Return to Article Details 'You Better Be for Real:' The Making of the Radical Educator in John N. Smith’s Dangerous Minds

The objective of this article is to map the figure of the teacher as radical in John N. Smith’s film Dangerous Minds (1995), through the lens of educational philosophy, centering on John Dewey and Ken Robinson’s theories. Dangerous Minds, a movie that best suits the purpose of my investigation of the teacher as radical, was inspired by Louanne Johnson’s autobiographical book, My Posse Don’t Do Homework, published in 1992. The director of Dangerous Minds, who also directed Happiness Is Loving Your Teacher (1977) earlier, exhibited an interest in representing the challenges involving educators and teachers in the context of the American educational system. In Dangerous Minds, Michelle Pfeiffer plays Miss Louanne Johnson, a former Marine, who decides to become a teacher, and with her background, she employs unorthodox methods to connect with and encourage her class of disadvantaged minority students, who do not value education and have little enthusiasm for learning. These students come from different minority communities such as African Americans and Latinx, who had rightfully formed a harsh outlook on life, as the result of the difficult conditions in which they were living. Even the idea of pursuing their dreams seems too far-fetched, as the soundtrack of the movie also shows in Coolio’s lines: “Too much television watchin’ got me chasin’ dreams” (Coolio 1995, 1:35’). They see no choice rather than being condemned to follow in the footsteps of most of their fellows until their newly assigned teacher, Miss Johnson, shocked by what she sees and experiences about these young, creative children, decides to change her teaching methods and incorporate eccentric approaches to spur their attention and provide a setting where learning can proceed naturally through meaningful situations in real-life contexts. Her role as a teacher is recreated as an agent rather than an instructor, as a radical rather than just a mere teacher, to assist rather than direct the learning process of her students.

As the movie goes on, a significant change in the youngsters’ outlook on life takes place, and those who formerly had no hope in life seemed to have acquired, with the help of their mentor, another mindset, being ready, and quite adamant in their purpose, to challenge their present to build their own future. Most reviews that are available on this movie focus on the issue of the book’s adaptation and there is scarcely any that discusses the role of the teacher in changing the lives of students. For example, according to Ashley Clark’s most recent review in The Guardian, the author of the aforementioned book, Louanne Johnson, used to employ rap song lyrics that were in harmony with the ethnic composition of the many minority groups that constituted her class rather than poetry (Clark 2015). Alongside Clark, Roger Ebert’s webpage also critiqued the poor choice of Bob Dylan for the book-to-movie adaptation because, in his opinion, the issues and frustrations of young people in 1965 were more relevant to Dylan’s poetry than they were in 1995. Additionally, the critic characterizes Miss Johnson’s tactics for inspiring kids in the movie as ‘bribery,’ her acts like giving out candy bars, going on a trip to an amusement park, and an invitation to a lavish supper, wondering what kind of an impact these actions will have on the future of the students in her class. (Ebert 1995). The majority of movie critics, however, seem to concur on one aspect of Miss Johnson, albeit they haven’t given it enough credit: her capacity to inspire and encourage her students. Hence, the following article will focus on the role of the teacher in changing the life course of their students through education.

Among those few reviews that focus on the role of the teacher is Aisha Harris’ article, which was among the first to identify Miss Johnson’s motivational performance as what sets the film apart from other films of the decade. Harris claims this to be the result of Miss Johnson adopting the job to assist students who had been rejected by the system and for this reason, her depiction had to be revolutionary (Harris 2015). In addition to Harris, Kevin MacManus praises Johnson in the Washington Post article for her capacity to touch her students’ hearts and minds. He also emphasizes the value of establishing a strong bond with her students and recalls the teacher’s compassionate deeds (for example, visiting her students’ homes to see what the reason behind their absence was) (McManus 1995). The issue of compassion has also been the primary point Edward Guthmann notes in his piece published in Metacritic, which he sees as an act that signifies the development of a strong bond of trust and affection, which has been disregarded in many reviews. As he states: “[T]eachers can and will make a difference in a person’s life” (Guthmann 1995), an observation that fits exactly Miss Johnson.

