Shouldn't Ms. G NOT go with them to their junior + senior year?

This is the one question I had while watching the movie.
It seems that she would better serve the community, the school, and the students, if she could teach more of them, her new classes could help support the juniors and seniors, after 4 years every student in school would be in sync and supportive. Also by interfering with the other teachers schedules she is creating a hostile working environment.

Personally, her failing to get an opportunity to teach them junior+senior year, would have made the movie more impactful for me.

It would show that Mrs. G did her job and she showed those kids well and how to cope with stuff they're not comfortable with. That people have to cope with being out of their comfort zone several times in life.

And then the movie would show them coping with life out of their comfort zone and reaching a new level of maturity, but since it's a true story I can see why it happened.

I agree. If this part were true, then it has to be extremely rare in education, but for the film, it was the weak part of a good movie.

"If u can't hear me, it's because I am speaking in parentheses."

Why would the students be better off going to another teacher who doesn't care about them? Most of the teachers view them as "bad seeds" and being "unteachable." That is not the attitude you want to have if you're teaching kids who need help.

Erin established a connection with her kids before she really began to teach them. She made the effort to get to know them and understand them. That is why her students began to listen to her and to feel free to express themselves and their situations. No other teacher in the school made such an attempt at all.

As a teacher who taught overseas, it becomes much harder to be an effective teacher when you choose not to get to know and understand your students. Most of the kids I taught, initially thought that I was just some American coming over to teach them "our ways" and that I probably didn't care about them. When they saw that I wanted to get to know them and their culture, THEN they began to open up.

You have to establish the environment first. Erin was very, very smart to do that, but she didn't do it because she had to. She did it because she WANTED to. Kids are much smarter than adults give them credit for. They know if you want to be there or not. They know if you don't care. They see right through that.

Erin was correct when she told Ms. Campbell, "you can't teach these kids. You don't even like them."

The kids, I feel, were much better off staying with Erin than moving on to a teacher who probably wouldn't have cared and would have given up on them after a very short time.

I came on this board to make this exact same point. Its like the kids were stuck on some kind of pacifier and couldn't let go. I understand she must have been a great role model, but she should have taught them to become strong and independent. Instead of encouraging their tendencies to remain attached to her..

In the words of Otto:
Zeppelin Rulllesss!!

It was her first experience as a teacher and the one issue she did have was that she got too involved with her students and she found it too hard to let go. Which is why I think it was acceptable that she finished with the class she grew as a family and move on herself which she did and went on to teach at a University. The movie is really clear on this.

As a teacher, I would agree with you if this was a simple case of a class getting attached to their teacher, and vice versa. But, for this particular class, it seemed as though they had made it all the way to ninth grade without a single teacher taking the time to care about them the way she did. The guy (I forget his name) who taught the junior English class seemed excited that most of these students would drop out of school before even reaching his class. She heard the other teachers' opinions of the students, and it was clear to her that they didn't care. It was pretty clear to the kids as well. She was their only advocate throughout the movie.

The poverty and violence these students were dealing with was generational. They had never known things could be different for them, until a teacher took the time to get to know them and reach them. I find it very believable that 2 years was not enough time to undo the 14 or 15 years of negativity that these kids had experienced.

I teach K-4 music in a small, rural community. We don't encounter the violence of the inner city, but the poverty rate is extremely high. I have seen some really sad cases. Luckily, I work in a place where all teachers and staff members advocate for the students. We make school a place where the students feel safe and cared for, and we acknowledge that school may be the only stable environment in some of their lives. Since I teach most of these students for 5 years, I am sad to see them go after grade 4. There are certain ones that I would want to follow if I didn't know that they would encounter supportive teachers throughout the school district. It would be very hard to watch the students advance to a new school knowing that none of the teachers there would truly care for them. I realize that most teachers wouldn't get the opportunity to follow their students, but I understand why some of them would want to as well.

"Without surgery, a person in your condition will have a severe case of deadness." -Scrubs

I can understand from both sides: it is a community so they grew together and want to be together, but yes, they should be able to move on... as a group... to the next level. However, at the same time, if they hadn't had Mrs. G., they would have the prickish 11th grade English teacher who would have probably just berated and harassed them, taking the sting out of anything they learned and any progress they had made. But I suppose if she truly made a difference, they'd be able to deal with him in a courteous and respectful manner.

Though as a teacher, if I had a good group of kids who flourished in my class and respected each other, themselves, and me, I wouldn't want us to be separated either.