American Teacher is a new full-length documentary based on the New York Times bestselling book Teachers Have It Easy, produced by co-authors Dave Eggers and Ninive Calegari and directed by Academy Award winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth. The film seeks to shed light on the startling statistics of the teaching profession—such as, 46 percent of public school teachers leave the profession within the first five years of teaching, and 62 percent must have second jobs to support their families—through documenting four teachers as they go through their daily lives, both in and out of the classroom.
The film was reviewed at a pre-screening in Washington, DC by Anthony Rebora of Education Week. Rebora notes that “examples of the teachers’ obvious professionalism and skill are set against, sometimes to comic effect, the near-Dickensian nature of their working conditions.” Rebora predicts the film could generate some important conversations when it is released to the public in the fall, but until then you can go to http://www.theteachersalaryproject.org/production_news.html to see clips from the film.
For more information on The Teacher Salary Project, visit http://www.theteachersalaryproject.org/index.html
To read Anthony Rebora’s full review, visit http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2011/05/the_struggles_of_the_american_teacher.html