On the basis of reviews, it becomes apparent that there is little reference to the use of concepts and educational theories of renowned educators in the Anglo-Saxon world, including the American educational reformer John Dewey, known as the father of progressive education, a pedagogical movement originating in the ideas of English empiricist John Locke and the French political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Dewey expressed the sum of his educational philosophy in Experience and Education, published in 1938 but previously, in his Democracy and Education: Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (1916), he provided teachers with outstanding guidelines and principles that emphasize the student’s social and cognitive needs rather than putting tremendous pressure on them to retain knowledge that may or may not be pertinent for their life. In general, the education of children, or in other words, attention to the development of the person’s physical, emotional, and intellectual capacities, was one of the key goals of progressive education. A progressive education could be gained through what Dewey called the theory of ‘learning by doing.’ Based on this theory, which was adopted later on by acclaimed education reformers such as Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Helen Pankhurst, Rodolph Steiner, and Maria Montessori, among many others, schools had to be designed to function as experiential learning environments that promote active engagement of students. Accordingly, the comfortable classroom environment that Miss Johnson, in Dangerous Minds, created for her students to cultivate their potential, can be one of the main qualities of the movie that is aligned with Dewey’s concept of how schools even in our time have to operate to achieve successful progressive education. Miss Johnson’s ability to provide a proper climate in the classroom for the success of her education allowed students to build their self-esteem and self-belief to achieve social mobility through their day-to-day experiences. A further feature of Miss Johnson’s approach to education that is consistent with Dewey’s educational concepts is the application of the three main values, namely experience, interest, and growth, in her methods of instruction.

Experience is an important key concept in Dewey’s educational philosophy as he finds it both the means and goal of education overall. What he means by experience in Democracy and Education is simply the actual events in the life of an individual. Dewey elaborates on how students learn and develop as the result of their own experiences and interactions with the outside world by continuously creating new thoughts, ideas, habits, and understanding. Dewey here highlighted that experience is more than just activity; the worth of experience for him is when the person acting, experiences repercussions. For example, the action of a toddler poking her finger in the fire is not what Dewey calls experience, but it is revealed as experience when she feels the agony and pain, as the result of the action, which may prevent her from acting similarly in the future. Simply said, based on Dewey’s concept of experience, learning can happen when we reflect on the consequences of an experienced action, that is, what we do with or to things and what we like or hate from their effect, is the actual learning from experience (Dewey 1916, 124-5). Thus, effective teaching in Dewey’s opinion is when educators assist learners to provide meaning to an experience through the application of thought as their tool. For Dewey, “thinking” is the deliberate effort to find particular links between an action and its following consequence, therefore fusing the two. Identifying a problem, observing the environment, formulating and logically elaborating a suggested conclusion, and actively testing an idea are all the phases Dewey advises to be included in the process of “thinking” (Dewey 1916, 128-134). George Raymond Geiger, the author of Dewey in Perspective (1974), explains this process as "the reconstruction or organization of experience," another powerful illustration of experience as a ‘process’ or what Ken Robinson later called the “organic cycle.” The notion of the “reconstruction or organization of experience” indicates how the proper sequencing and structure of experiences can and do increase the learner’s ability to shape future experiences (Geiger 1958, 193-194). As a result, if education is to accomplish its purpose, the value of experience can be one of its pillars in achieving individual and then societal progress. Preparing the youth through the occasions and possibilities they encounter in the present time and supporting them in this process is more fitting than educating them on ‘what’ to think about a future that is yet unknown.

Another key concept in Dewey’s education philosophy is “interest,” which, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s definition is a “feeling that accompanies or causes special attention to something or someone.” In terms of the emotional connotation of the word (“feeling”) also demonstrates a degree of involvement. According to Dewey’s learning principles from Democracy and Education, motivation originates from any tendency or conduct that results in a goal compelling enough to motivate action. This is where the power of interest lies. Interest substitutes for the way things move in every encounter with a goal, whether genuine or imagined because it supports taking into consideration an individual’s particular capacities, requirements, and preferences. Since interests can be quite diverse, Dewey also adds that it is beneficial to recognize the shifting point of interest, at different stages in every individual, for their educational development (Dewey 1916, 117-18). For interest to be acknowledged, educators should be aware of the diversity in the classroom, as opposed to its conformity. Dewey believes that the fact that students are grouped according to their age in classes with a certain curriculum and the same teacher does not always indicate that they should be treated the same way, and provides a compelling reason for his stance: attitudes and approaches to learning and responding to instruction vary depending on the particular appeal the same material has on each individual, and this attraction itself differs depending on distinctions in natural ability, and previous experiences (Dewey 1916, 117). For this reason, students who are interested in what they are learning, pay more attention, process information more quickly, use better learning techniques, such as critical thinking, and pay attention to the deep structure rather than surface features. In other words, their thinking is effectively accelerated by their interest and thus they can become fully immersed in the task at hand (this psychological process was later called “flow” by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi) by putting more of their analytical skills to use by working harder and persevering longer.

