Happy Holidays from the Ed Desk!

Our Favorite TV and Movie Teaching Moments [View this email online]( [NPR Education]( December 26, 2022 This week, our favorite (fictional) teacher stories. Plus, not all student debt relief programs are tied up in court. --------------------------------------------------------------- Support This Newsletter You keep the facts flowing. You bring more stories to more ears. You make a real difference with a year-end contribution to independent, trustworthy media. To support this work, please [make a donation to your local NPR station](. Independent, public service journalism is [made possible by your financial support](. Thank you for your support. — [Nicole Cohen]( Editor, NPR Ed --------------------------------------------------------------- Happy Monday, Hey everyone! Anil Oza here. We at the Ed desk want to start by sharing some joy with you all this week. Our team has put together a short list of beloved on-screen education-centric moments or characters. NPR film critic Bob Mondello weighs in too. Grab a cozy blanket and leftover cookies, curl up and enjoy! Never Have I Ever Personally, one of my favorite TV show teachers comes from Never Have I Ever, the Netflix show that released its third season this year. The relationship between the main character, Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), and her English teacher, Mr. Kulkarni (Utkarsh Ambudkar) is full of playful banter and serious but generous mentorship, which makes seeing them on screen both fun and heartwarming. Click the picture below to hear our colleagues over at It's Been a Minute discuss [how the show is just the start for Ramakrishnan](. — Anil Oza, Intern, NPR Ed Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for Netflix; Lara Solanki /Netflix © 2022; Photo Illustration by Kaz Fantone Stand and Deliver Watching Jaime Escalante (Edward James Olmos) teach math in the movie Stand and Deliver made me so excited about taking math when I was in high school! Escalante was a real-life inspiration to his students before his story got on screen, and math – like he says in the movie – is easy and it’s all around us. I think about this message all the time, as people constantly bash math. In books, on TV, and in our own lives people so often say that numbers and counting are just too hard! Think about every time the check comes at a restaurant and a friend says – you figure it out, I’m bad at math! For me – I chuckle and think back to Escalante digging holes in the sand to demonstrate negative and positive numbers. Math is real, it’s useful, logical – and everywhere! — [Elissa Nadworny]( Correspondent, NPR Ed Arrival When linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) rips off her protective gear and moves as close as she can get to the aliens visiting earth in Arrival, she is full-on teacher, heart and soul. “They need to see me,” she says to the military commanders in charge. Hopefully my high school classmates and I were not quite as challenging as amoeba-like creatures who spray ink in circles to communicate, but the intense care and focus Banks shows reminds me of some of my favorite and most influential classroom teachers. They got right up close and cared hard — about us, and about the doors their understanding might help us crack open. As someone who has learned bits of a bunch of languages and who has observed foreign soldiers trying to communicate with local people, my favorite line comes after Banks has cracked the code to basic communication with the aliens. She warns her supervisors that her work is just beginning. “We need to make sure they understand the difference between a weapon and a tool. Language is messy and sometimes one can be both,” she says. To me this captures the essence of great teaching – patience and purpose. —[Emily Harris]( Editor, NPR Ed School of Rock Whoa, whoa, whoa. Everyone else on this list needs to step off, because the greatest teacher in the history of screens, both large and small, is easily Dewey Finn (Jack Black), the fast-talking fake substitute teacher in the 2003 film School of Rock, who ends up doing some very real teaching (and learning) as the clandestine leader of a 4th-grade band. The genius of this character – and the movie – is that they capture the power of joy in the classroom and the gravitational pull of a passionate teacher, even if he’s not technically a teacher. Also, fun fact: the people behind the camera are pretty great too. Director Richard Linklater is known for soulful work like Before Sunrise and Boyhood. And writer Mike White is killing it right now with HBO’s hit show, The White Lotus. — [Cory Turner]( Correspondent, NPR Ed Abbott Elementary I’ve never been a huge fan of TV or movies set in schools, but there’s something in the way Abbott Elementary does it that makes me feel welcomed into someone else’s workplace. From the generational differences we see between teachers to pedagogy topics like discipline, the series’ creator Quinta Brunson, who also plays second grade teacher Janine, handles everything with so much care that’s noticeable to everyday people like me! My teacher friends gushed about it so much that [earlier this year I invited the writers]( of the show onto the NPR podcast [It’s Been a Minute]( to tell us how their team does it. The show overall is a lovely family binge, and their holiday episodes are an absolute treat! — [Janet Woojeong Lee]( Asisstant Producer, NPR Ed The Miracle Worker I was 13 when I saw The Miracle Worker, and naïve about actors and acting. I don’t know that I actually thought actor Patty Duke was deaf and blind, although her portrayal of Helen Keller was certainly persuasive to the adolescent me. But I fully believed in the miracle worker herself, Helen’s teacher, Annie Sullivan (Anne Bancroft). She was so smart about finding ways to get through to willful, tantrum-throwing Helen. I choked up all through the [water pump scene]( – still do – and highlighted it [a few years back]( when I wrote about what movies teach us about teaching. – [Bob Mondello]( NPR Arts Critic --------------------------------------------------------------- Newsletter continues after sponsor message --------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, it's winter break! But we still have interesting education news … How some student loans are being forgiven. While [legal battles have locked up]( Biden’s headline student loan forgiveness program, thousands of borrowers are expected to get their debts reduced or even wiped away via fixes to an income-based repayment program. [Read more here](. — [Cory Turner]( Correspondent, NPR Ed Afghan women lose their access to education. In Afghanistan, the Taliban appeared to formally ban women from receiving any education past sixth grade, and started to enforce that, leaving many students in “[tears and anger](. A [move to expel teachers]( in some schools there has also raised questions about who, if anyone, will teach girls in the still-permitted grades. — [Diaa Hadid]( International Correspondent, NPR Should AI help with homework? A new AI-powered chatbot fueled fears that it could make many school assignments irrelevant. But it isn’t perfect - yet. [Read more here](. — [Emma Bowman]( Reporter, NPR Finally, with [all the viruses flying around]( want to offer a comfort read in case you find yourself or someone you love sick in bed… A Sick Day for Amos My kids are now 13 and 10, but none of us are ever too old for A Sick Day for Amos McGee, written by Philip C. Stead and illustrated by Erin E. Stead. A treatise on the fine art of friendship, the story follows Amos, an elderly gent who works at the local zoo – and by “works” I mean he plays chess with the elephant, always has a hanky on hand for the runny-nosed rhino, and is more than happy to just sit quietly with a shy penguin who wears red and blue socks. So what do you suppose his animal friends do when Amos catches a cold and can’t come to work? They come to him, naturally. I love this book with every fiber of my being. — [Cory Turner]( Correspondent, NPR Ed It all comes down to you Your financial support is the NPR Network's greatest strength. You keep the facts flowing. 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