[] Akeelah and the Bee [] Eleven year-old Akeelah Anderson's life is not easy: her father is dead, her mom ignores her, her brother runs with the local gangbangers. She is a smart girl, but her environment threatens to strangle her aspirations. Responding to a threat by her school's principal, Akeelah decides to participate in a spelling bee to avoid detention for her many absences. Much to her surprise and embarrassment, she wins. Her principal asks her to seek coaching from Dr. Larabee, an English professor, for the more prestigious regional bee. As the possibility of making it all the way to the Scripps National Spelling Bee looms, Akeelah could provide her community with someone to rally around and be proud of. First Akeelah have to overcome her insecurities, her distracting home life, and the knowledge that there is a field of more experienced and privileged fellow spellers. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Bad Teacher [] Elizabeth is a foul-mouthed, ruthless junior high teacher who can't wait to marry her meal ticket and get out of her bogus day job. When she's dumped by her fiance, she begins to woo a rich, handsome substitute. Competing for his affections is overly energetic colleague Amy. Elizabeth also finds herself fighting off the advances of a sarcastic gym teacher. The consequences of her outrageous schemes give her students, her coworkers, and herself an education like no other. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Blackboard Jungle [] Urban drama about an idealistic teacher in a slum area who fights doggedly to connect with his unruly students. Based on Evan Hunter's novel. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Boys Town [] Story of Father Flanagan and his founding of Boys Town, a home for juvenile delinquents. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Browning Version [] Story of a student who inspires his brilliant yet beleaguered and unappreciated teacher. The brilliant but stern classics instructor at a posh prep school is forced out of his job and into the realization that he is despised in the classroom and at home. One student's act of kindness gives the proud academic the inspiration and courage to build his new life. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Chorus, The [] Unemployed music teacher Clement Mathieu becomes the supervisor at a boarding school for the rehabilitation of minors. Dismayed by the repressive administration, he works to positively transform the students' lives through music. In French with English subtitles. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Class, The [] François and his fellow teachers prepare for a new year at a high school in a tough neighborhood. Armed with the best intentions, they brace themselves to not let discouragement stop them from trying to give the best education to their students. Cultures and attitudes often clash in the classroom, a microcosm of contemporary France. As amusing and inspiring as the teenaged students can be, their difficult behavior can still jeopardize any teacher's enthusiasm for the low-paying job. François insists on an atmosphere of respect and diligence. Neither stuffy nor severe, his extravagant frankness often takes the students by surprise. But his classroom ethics are put to the test when his students begin to challenge his methods. In French with English subtitles. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Dead Poets Society [] English professor John Keating inspires his students to a love of poetry and to seize the day. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Election [] A high school teacher's personal life becomes complicated as he works with students during the school elections. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Emperor's Club, The [] When a new student starts in Professor Hundert's class, little does the professor know that this student will change his life forever. They start out butting heads and end up forming a friendship that will shake the controlled world of the professor. The lessons learned will last a lifetime. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Finding Forrester [] Jamal Wallace is a talented young basketball player in New York City whose secret passion is writing. After an accidental meeting, Forrester, a reclusive novelist, becomes Jama's unlikely mentor. Soon, both men learn lessons from each other about life and the importance of friendship. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Freedom Writers [] 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. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Goodbye Mr. Chips [] 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. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Great Debaters, The [] Melvin B. Tolson is a professor at Wiley College in Texas. Wiley is a small African-American college. In 1935, Tolson inspired students to form the school's first debate team. Tolson turns a group of underdog students into a historically elite debate team which goes on to challenge Harvard in the national championship. Inspired by a true story. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Half Nelson [] A high school teacher with a drug habit finds a friendship in an unlikely source - one of his troubled students. Will their relationship help them or harm them? [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Hamlet 2 [] When his Tucson, AZ school's theater department is threatened to be cut, failed-actor-turned-high-school-drama-teacher Dana Marschz writes a play that he hopes will solve everything. He decides to write a sequel to Shakespeare's Hamlet. Now, the drama department will stage one of the most politically incorrect musical extravaganzas ever seen. Dana and his class will put it all on the line for a night of conflict and controversial. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] History Boys, The [] Centers around eight boisterous-yet-talented schoolboys hoping to gain admittance to England's most prestigious universities. They are aided on their quest by two teachers, a shrewd young upstart and an inspiring old eccentric, whose opposing philosophies challenge the boys to confront the true meaning of education and the relative values of happiness and success. