Education: Video Resources

Michelle Pfeiffer is excellent as real-life former marine Louanne Johnson. Teaching English in a tough inner-city school, she reaches the "unteachable" through caring and understanding. Very true-to-life, Dangerous Minds does not fall into sentimentality but instead teaches us of the importance of making our own choices and not allowing circumstances to rule us.

Robin Williams gives an awesome performance as an unconventional English teacher in a very conventional (read conservative) private school. His love of poetry and his inspiring teaching methods have a great impact on his students. The central message of the movie, to live life to the fullest everyday, is not lost. Further, Williams' poetry recitations are awe-inspiring.

Frank Bryant is a professor of literature. And Rita is his newest student. A hairdresser who thinks Macbeth runs the local pub. And Hamlet is a plate of eggs with cheese. He's a failed writer who has given up on his life. She's determined to change hers by getting an education. And the more she loves to learn. The more he learns how to love.

A true story about a teacher in a racially divided school who gives her students what they've always needed, a voice. Erin Gruwell comes to a southern California high school bubbling over with naive optimism. She quickly discovers that her unruly classroom is not easily won over by her good intentions. After a few floundering attempts to connect with her students, Gruwell gives them the assignment of keeping journals about their own lives, This assignment is something that the class can bite into with relish. This eventually bonds them together and pushes racial rivalries aside. Draws heavily from the published journals of the real students themselves.

A shy British school master named Mr. Chipping devotes his life to teaching "his boys" after the death of his lovely, energetic American wife Katherine. Told via flashbacks, the film features an aged Mr. Chipping looking back nostalgically at his long career, taking note of the people who've touched his life over the years.

While not normally thought of as a 'classroom' movie, The Karate Kid has much to say to teachers: Sometimes we have to have our students do things that they will not understand until much later; Basic skills are most important; Honor and integrity are central to character; Students need to see us beam with excitement over their achievements. A fun, nostalgic and inspiring movie to relish.

Rocky director John Avildsen championed the briefly famous New Jersey high school principal Joe Clark in this upbeat 1989 drama. Morgan Freeman plays the tough-love educator who wields a baseball bat and bullhorn to keep discipline in his hallways and to motivate underachieving students to keep their acts together. After establishing Clark's controversial methods and showing him giving some punks the boot, Avildsen relies on the usual school-drama clichés to fill out the rest of the movie, including a challenge to Clark's philosophy from timid authorities. Freeman makes a strong impact as Clark, his dignity and integrity a sometimes awesome thing. Avildsen, however, is going for a Rocky-esque emotional crescendo.

The ultimate teaching miracle, Anne Bancroft is awesome as Annie Sullivan who uses 'tough love' to get through to the deaf and blind Helen Keller played by Patty Duke. Very few people can watch the famous 'water' scene without experiencing a feeling of triumph and relief. Excellent portrayal of the importance of perseverence.

Set in 1953, Katherine Watson is a free-spirited graduate of UCLA who accepts a teaching post at Wellesley College, a women-only school where the students are torn between the repressive mores of the time and their longing for intellectual freedom.

This memorable movie gives all teachers hope that they truly have an impact on their students. Richard Dreyfuss is wonderful as a musician/composer who must take a teaching job to support his family. In the end, Dreyfuss' character realizes that he has had as much if not more of an impact from his teaching as he would have as a composer.

This film shows the influence that one person's drive and vision can have on others. Meryl Streep plays real-life Roberta Guaspari who moves to Harlem as a single-mother and becomes a violin teacher. Working through racial and other barriers, Roberta creates an acclaimed music program in an area where many would have said it was impossible.

Danny Devito's performance as a teacher of the 'Double-D's' is both humorous and inspired. What appears to be a light-hearted comedy truly has a deeper meaning. Devito's character proves that William Shakespeare still has much to teach students. Surprisingly clean and somewhat corny at times, Renaissance Man in the end teaches important life lessons on responsibility and character.

Based on a true story, this inspiring American Playhouse production stars Edward James Olmos as a high school teacher who motivated a class full of East L.A. barrio kids to care enough about mathematics to pass an Advanced Placement Calculus Test. Not exactly a variation of To Sir, With Love, the film concerns itself with assumptions and biases held by mainstream authorities about disadvantaged kids, and Olmos's efforts to keep his students coolheaded enough to prove them wrong.

