Film Class

This week Shain is joined by her sisters Sara and Anisa to discuss the Trojan Horse Affair, in light of the recent Serial podcast series (presented by Brian Reed fellow Brummie Hamza Syed). As three proud Muslim Brummies, Shain and her sisters have been directly affected by the scandal; here they recount their experiences both inside and outside education. 

Listen to learn about the complexities of the hijab, the damage done by Prevent, the nonsensical implementation of British Values in schools, and the fact that (sadly) everyone has worked with a Sue Packer. 

Sara is a senior science technician in a secondary school and Anisa is a specialist pharmacist in a hospital. 

Our first big 'hero coach' film, this time starring Samuel L Jackson as real life high school basketball coach Terence Carter. Carter earns our admiration fo guiding wayward students towards a brighter future through his relentlessly high expectations, but also troubled us with his implication that these young men must always police their language and behaviour to really be accepted. 

This week's film, starring Mads Mikkelson, has an intriguing premise: would teaching slightly drunk improve our lessons? We discuss teaching ruts, taboos around male mental health, and consider whether education really is better in Scandinavia... 

Alexander Payne's deeply cynical comedy presents teachers as frustrated chumps, whilst also taking swipes at the aspirations of Type A students like Reese Witherspoon's Tracey Flick (still her best role - yeah we said it). We talk the importance of civics education and the horrors of school fridges. 

J.K. Simmons puts in a commanding performance as psychotic music teacher Terence Fletcher, determined to drive Miles' Teller's Andrew to great artistic heights. We discuss his philosophy that praise leads only to mediocrity, as well as considering his somewhat idiosyncratic approach to ensuring a disciplined learning environment. Is such a regimented ideology necessary for artistic excellence, or is it anathema to creativity? All that and Shain helpfully defines the raisinet (turns out that is a thing, despite Sean's scepticism).

'I'm right and you're wrong, I'm big and you're small, and there's nothing you can do about it!'

Danny DeVito's Matilda has been one of our most requested films to discuss from the very beginning of the pod, and we finally got round to it (and we think it's one of our best episodes!). We discuss the dichotomy between Agatha Trunchbull and Miss Honey, two extremes of teaching we think are manifest in all practitioners. This leads to us talking about teachers as authority figures, the complexity of school uniform policies, and our own Trunchbull moments (sorry to all fans of whimsical cat ears). 

This week we watch Ken Loach's classic debut film Kes (1969), starring then newcomer David Bradley as Billy, a working class boy from Yorkshire with little hope for the future. Loach captures the low expectations and bleak brutality of schools in the 1960s, leading us to discuss corporal punishment, Thatcher's revolution of the education system in the 1980s, and the cruelty of the classroom in the past. Spoiler alert: PE teachers may want to skip this one, as we have yet another sports teacher who is also an absolute monster. We promise some better representation by the end of this series!

We're back! In our first episode of Season 2, we talk the Jack Black classic School of Rock (2003), in which a dosser poses as substitute teacher Mr Schneebly and insists his pupils learn the hard rock canon. We discuss whether or not leaders can ever be friends with those they manage, the difficulties of substitute teaching and whether teaching children nothing other than rock is any less biased than the national curriculum. P.S. We had some issues with Shain's audio this week, but all will be fixed next week! 

In our last episode of season one, we discuss the darkest Harry Potter films: Deathly Hallows Parts One and Two. We talk Harry's transition to young adulthood, the use of education as propaganda, teachers who scarred us, and McGonagall's fascist turn. (Bloody hell, that all sounds very dark- let's do School of Rock or something next).

We're currently coming up with ideas for Season Two in 2021 so please email or DM us with films you'd like us to discuss next! 

Avid Draco Malfoy fan and university lecturer Dr Lucy Andrew joins us this week to talk all things Slytherin! We discuss Slughorn, Snape's moment of glory as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, and whether or not some information is too sensitive to share with pupils.