Classroom Creativity: Pedagogical Adaptability in Film

Abstract

A pair of remarkable cinematic teachers illuminates how adaptability can be central to success in the classroom. Katherine Watson (in “Mona Lisa Smile”) and Mark Thackeray (in “To Sir, With Love”) are able to win over skeptical students because they possess an array of virtues, ranging from openness and responsiveness to humility and courage. These virtues enable Watson and Thackeray to improvise entirely new curricula once they realize that their original pedagogical plans are sill-suited to these particular pupils. The result is that although they teach radically different kinds of students, both groups learn to think for themselves.