The third essential concept of Dewey in Democracy and Education was that of growth. Dewey believed that education should be in harmony with the process of growth, so he claims that if life is to be equated to development and growth, then life equals education. Such a conclusion allows him to form a different, yet sophisticated perspective on the significance of students’ immaturity. He argues that the term "immature" should not be understood negatively but rather as a developmental state in which students may be given the capacity and strength to grow and develop their abilities and potentials through the intuitive tentative reactions that they are naturally equipped with (Dewey 1916, 41-44). In simple terms, the state of immaturity is the foundation for ensuring development through social nurturing, and eventually development through education. Later on, Ken Robinson, one of the most well-known keynote speakers on education innovation in the world, dismissed the concept of education as a mechanical process, and similar to Dewey argued that the conditions under which human flourishing can take place must be designed and understood as an organic cycle. Like “farmers” for the farm, Robinson claimed, educators should provide proper circumstances for students to thrive (Robinson, 2017, 0:42’). To contextualize this idea, in line with Dewey’s educational philosophy, if educators see students’ capacity for adaptation as a critical component of their development, they will take measures to make the most of the changes in the environment to ensure their growth rather than relying on ready-made situations (Dewey 1916, 44). It seems that Dewey and Robinson have one word in common when characterizing the educator’s main role, and that would be “to facilitate.” Given that they both viewed learning as an organic cycle, the true accomplishment of educators would be to spark students’ curiosity to make them more receptive towards learning, to engage them rather than to repel them. For this reason alone, Robinson regarded teaching as one of the most creative professions. There are many connections between Dewey’s core principles of experience, growth, and interest and those of Robinson. First, Dewey’s idea of reflecting on experiences is what Robinson believes the main function of any classroom should be: the ability to explore interests through individuality rather than conformity. Second, what Dewey means by interest as motivation can be seen as the condition that fuels one’s passion based on Robinson’s views. And last but not least, growth can be in line with Robinson’s concept of a state that promotes human capacity and its full range of abilities.

The combination of Dewey’s main concepts and those of Robinson will help me further on in portraying the evolution of the radical as an educator in Dangerous Minds. At the very beginning of the movie, it becomes clear that the students’ lack of trust in Miss Johnson is the primary factor contributing to their resistance to learning. The trust gap can be observed in one of the scenes containing the following dialogue:

Student: “[W]hy do you care anyway? You just here for the money.”
Miss Johnson: “Because I make a choice to care. And, honey, the money ain’t that good.” (Smith 1995, 49:12’)

Earning the trust of the students is often a factor that is overlooked by many educators. Unfortunately, many teachers fail in doing so despite numerous attempts. However, the attitude of the ones who do succeed is blatantly evident in how they set up and run the classroom and also how they interact with their students. For instance, Miss Johnson took a chance and put her trust in her students by giving them an A right at the beginning of the year, ensuring them that they too are like an “inductee with a clean record.” This is how she explains the grade and her trust put in advance:

Miss Johnson: “So if you wanna pass, all you have to do is try, because at this point, everyone has an A, but it’s up to you to keep it.” (Smith 1995, 17:56’)

Miss Johnson’s moral compass and her compassion enables her to recognize the absence of trust, and empowers her to act first. Being kind and caring is one of the traits that makes a teacher memorable. Students frequently recall professors who were kind, intelligent, and enthusiastic about teaching. They remember mostly the ones who were helpful, who guided them intellectually, and who provided challenges for them in their educational experience. Or maybe even more significantly, those who supported and guided them as they worked through their own issues. It is quite palpable that the first and main characteristic feature of educators who can ignite radical changes in their students’ mindsets is the ability to be compassionate, a quality that serves as the cornerstone for Miss Johnson’s attitude in establishing a strong trusting bond with her students.

