Teacher at Point Blank: Confronting Sexuality, Violence, and Secrets in a Suburban School

alicia — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 20:00:00 +0000

When Jo Scott-Coe began teaching in the same suburban California high school she’d graduated from four years earlier, she had to overcome her reluctance to call former teachers by their first names. Once that was accomplished, she set out to bring new life to the literature and writing classes she was assigned.

In seventeen essays Scott-Coe lays bare the disappointments and frustrations that marred her eleven years in the classroom. While the book is highly anecdotal—and cannot be read as a general indictment of the educational system--she does hit several general themes, including the way educators—eighty percent of them female—are mistreated by Boards of Education, parents, and students.

To begin, Scott-Coe notes society’s “schizophrenia of reverence and contempt” for teachers. On one hand, she explains, teachers are presumed to be “angels,” long-suffering nurturers and enablers of youth. On the other, they’re treated with contempt, disparaged as overpaid civil servants or lazy paper pushers. The real issues they face—in terms of educational policy, pedagogical proficiency, and their own personal and professional development—never see the light of day in these discussions.

Nowhere is this clearer than in an essay called "Recovering Teacher." In it, Scott-Coe painstakingly chronicles the decline, and then death, of her colleague Neil Webb. A scholar who began his career as a Latin and German instructor, Webb was arbitrarily reassigned to another discipline once the district gutted language programs in the late 1980s. Scott-Coe posits the shift as the administration’s way of emphasizing “the interchangeable nature of subject matter while also disrespecting his primary expertise.” Whatever the bureaucracy’s motivation, the end result was the same: Webb had no choice but to accept the transfer if he wanted to retain his job.

Still, after the shift ,Webb’s peers and students noticed his discernible decline: He lost weight and, always a heavy drinker, began coming to school drunk. When his driver’s license was suspended, they snickered, sidestepping conversations that might have addressed his out-of-control behavior. When he was finally terminated, people breathed a sign of relief, as if his firing was inevitable.

Somewhat later, his home burned down; not long afterwards he was found dead, alone in a seedy motel room. “I still wonder what might have happened if the school staff, as a community, had confronted Webb,” Scott-Coe writes. “We might have seen him as a struggling human being instead of scapegoating him as the problem employee, the exotic and tortured genius who would never fit in, or the pathetic colleague who made us feel less bad about our own problems.“

It’s a painful, if moving account.

Scott-Coe also writes of sexual tension in the classroom, and of the violent undercurrent noted by most of the teachers she worked with. That she and her colleagues had no forum to discuss these issues is absurd. Even more ridiculous, when legitimate questions were aired, administrators served up meaningless platitudes in lieu of practical advice. On top of this, Scott-Coe had to contend with preparing her students for a multitude of constantly-changing standardized tests and had to counsel them—with little-to-no prior training—for personal problems, from eating disorders, to cutting, to domestic abuse.

Small wonder that Teacher at Point Blank is angst-filled. A deeply personal and sad narrative, Scott-Coe lambastes the enormous commitment that is expected of teachers. It then begs the question: How can their stature be elevated while preparing them to cope more effectively with complex classroom and bureaucratic issues?

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, February 17th 2011

Pressure Cooker

brittany — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 02:00:00 +0000

Directed by Mark Becker, Jennifer Grausman

Participant Media

In Northeast Philadelphia’s Frankford High School, students swipe IDs to gain access to the cafeteria at lunchtime. They pass through metal detectors. Police greet them after school. Forty percent of their classmates will drop out before senior year. So why are Frankford students showing up at school in the wee hours of the morning to tournée potatoes while a teacher screams at them?

Students show up because teacher Wilma Stephenson demands their dedication to culinary arts training, and earns their respect with her expertise and her results. Stephenson’s forty years of teaching experience don’t lie. Although she’s volatile and often harsh, her culinary arts program regularly churns out champions—and with the titles, generous scholarships—in the annual Philadelphia high school culinary competition.

Pressure Cooker follows a handful of seniors—a football player, a cheerleader, and an African immigrant among them—in their training and personal challenges leading up to the culinary competition and scholarship banquet, presided over by expert chefs. These students straddle school, extra-curricular activities, and heartbreaking personal struggles with family obligations and culture clashes. All the while, Stephenson mentors them in the kitchen and increasingly, in their personal lives, even playing matchmaker for prom dates and taking the girls shopping for dresses.

By the time the culinary competitions arrive onscreen, the audience feels as invested in the results as the students, all while enjoying a Food Network-style foodie fix—beautiful presentation of fancy food. After the competition performances and the ensuing scholarship interviews, viewers are rooting more than ever for these kids who have worked so hard for a chance at culinary training or college.

Pressure Cooker makes viewers feel like they’re back in the hallways of high school, but in the best way possible. The jump cuts and percussive, marching-band-like music and football game and graduation scenes tap in to the energy and hopefulness of that time in life, but the directors contrast that feeling with the dark problems these kids have at home. The issues and kids are real-life, though these stories often go untold—African American and immigrant students dealing with urban class issues and race issues, trying to get ahead in a system that’s been unfair to them from the start. They’re lucky to have a high-achieving mentor to help them navigate the system. Kids all over the country would be better off if more people like Stephenson brought their skills back to their own struggling communities.

Written by: Hannah Moulton Belec, September 8th 2010

public school

Teacher at Point Blank: Confronting Sexuality, Violence, and Secrets in a Suburban School

Pressure Cooker