Based on a true story, the movie tells of the struggle of a dance teacher, Pierre Dulain (Antonio Banderas), to give to a group of problem kids a second chance by exploring their dance skills. Dulain volunteers to teach dance in the New York public school system. While his background first clashes with his students' tastes, together they create a completely new style of dance. Despite criticism from students in his formal dance academy as well as from parents and fellow teachers who believe that the kids need more math and less dance, Dulain catches the students' attention with a tango session. After their initial indifference, they eventually compete in a dance contest.

Produced in 1967, this film with Sidney Poitier as a novice teacher has a lot to teach us today. Poitier takes a teaching position in the rough part of London in order to pay his bills. Realizing that his students need to be taught important life lessons more than the curriculum he has been handed to teach them, he throws out the lesson plans and makes a real impact on their personal lives.

Dealing with the challenges of secondary school students with disabilites.

Presents proven and effective strategies and accommodations to help students with ADHD, learning disabilities and other related disorders become successful in classroom settings.

Learn how a variety of assistive technology devices can be used to address one or more of the following disability areas: auditory/language processing, grapho-motor/writing, and reading and enable students to function more effectively.

Autism is one of the fastest growing disabilities that affect children in many different and unique ways. Many teachers have not been taught about autism and what special care may be needed to help children with this disability. This program is designed by teachers and parents with autistic children and autistic children in their facilities and features a short interview with Dr. Bernard Rimland, Founder of the Autism Research Institute, author and noted expert on autism. Dr. Rimland was the technical director of the movie "Rainman" featuring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise.

In 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jane Elliott, a public school teacher in Riceville, Iowa, divided her all-white third-graders into blue-eyed and brown-eyed groups for a lesson in discrimination. On successive days, each group was treated as inferior and subjected to discrimination. A 1970 documentary, Eye of the storm, presented this experiment on television. This documentary reunites the teacher and students 15 years after the experiment to analyze its enduring effects.

Many youngsters with Dyslexia do not know they have Dyslexia or may not have been diagnosed as Dyslexic. Gerard Sagmiller is "the" expert on Dyslexia. He has been living with Dyslexia for most of his life. He is an author and speaks regularly to schools, universities and many other venues on Dyslexia. This program will provide a greater insight for teachers to learn how best to work with and educate people who have Dyslexia.

First step in the IEP process, this DVD facilitates collaboration between professionals and parents as they help young children make the critical transition from early intervention to preschool. Guiding parents and training new and future practitioners, this resource answers common questions and concerns about IEPs, gives viewers an accurate picture of the process, and promotes dialogue between families and professionals.

Teachers will be able to plan meaningful instruction by structuring lessons effectively, by grouping students according to learning goals, and by using effective strategies to increase student achievement

Teachers are designing some outstanding and challenging technology-rich learning experiences for students. Some of those spotlighted are World Traveler, and Age of Exploration and Discovery.

Amidst a gloomy climate of failing schools and the stringent No Child Left Behind legislation, some communities have created a small revolution, achieving gains with children others had given up on--with implications for schools nationwide. In this penetrating documentary, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith travels from inner city to rural town to observe how some districts and reform models are making a difference: the Success for All reading program; the Comer Process; KIPP, the Knowledge Is Power Program; and High Schools That Work, a program that links academics to work-oriented learning. The video also spotlights important district-wide reforms in New York City, San Diego, and Charlotte, North Carolina. The lesson? Learn from schools that work, spread their methods widely, and keep updating them for continuous improvement in student achievement. Interviews with Yale's James Comer, Johns Hopkins' Robert Slavin, and reformers Gene Bottoms and Anthony Alvarado, among others, help frame this cogent report.

"Addresses the importance of teachers making the linkage between the informal and the formal assessment of young children."

Describes successful lesson planning as a combination of scheduling, conceptual organization and practical implementation. Shows how to use assessments to design instructions, how to weave together many different sources in planning instruction, and how to activate prior knowledge.

"Testing Mrs. Grube and A Different Standard pose the same urgent question from radically different perspectives: is the national standards movement in education and its main component, high-stakes standardized testing, negatively impacting public schools, administrators, teachers, and children?" -- container.

At the center of this intimate and touching story is Georges Lopez - a remarkably devoted teacher responsible for nurturing a dozen children ages 3-11 in all their school subjects and life's lessons. Demonstrates how a teacher, if well trained, dedicated and sensitive to a child's educational and emotional needs, can hugely influence a generation of children at their most critical time of development.

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education that the concept of "separate but equal" school segregation was unconstitutional. Director Peter Gilbert explores the history and legacy of the legal decision.