How is Teaching Portrayed to the Public?

     As I've taken courses at Texas State in order to become certified to teach, I've realized that my initial idea of teaching was completely different and I had a belief that education wasn't as complicated due to how media and Hollywood like to display educators on the big screen. In most films, there's often no display of how teachers were able to get their underachieving students to become the best and brightest that campus has ever had but obviously due to having a film achieve a happy ending, most films end up creating a "SuperTeacher" type of persona in order to achieve that Hollywood flare many films go for.

    There are many personas that follow educators in films and it's dependent on what time of genre the film is, most family films such as Disney movies, have this sort of "perfect parent-figure" educator that is successful in educating their class by being affectionate or passionate over their students. Most mystery films often have the educator be seen as a suspecting individual who could've been involved in the disappearance of a student, these are some examples as to how educators can be portrayed to the media and often end up creating stigmas that can potentially harm teachers in real life scenarios.

    Often the only individuals who know how difficult teaching can be are teachers themselves, and many parents who have these ideas that educators can just change systems overnight or make a significant impact on their children and their grades are simply misguided due to how media portrays these characters. Not every educator is going to be perfect and learn as quickly as Erin Gruwell from Freedom Writers did, but that doesn't mean that they can't eventually become a great educator and that's what some films lack, the time to show growth.