Do you know what genre never dies — and I hope never will? School life. Generation through generation, since school has been available to both male and female students, school life has been a popular genre in the literature world. If you look back, the most popular teen TV series have a school backgrounds, such as Lizzie McGuire, Even Stevens, Kenan & Kel and That’s So Raven. What I listed above are all my favourite TV series in my teen years, not that it’s left me — or I’m just in a dangerously HUGE denial toward that fact. Aside from TV series, school life has been quite an interesting genre for films as well. Various films have been inspired by the daily life that happens in school. It’s quite obvious really, given that hundreds of people gather in schools, leading different lives, sharing alternate stories and yet, they all gather there one time or another in their lives. Then they meet with one another and integrate with each other and react to both their lives and their stories. More often than not, school becomes the epicenter of the world students live in. They create, subconsciously, alternate universes within the supposedly educational environment, in which things that are considered important varies. If in real life getting amazing results is important, in school it’s being the top of the food chain: the cheerleaders or the jocks or the prom queen and so on. It’s silly, yet one time or another we all contributed to this.
Shocked by this realization, I’d like to introduce to you a different version of school life. One that tells the story of how it influences the educator, not the educated — meaning: the teacher, School of Life. Just like most films in the world based on school life, this film takes place in an american school. Such a simple story, actually but made rather unique in changing the point of view of the viewer. We have been made familiar with the school life stories, in which students were the main characters and told of their highly overratedly dramatic life where the boys they like wouldn’t see them and the cheerleaders bully them. No. This film tells a story about the struggle of a teacher in a hilarious and childish way, as if he himself was a student. The film was released in 2005 and included Ryan Reynolds and David Paymer.
The Warner family held a reputation. Their sons always became ‘Teacher of the Year’ at the school they taught. This year, after Norman Warner became elected as ‘Teacher of the Year,’ he dropped dead to a heart attack, leaving a deathbed message to his son, Matt Warner, that was unclear to him but which he translated into getting the same title as his father. Being a teacher himself, he was set on continuing that tradition. He told his son, Dylan, about this tradition. Dylan goes to the school where he taught too. Under such a huge load on his shoulders, Matt was more pressurized with the arrival of a new history teacher, replacing his father, Mr. D. He was quickly beloved by his students thanks to his creative way on teaching history, on bringing it to life. Matt felt threatened by this. Even his own son agreed that Mr. D rocked. He became so obsessed that he went to school one night in his pajamas to investigate Mr. D’s secrets. Funny enough, his investigation only led to Mr. D getting compliments from the principal and him bringing embarrassment to his family. Later on, Mr. D revealed his own secrets, ones which did not have anything to do with his teachings.
The most interesting keypoint to this film is the fact that it’s narrated by Dylan Warner while watching his father’s behaviour. He knew just how obsessed and upset he was about Mr. D yet he couldn’t help but to love his teaching methods. This was a TV movie so it wasn’t shown on huge screen. I first watched it on Disney channel — back before it became crappy. And the storyline stuck to my mind since then. For once, it wasn’t about love. But it was a story to learn from…if we remember that inside all of us, there’s a child. We would all remember that we still need to learn a lot. In the mean time, enjoy your Friday, everybody! And have a blast of a weekend!
Do you know what genre never dies — and I hope never will? School life. Generation through generation, since school has been available to both male and female students, school life has been a popular genre in the literature world. If you look back, the most popular teen TV series have a school backgrounds, such as Lizzie McGuire, Even Stevens, Kenan & Kel and That’s So Raven. What I listed above are all my favourite TV series in my teen years, not that it’s left me — or I’m just in a dangerously HUGE denial toward that fact. Aside from TV series, school life has been quite an interesting genre for films as well. Various films have been inspired by the daily life that happens in school. It’s quite obvious really, given that hundreds of people gather in schools, leading different lives, sharing alternate stories and yet, they all gather there one time or another in their lives. Then they meet with one another and integrate with each other and react to both their lives and their stories. More often than not, school becomes the epicenter of the world students live in. They create, subconsciously, alternate universes within the supposedly educational environment, in which things that are considered important varies. If in real life getting amazing results is important, in school it’s being the top of the food chain: the cheerleaders or the jocks or the prom queen and so on. It’s silly, yet one time or another we all contributed to this.
Shocked by this realization, I’d like to introduce to you a different version of school life. One that tells the story of how it influences the educator, not the educated — meaning: the teacher, School of Life. Just like most films in the world based on school life, this film takes place in an american school. Such a simple story, actually but made rather unique in changing the point of view of the viewer. We have been made familiar with the school life stories, in which students were the main characters and told of their highly overratedly dramatic life where the boys they like wouldn’t see them and the cheerleaders bully them. No. This film tells a story about the struggle of a teacher in a hilarious and childish way, as if he himself was a student. The film was released in 2005 and included Ryan Reynolds and David Paymer.
The Warner family held a reputation. Their sons always became ‘Teacher of the Year’ at the school they taught. This year, after Norman Warner became elected as ‘Teacher of the Year,’ he dropped dead to a heart attack, leaving a deathbed message to his son, Matt Warner, that was unclear to him but which he translated into getting the same title as his father. Being a teacher himself, he was set on continuing that tradition. He told his son, Dylan, about this tradition. Dylan goes to the school where he taught too. Under such a huge load on his shoulders, Matt was more pressurized with the arrival of a new history teacher, replacing his father, Mr. D. He was quickly beloved by his students thanks to his creative way on teaching history, on bringing it to life. Matt felt threatened by this. Even his own son agreed that Mr. D rocked. He became so obsessed that he went to school one night in his pajamas to investigate Mr. D’s secrets. Funny enough, his investigation only led to Mr. D getting compliments from the principal and him bringing embarrassment to his family. Later on, Mr. D revealed his own secrets, ones which did not have anything to do with his teachings.
The most interesting keypoint to this film is the fact that it’s narrated by Dylan Warner while watching his father’s behaviour. He knew just how obsessed and upset he was about Mr. D yet he couldn’t help but to love his teaching methods. This was a TV movie so it wasn’t shown on huge screen. I first watched it on Disney channel — back before it became crappy. And the storyline stuck to my mind since then. For once, it wasn’t about love. But it was a story to learn from…if we remember that inside all of us, there’s a child. We would all remember that we still need to learn a lot. In the mean time, enjoy your Friday, everybody! And have a blast of a weekend!