Teachers on TV - Part 2
Teachers on TV
Part Two
In case you didn’t read “Teachers on TV – Part One” here’s a sentence that appears toward the end of that essay that provides a bridge to this one:
What’s most notable is that the Sixties programs begin to recognize student-teacher interaction --- and create a view that “idealistic” teachers care about their students above-and-beyond their classrooms, a notion that became the new focus for Seventies shows.
I began my career as a classroom teacher in the early 1970’s, so the tv shows about schools, students, and teachers held more than a “passing interest” for me. There were three from 1974 to 1981 I still remember clearly: Lucas Tanner, Welcome Back, Kotter, and The White Shadow. A number of people “of a certain age” probably recall Kotter and The White Shadow but I’m guessing few ever heard of Lucas Tanner. While this essay is from my perspective, I believe there are general observations that can be made about the portrayal of teachers & schools on these shows telling us about how the greater society views schools, teachers, and, in a greater sense, education in the United States --- both then and now.
Lucas Tanner was a short-lived program that appeared on NBC. The only sites, beyond Wikipedia, providing information about Tanner were “Worst TV Shows” and “TV Obscurities,” so that gives you some insight as to how the program is seen in retrospect. Wikipedia says this:
Lucas Tanner is an American drama series aired on NBC during the 1974–75 season. The title character, played by David Hartman, is a former baseball player and sportswriter who becomes an English teacher at the fictional Harry S Truman Memorial High School in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. He changed professions following the death of his wife and child. Episodes often deal with the resistance of traditional teachers to Tanner's unorthodox teaching style. (bold, mine)
The accounts from “Worst Shows” and “TV Obscurities” both note that Tanner is “idealistic” and has “a fresh and friendly approach to teaching, which makes him beloved by students, but not so liked among teachers who have an old-fashioned way of teaching.” (bold, mine) In mid-year of that first (and only) season, Tanner shifts from classroom teaching and becomes a Guidance Counselor, so he can, apparently, apply his “fresh and friendly,” “unorthodox teaching style” in a more (appropriate?)one-on-one setting. I don’t have clear memories of Lucas Tanner to describe what his fresh, friendly, unorthodox methods were but I’m guessing it’s that he focused as much (or more) on his students than he did on content. As the last waves of the Sixties --- and America’s latest school reform movement --- were receding, Lucas Tanner did represent, however slightly, a shift that was actually happening in schools. The idea of student-centered education had gained momentum starting in the late-Sixties/early Seventies and, while it didn’t become a widespread national movement, it was the beginning of a conversation about school reform that is still making waves in education circles. Luckily for me, having gotten my Master’s in Teaching from Colgate in August, 1973 --- and full of progressive education philosophy looking for a landing site --- I was hired to work at a brand-new, open-space (read: few interior walls) Art/Humanities public high school. I was brimming with ideas about student-centered education so, when Lucas Tanner appeared on NBC I think I identified with his “fresh and friendly approach to teaching.” That Tanner #1 – only lasted one season, and #2 – was shifted to a Guidance Counselor’s office by mid-year should have told me something about how much the wider world appreciated someone with an “unorthodox teaching style.” Luckily for me, Blind Brook High School was more willing to renew our program (for almost a decade) while television devised new ways to portray teachers.
As I noted earlier, most folks who lived through the 1970’s pretty clearly remember Welcome Back, Kotter, and The White Shadow. For those not old enough to be familiar with the shows here are the Wikipedia summaries for each.
Welcome Back, Kotter is an American sitcom starring Gabe Kaplan as a high-school teacher in charge of a racially and ethnically diverse remedial education class nicknamed the Sweathogs. The series aired on ABC from September 9, 1975, through May 17, 1979. Stand-up comedian and actor Gabriel "Gabe" Kaplan stars as the main character, Gabe Kotter, a wise-cracking teacher who returns to his alma mater, James Buchanan High School in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York City, ten years after graduating to teach a remedial class of loafers known as the Sweathogs. The rigid vice principal, Michael Woodman (John Sylvester White), who was formerly Kotter's social studies teacher, dismisses the Sweathogs as witless hoodlums. Woodman only expects Kotter to contain them until they drop out or are expelled or arrested. Kotter had been a remedial student and a founding member of the original class of Sweathogs. He befriends the current class and stimulates their potential. Kotter forms a rapport with his students. They begin visiting his Bensonhurst apartment, sometimes via the fire escape window, often to the chagrin of his wife Julie (Marcia Strassman).
