Starring: Nick Nolte: Social Studies Teacher at JFK High School
Jo Beth Williams: Lawyer, from the firm suing JFK High School for passing a student who can't read or write. It's amazing that hasn't happened in Ontario. In Ontario we call it social advancement in elementary school. Officially it doesn't happen in High School but I have my doubts. Scores on Literacy tests hover around the 70% pass rate in Ontario at both levels. Shame the teachers won't give up prep time to give some extra remedial literacy to needy students. That's one of their sacred cows.
Richard Mulligan: One of the large cast of oddballs who make this movie both hilarious and sad, Mulligan was also known for his starring role in the 1970's 80's comedy SOAP with Billy Crystal
Judd Hirsch of TAXI fame plays the Vice-Principal and Nolte's best friend until Nolte's decide's to spill the truth at the legal hearing.
Nick Nolte in Teachers - 1985
Hirsch's character gave up teaching a long time ago. He does what most administrators do in schools. They bark at the teachers who actually work with kids and hide in their offices like the guy who plays the principal in the teacher.
If you wonder how I know, these things, I did my homework. I live in a Province where elementary teachers are fighting tooth and nail to get all the prep time and other perks of hgh school teachers and they will strike if they have to. Because you know, it's all about the kids, just like in the movie ..............or is it. Rent the DVD and find out.
TEACHERS was shot in 1985 but it was clearly ahead of its time with its biting sarcasm of a school filled with violence, decling academics and a gym teacher who had inappropriate relationships with students. He is told that "Teamwork doesn't mean making your own team"
The big conflict of the movie is the lawsuit brought against the high school by a student who can't read or write but graduated with a diploma anyway. He is now suing the school.
The cast of characters who actually teach the kids are actually crazier and more unruly than the kids themselves. The movie alternates between the sarcastic wit that each teacher and some students possess and the sad realities of the lives of many students.
This is an old movie but one that was done very well. If you are a teacher or if you ever were a student you will find yourself in one of the characters.
Four buckets of popcorn out of five and it does Pass the Ontario Provincial Literacy Test for Movies that Actually Teach Something while Entertaining the Audience.
