I heart "The Class."

Finally. An honest film about education.

I loved the French film "The Class." The teacher works in a Paris suburb, with high school students with the usual inner city baggage: poverty, racism, and oppression. Unlike that Michelle Pfeiffer movie, the teacher doesn't bribe his students to listen to Bob Dylan, nor create miracles. He's a flawed, but essentially good teacher and human being. In short, he's a teacher, warts and all.

During my first year of teaching, I so desperately wanted to be THAT TEACHER. I would be that force of nature, which inspires kids to want to learn, write poetry, and save the world. I still aspire to those goals -- but with a grain of salt.

Society expects so much from teachers, without understanding that this is a seriously hard job. There is a dirty little secret: we can't do it alone. I met a Swiss man who said that if schools are failing, his fellow citizens don't just dump on the teachers. They look at themselves, and society. In other words, they take ownership of how the schools are run, and wisely conclude that schools are the responsibility of everybody. While I don't agree with everything Obama, it will be very interesting to see how the school funding aspect of his new stimulus package plays out.