox News audience. But will they even watch it in the first place?
