I thought her part was played so beautifully. I don't think she necessarily wanted the kids to not succeed; it was more like she didn't want their teacher to succeed. (Which I know is almost the same thing . . . but it's not.)
In the teaching field, what is considered best practice and proper methodology can change so, so much during one's career that it can get to the point where everything you learned about how to teach twenty years ago in college is now considered obsolete by the "experts," even if your methods do continue to produce good results in the classroom, on standardized tests, on authentic assessments etc.
That teacher from the movie, and that type of teacher in real life, probably does a phenomenal job with upper-class children who are very "easily managed," have an incredible amount of home support and have sort of an upper hand when it comes to English class, because they live in homes where parents speak English as a native language and speak it quite well and eloquently, and the parents also expose the children to perhaps some more high brow television programming and movies, travel with the children, are college educated and able to help out more with homework, probably already have a habit of reading for leisure and have helped foster that in their children since a very young age, etc. Sometimes when you have students like that, even if you don't "reach" them on a super personal level, it's actually not *that* hard to help them read a book or write an essay. (Side note: I'm NOT saying that teachers who serve privileged children don't work hard or that their work is less important. I'm just saying that the demographic does have a lot to do with how much of a battle certain things can be.)
The teacher from that movie, and that type of teacher in real life, probably wouldn't have a lot of success in the classroom with a tougher mix of children, and would not blame their own methodology but instead blame the children, blame their parents, blame society. So...even though seeing them do well SHOULD be a good thing, to this teacher, it's maddening. It makes her feel professionally inferior deep down inside.
It can be extremely stressful and intimidating for an older teacher to work alongside a new teacher with new methods. I'm not saying that all older teachers are resistant. There's plently of experienced educators who are always trying to stay on the cusp of the newest trends in education. But there are also plenty who are get comfortable doing things a certain way and it's really upsetting to them when they see someone do things wildy different and still succeed.
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