Nel Noddings, the American feminist, philosopher and educator, was motivated by her own school experience and placed the ethics of care at the heart of her education. Nodding’s educational principles, as exposed by Mark K. Smith’s article published on infed, were a true resource for community education since Noddings’ early encounters with her brilliant teachers served as a strong source of motivation. According to Smith, Nodding’s definition of care is a form of relationship in which the carer and the cared-for are both actively involved. Although Smith has made it obvious that there is no set formula for caring, he did claim that Noddings’ theory can offer a framework for explanation. Firstly, her belief that genuine attention to the cared-for and openness to hearing and comprehending the other, mark the beginning of caring (Smith 2004, 2020). For a better illustration, "caring" is the quality that refers to educators’ deliberate pursuit of specific goals for their students and their constant commitment to strongly influence them in achieving those goals. Secondly, Noddings contends that because the term "care" alludes to a connection between two parties, "the relationship" between the students and the teachers should also be considered. This is why she places a greater emphasis on the value of hearing what students have to say, if they truly believe teachers care about them—as many of them do not or do not always. She goes on by explaining that the reason many students claim “nobody cares” is because connections between them and teachers did not grow to a certain stage for it to indicate the claimed degree of caring (Noddings 2005). Noddings’ explanation here displays the lack of a vital and radical component in the classroom: the absence of students’ voices. And a teacher that gives voice to students is by essence radical. It is exactly during this critical phase in the teacher-student relationship that educators should sharpen their listening skills. Instead of spending a lot of time contemplating how to increase students’ learning or how to make the lesson plan more successful, teachers may better build a rigorous curriculum that is in line with students’ interests and needs by just listening to what students have to say. In this context thus, Miss Johnson is indeed a type of Nel Noddings teacher, that is, a radical educator.

Dewey identifies the root cause of educators’ inability to engage in active listening as their preoccupation with their own problems and issues, which prevents them from being aware to express care for their students’ challenges. As a result, students will also use their social responsiveness for self-gain, leading teachers to feel that students lack a sense of social responsibility and have become selfish. Through recognizing such unhealthy patterns of conduct and their detrimental effect on the teacher-student relationship, Dewey emphasized the importance of active listening in building a nourishing climate for students to learn (Dewey 1916, 43). When educators listen to learners and express genuine interest in what they have to say, and engage with them in conversations, they will be able to discover the needs students have and cultivate their curiosity. Subsequently, learning about the learners’ desires, Dewey writes, will also help educators recognize how much more than the authorized curriculum is required. By establishing care and improving active listening, educators will not only take one step closer to developing a trust-based relationship but will provide the conditions under which students grow the basis of their self-confidence and their capacity to obtain knowledge. Similar to Dewey, Robinson also claims that ensuring a secure atmosphere will also maximize students’ creativity because when they feel they are valued and encouraged to explore their talents, they also take more risks and are not reticent to even make errors from which they learn most. He continues by explaining that students can only come up with a novel idea if they are given the freedom to make mistakes. By doing so, they will learn how to turn their mistakes into opportunities, and these changes will equip them with the knowledge necessary to appreciate the value of their experiences (Robinson 2006, 27:29’).

The value of small acts of compassion leading to useful learning events is best represented through a scene from Dangerous Minds, where Miss Johnson earned the trust of one of her students. While Raul, her Latinx student was wrongfully arrested for a fight that was not his fault, she listened to his concerns and realized how such conflicts that arise from gang violence can negatively affect students’ relationships with their parents which will later resurface in some form in the classroom. Later on the same day, she decides to visit Raul’s home to restore his dignity in front of his parents. When she arrives in their home, she tells Raul’s parents that:

Miss Johnson: “I’m here because I just wanted to tell you both personally what a pleasure it’s been having Raul in my class this semester, you must be very proud.” (Smith 1995, 44:20’).

