Sunday, February 08, 2004

Everything I need to know I learned from Michelle Pfeiffer.

I have gained this affinity for movies where beautiful celebrities enter classrooms and change the fates of entire schools. I don't remember caring one way or another about movies like "Dangerous Minds", "Lean on Me" and "Stand and Deliver". But now I watch them with a zeal I never would have imagined.

Tonight my roomate and I watched "Dangerous Minds", a movie where Michelle Pfeiffer comes into a terrible situation with out of control teens and in one semester bonds them like a family, gets a pregnant girl to stay in school, and teaches them all the meaning of life and death through Dylan Thomas' poetry. Ah, perhaps I like it so much because it is so realistic! No, that can't be it.

I guess I now watch these movies the same way real doctors must watch "E.R.". I look for obvious errors and feel superior when I find them.

"No way would all those kids talk one at a time like that!" I hollered indignantly during one scene.

"Yeah, as if a principal would fund all those kids to go to an amusement park." My roomate snorted cynically a few minutes later.

There is something comforting about watching Michelle Pfeiffer get pelted in the head with balls of paper, even though she gets to save the world a mere half and hour later. I did get a couple of good ideas from the movie, though.

Tomorrow I get to give my kids their practice end of the year test...yes, the fabulous high stakes testing game! I am excited and grateful that we have a practice so that I can find the weak spots in their learning. This will be helpful. I am also thankful for the full day of them testing so that I can do some planning for the week. I did none this weekend, but I socialized, which makes me a better and nicer teacher. ¶ 5:27 PM