The White Shadow is an American drama television series starring Ken Howard that ran on the CBS network from November 27, 1978, to March 16, 1981, about a white former professional basketball player who takes a job coaching basketball at an impoverished urban high school with a racially mixed basketball team. Although the lead actor Howard was white, the series broke new ground as the first television ensemble drama to feature a mostly African American cast, with African American actors playing the high school principal and vice-principal, the majority of the teenage basketball players, and other supporting roles. The White Shadow also dealt with controversial subject matter such as sexually transmitted disease and gay sexual orientation among high school students. Although The White Shadow was not a big ratings hit, it drew praise from critics and helped pave the way for later realistic dramas such as Hill Street Blues.
What do Kotter and The White Shadow reflect about teachers, students, schools, and our society’s interpretation of them through the art of television? Certainly, they mark a significant shift from Mr. Peepers, Miss Brooks, Mr. Novak, Room 222, and even Lucas Tanner. Set in what were then called “inner-city” schools in New York and Los Angeles, Kotter and The White Shadow both presented viewers with students they had only encountered in Room 222 --- and, certainly, both Kotter and Shadow were far grittier settings. That said, the portrayal of Buchanan and Carver High Schools played into certain stereotypes about “inner-city schools” --- classrooms in disrepair, disheveled hallways, and a general sense that these old buildings were on their way out. In both settings, though, we do see similar stories playing out.
Even though Kotter was a broad comedy and Shadow a serious, dramatic program, their settings and students share commonalities beyond stereotypes. Kotter’s core crew --- Vinnie Barbarino (John Travolta’s launchpad role) the group’s leader & school heartthrob, Juan, Epstein, the half-Jewish, half-Puerto Rican wise guy, Freddie “Boom-Boom” Washington, the cool basketball-star, Black “dude,” and Arnold Horshack, the lovable class clown --- provided a perfect Ship of Fools cast to play off the affable and wise Mr. Kotter. While there are poignant moments between Kotter and each of the crew, there are also numerous comic foibles which set Kotter up defending the Sweathogs and standing up to Principal Woodman (subtle symbolism in the name). In all, while broadly comic, Kotter did present a very human and humane picture of a teacher and his students. And, while Mr. Kotter is the ostensible “star” of the show, it’s really about the students, in all their foolish but lovable adolescence. It also showed that city schools weren’t necessary the Black Holes suburban America imagined them as.
In much the same way, The White Shadow provided a unique look at urban America through the well-known landscape of a high school basketball team. Using this context --- in one way or another, everyone who’s gone to high school is at least passingly familiar with the institution’s basketball team. In The White Shadow’s case, that team represents George Washington Carver High School in South Central Los Angeles. Using a ”fish out of water” premise, a former professional basketball player, who is white, is recruited by the school’s principal (an old friend/college teammate of the athlete) to coach the school’s boys’ varsity basketball team. In a few short seasons, The White Shadow accomplished quite a bit. It brought an honest sensibility to problems plaguing cities: alcoholism, gang violence, domestic violence, drug use, racism, teen-age pregnancy, and being gay. And it did it in the context of a school, through a coach and his players --- each of whom, or all of whom, were affected by one or more of those issues. What struck me then, and still resonates, was the relationship between the coach and his team. As a young teacher and basketball coach (180 degrees away from The Shadow, on the surface) what became apparent was not only that the coach cared about his players but that, over time, working together to become the best team they could, they developed into a virtual family.
Closing the curtain on the Seventies, then, we find students at the center of the story, with the teacher or coach more a guide on the side, who develops a sense of cohesion among the class/team/group, becoming a “second family” for each other. Another note is that the students, even the “Sweathogs,” learn from each other --- and learn about honesty, integrity, trust, and other bedrock values. In all, the School shows in the Seventies are a rather honest portrayal of the world they represent and a relatively positive picture regarding students and teachers.
After the Seventies, with the advent of cable television, and my own interests drifting from broadcast television, I was less aware of shows about schools or teachers. I did know about Freaks and Geeks, Head of the Class, Saved by the Bell, et al, but it seemed the audience for “high school” shows was more and more aimed at the teens who were now primary consumers. Thus, Dawson’s Creek, Beverly Hills 90210, My So-Called Life, and Saved by the Bell were aimed at teen-agers and reflected their concerns --- without making significant (“grander?”) statements about students & teachers or education. It’s only lately that I’ve encountered a couple of shows about students/teachers/schools that attempt to comment on issues in the current education landscape. So stay tuned to Teachers and TV --- Part Three.