Raul’s smiling eyes in this moment speak for themselves. Not only had he not anticipated such a gesture of support from his teacher, but he also had never experienced this level of attention and care from a teacher in his life before. And right after this event, despite his poor reading skills, Raul started volunteering the next day to read parts of the assigned poem in the classroom. This simple turnover in Raul’s attitude verifies Noddings’ philosophy of care, where the carer and the cared-for engage in active participation forming a healthy, trust-based relationship. The following line from the soundtrack of Dangerous Minds eloquently echoes students’ desperate cry for help and inevitably vocalizes the absence of compassion in their relationship with their teachers, making the movie’s music an advocate form of progressive education:

"They say I gotta learn,
but nobody’s here to teach me
If they can’t understand it,
how can they reach me? "(Coolio in Smith 1995, 2:49’)

The second distinctive quality that defines radical educators is their capacity to stimulate students’ interest to keep them motivated in a learning environment. When Dewey coined the term interest as a key concept in his educational philosophy, he believed that a student’s emotional response always serves as the first step in learning and motivates further inquiry. This explains why he favors dramatic, compelling unifying, or transformative aesthetic experiences that make pupils feel alive and immersed. On this account, he specifically emphasized using real-life contexts and problems as educative experiences. In other words, every experience has a driving force according to Dewey, and the value of that force can only be determined by what it leads up to and becomes. Based on his educational theories, circumstances that can spark students’ curiosity and boost their ambition can and do create an intense enough drive and goal to let them explore a certain experience (Dewey 1938, 33-40). The force that Dewey referred to as "a trigger" to an emotional response, is the same potent force Robinson expresses that excites students’ imagination and curiosity (Robinson 2013, 9:23’). What Robinson states in his 2013 TED Talk emphasizes an undeniable truth: since students are the ones learning, educators need to stimulate their curiosity as well as their individuality, imagination, and enthusiasm to foster learning. To Robinson and Dewey, it is crucial to provide concepts, activities, and occasions that spark students’ innate curiosity which will create a connection between their life experiences as Dewey would say, and what they are being taught (Robinson, 2013, 10:47’).

To illustrate the Deweyan and Robinsonian concept of interest in Dangerous Minds, I will in the following show Miss Johnson’s ability to maintain her students’ interest, which is essentially the consequence of her continual implementation of novel ideas in the classroom. Her portrayal unravels also her skills as the radical educator. Being a former marine, Miss Johnson assumed she could utilize her karate skills and demonstrate the techniques as basic survival skills in the classroom. She discussed the mentality needed to develop these abilities and even demonstrated a few moves with the aid of a couple of her students in the classroom. As a consequence, she had their full attention. The next day, seeing how students are still excited about their karate lesson, Miss Johnson decides to use their enthusiasm to get back to the school’s curriculum. The objective of the lesson was to teach them verb conjugation and the exercise was "We . . . . . . green beans for dinner" (Smith 1995, 19:51’). As soon as she writes the sentence with the gaps on the board, the students drift off again, going about their own business in the classroom. She observes them for a few seconds, and modifies the sentence on the spot changing it to "I want to die" (Smith 1995, 20:20’). The unconventional example she puts on the board, similar to how John Keating captures the attention of his students at Welton Academy in Peter Weir’s 1989 film, Dead Poets Society, significantly alters the course of events, since one at a time the students look at the board, stunned by the example that was put there. Miss Johnson, however, glad that she could get their attention, continues by inquiring about the veracity of the statement. Although such a line is thought to be a disturbing example for teens at a school, this sentence seems to have caught the state of mind and even the reality these troubled teenagers were experiencing every day. This example of a sentence caused them to experience an emotional reaction that leads to a series of conversations in the classroom. Miss Johnson goes on and replaces the word "die" with "choose" and asks once again what type of "powerful" verbs will make this phrase real. She thus tries to shift the exercise toward the curriculum’s goal, yet keeping it in a context that students can and want to relate to. By using such disturbing examples and connecting the terms of death with choice, she was able to teach them not only how to use verbs to make sentences but also to inspire them to consider the potential and power of their everyday language. By simply opening their eyes to the idea of "choice," Miss Johnson was astounded by their intellectual abilities to form ideas and thoughts around this term. One of such realizations comes from Callie, who has her own explanation, when saying that choice is “the difference between owning your life and being afraid, saying ‘I choose’ no matter what” (Smith 1995, 21:48’). At first, hearing Callie’s words, Miss Johnson assumes that they could have formed these concepts during their courses at school, but later she discovers that the love tale My Darling, My Hamburger, a book included in the curriculum, could have not led to such patterns of thought. In an epiphanic moment, Miss Johnson adapted the curriculum to her students’ needs and chose Bob Dylan’s poetry instead of the previous text—similar to when Mr. Keating in the above-mentioned Dead Poets Society advised students to rip off the introduction to their poetry book—to help them explore the power of choice in the struggle of their own life. In this situation also, Miss Johnson was also acting as a radical teacher with her attitude being radical in relation with older, less working patterns of teaching—and with canonical texts as well.