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Karate Kid, The [] Daniel, a fatherless teenager, arrives in Los Angeles from the East and faces the difficult task of making friends. He becomes the object of bullying by a gang of karate students when he strikes up a relationship with Ali, the gang leader's ex-girlfriend. Daniel asks Miyagi, a master of martial arts, to help him learn karate. Daniel then prepares himself both mentally and physically for the fight of his life. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Lean on Me [] This is the fact-based story of high school principal Joe Clark, who armed himself with a bullhorn and a Louisville Slugger and slammed the door on losers at Eastside High in Paterson, New Jersey. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Man Without a Face, The [] A man with a badly scarred face is hired to help a boy pass his military school entrance exam. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Miracle Worker, The [] A dramatization of the story about the struggle of a Boston teacher, Annie Sullivan, to communicate with and teach the deaf, blind, and mute child, Helen Keller. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Mona Lisa Smile [] 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 film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Mr. Holland's Opus [] A frustrated composer comes to realize that his real passion is teaching and that his legacy is not a truly memorable piece of music, but the generations of young people whose lives he affects. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Music of the Heart [] A single mother with little more than talent and the determination to make a difference teaches violin to students in a tough inner-city neighborhood. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] October Sky [] True story of a young boy growing up in Coalwood, West Virginia during the 1950's who dreams of building rockets. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Paper Chase [] A moving story of a first-year Harvard Law School student who comes to terms with his dreams in America's most competitive school. Hart finds he must survive much more than the pressures, all-night cramming and insecurities he expected. He becomes fearful of a brilliant professor, who terrorizes some, inspires others and who easily seperates the men from the boys. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Pay It Forward [] When a young man starts "paying it forward" for a social studies project, unusual things happen in this bittersweet and uplifting tale. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Precious [] In 1987, obese, illiterate, black 16-year-old Claireece 'Precious' Jones lives in Harlem with her dysfunctional family. She has been raped and impregnated twice by her father, Carl. She suffers constant physical, mental and sexual abuse from her unemployed mother, Mary. After getting pregnant for the second time, Precious is suspended from her school. Her principal arranges to have her attend an alternative school where her new teacher, Ms. Rain, helps Precious learn to read and she responds to this glimmer of hope. Precious also meets Mrs. Weiss, a social worker, and discovers the abuse and incest that Precious has had to endure. Her father dies of AIDS and Precious learns that she is now HIV-positive. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Prime of Miss Jean Brodie [] A teacher in a 1920's Scottish girls' school captivates her students with her fascist ideals and free-thinking attitude. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Ron Clark Story [] This drama is based on events in the life of Ron Clark, a passionate and innovative teacher who left his small town to teach in one of Harlem's toughest schools. Clark uses persistence and unconventional methods to reach his students and encourage them to reach their full potential. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] School of Rock [] When his band votes him out due to his embarrasing musical antics, Dewey has to make the rent somehow. After intercepting a call for his substitute-teacher roomie Ned, Dewey finds himself in front of a class of elite elementary school students. Dewey decides to take on the music program and makes it his goal to teach them the gospel of rock and roll. His ulterior motive is to get them to compete against his former band for a cash prize. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit [] Whoopi Goldberg returns as the lounge singer who goes undercover as a nun to help an ailing inner-city school. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Stand and Deliver [] Story of Jaime Escalante, a math teacher at East Los Angeles' Garfield High School, who refuses to write off his inner-city students as losers. Escalante pushes and inspires 18 students who were struggling with math to become math whizzes. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Summer School [] Schools out and Ocean Front High gym teacher Freddy has big plans: summer in Hawaii. But the school's vice-principal is going to have Freddy teach remedial English. The laid-back teacher has a class full of misfits. The no-nonsense history professor down the hall is keeping an eye on all the shenanigans. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] Take the Lead [] Pierre Dulane is a former professional ballroom dancer who volunteers to teach dance in the New York public school system. At first his background clashes with his students' tastes, but together Dulane and his students create a completely new style of dance. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ---------------------------------------- [] To Sir With Love [] A teacher in England abandons the traditional curriculum of education in dealing with a class of students rejected by other schools. [This film is in the following lists:] Memorable Teachers ----------------------------------------