The figure of the radical educator can also be found in Dewey’s conception of the school. Geiger, similarly claims that the function of schools should be as social institutions that serve the community and quotes Dewey, who says that schools should not be isolated from but being part of a continuing cultural process. Moreover, Geiger believes that education, in its most general sense, is the medium by which this social continuity of life is maintained (Geiger 1958, 190). On this basis, these social settings can act as the milestones for the development of students’ social awareness through exposure to situations that enhance specific results. This is exactly the case of Miss Johnson’s school in Dangerous Minds. With the successful objective of choosing the best material for her students’ exclusive use, Miss Johnson created a unique task called the “Dylan-Dylan” contest, the aim of which was to find a poem by Dylan Thomas that conveys the same meaning as Bob Dylan’s poem did. This search let to the following discussion in the class, mirroring a literary-vernacular, Dylan Thomas-Bob Dylan textual dialogue between students who, finally see the difference and the beauty of the two texts put one next to the other in a new context, in a new light, in a new understanding:

"Callie: [O]kay listen to this. Do not go gentle into that good night. Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Raul: Where’s the code? Where’s the death?
Callie: Night. All that stuff about the night. That’s death.
Durrell: When he says, do not go gentle, that’s like sayin’ don’t go easy, so it’s the same as I will not go down." (Smith 1995, 55:22’)

Dangerous Minds deftly traces the path in the evolution of Miss Johnson as radical educator. By allowing students to express their thoughts and concerns freely, she was able to arouse their sense of observation, and recollection of the events taking place around them. The opportunity to challenge each other’s ideas, and to participate in shared activities while discussing poetry related to their real life, helped them discover a purpose that allowed them to escape the constraints of the society they were born into by expanding their capabilities. This movie is a telling example of how an educator, in a given cultural context and age, can overcome societal and educational limitations and, by becoming a radical teacher, bring changes in the smaller community of people she teaches. A radical teacher has radical students, who then can pass on this stance to their students…

What remains to be discovered in the face of the looming challenges of the 21st century, is the role of the radical educator in the world today. In his TED Talk “Bring on the Learning Revolution,” Robinson claims that the modern world as we speak is dealing with a new crisis called the “human resource crisis” and that it is just as serious, has the same root cause, and requires the same level of attention as the other imminent problem, the climate crisis. Robinson says that the problem arises from the inability to reawaken the human resources that lay dormant deep within each student waiting to be explored (Robinson 2015,1:59’). One may assume the emergence of newer waves of radical educators in this context. And despite the word’s negative associations, radicalism has a positive history in America since radicals were always a liability to social movements. In fact, radicals were the ones who planted the seeds for two of the most significant social revolutions in the United States: racial justice and the workers’ rights. Needless to say, the rise of radicals in education is also not something new. There have been times when there were significant social upheavals and changes, like the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s when ethnic, racial and gender minorities alongside anti-war protestors challenged the status quo of the American society. The question should now be what constitutes a radical teacher in the contemporary era? Is it their capacity to see the urgent need to adapt to a constantly changing environment because they are mindful of how quickly the level of consciousness of the young is changing? Or is it how they view this rapid shift as a chance to develop innovative solutions that will encourage effective communication and provide a framework that will allow students to think critically about the challenges they encounter? As all indications point out, waves of radicalism have always been the sole means of making decisive breaks, therefore, radicals again, are to be the ones who are capable of navigating the new challenges of the modern era. Now would be the ideal time for educators to join the radicals in education, raise their adaptability, act, create an uproar, and contribute to the solution to the human resource crisis the world is facing today. And, for that matter, for more films, such as Dangerous Minds, to show this.

 

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