S01:E15 Black Teacher

[AgentRXS]

Quote

When their teacher goes on maternity leave, Dean, Cory and Keisa are excited to be taught by Mr. Brady, the school’s first Black teacher. Mr. Brady encourages the students to try out for the Knowledge Bowl team where Dean faces some unexpected challenges.

Original Air Date: March 2, 2022

[possibilities]

I get that this show wants to be a feel good easy to swallow happy show. BUT...

Treating Dean being anxious about how people would react as just some random personal insecurity instead of something he learned as a fear and reality based survival issue, to me seemed like some serious white wash bullshit.

Likewise: "I didn't get fired. We both agreed it wasn't a good fit." 

And the adults at dinner laughing it up about how, apparently, everyone can just find a job that suits their personality, and it's it funny how no matter how degrading it is, the people who work for the obnoxious bosses just come home and laugh it off, because it's not actually hurting them, it's just a little rudeness....

AND: the Black teacher is gone, replaced by a white teacher, and everyone is laughing it up and Dean's dad comes in and does the same lessons that got BT fired, and everyone's happy. Riiiiiiiiight.....

---

History was a barrel of laughs, just have the right attitude and nobody gets hurt. 

[Sarah 103]

There was something in this episode that confused me. Dean is in 7th or 8th grade. Prior to 7th grade, he attended a segregated school. My understanding was that segregated schools had Black teachers, so that most if not all of Dean's teachers would have been Black before 7th grade. From the voiceover it seemed as thought this was his first Black teacher, which didn't make sense. 

Also, I think Lilian had a line something like "It's about time the school had a black teacher," but the school was only integrated that year or the year before (depending on if this episode takes place during 7th grade or 8th grade). I can understand the school wanting to take some  before integrating the faculty.  

Once again, the episode was trying to do too much in the 18-22 minutes they had. A story about the students dealing with a Black teacher and how thier parents responded would be a great episode. Dean learning how to be a leader and that part of that means you can't please everyone would also be a great episode. Putting the two together didn't work.

I couldn't help compare it to "Kodachrome" from the original series. Because the episode was only dealing with one issue (a young teacher trying to do something difference and opposing the status quo), it had more depth. You saw what other teachers were like and what a contrast the young teacher's style was.   

[ItCouldBeWorse]

Have we seen any indications before that either Corey or Brad were particularly motivated students, or unusually bright?  Was it Corey and Kesia who did a very basic class presentation in the first episode?  I thought Dean's intelligence set him apart from his closest friends in that respect.  Now, they're among the very top students in the class.  (Was the one white boy from the team also in their class?  If so, it seems strange that a school team would only have members from a single class, unless it's specifically a team for their exact grade, and there is only one class of their grade in the school, neither of which is very likely.)

[Bookish Jen]

Did anyone find it interesting that the girl who was kind of snotty was named Karen?

[Empress1]

Gaius Charles will always be Smash Williams to me. I'm always happy to see someone from Friday Night Lights (he was on Queens too). 

[Browncoat]

5 hours ago, Empress1 said:

Gaius Charles will always be Smash Williams to me. I'm always happy to see someone from Friday Night Lights (he was on Queens too). 

Thank you!  I didn't pay attention to the actor's name in the credits, and I knew he looked familiar.  

My mother was a teacher in the 60s, and when she was pregnant with my brother, her principal and her superintendent tried to prevent her working, including moving her from the 8th grade to the 6th grade.  They also heavily implied that she would not be returning to work after she had my brother, but she fought for her job and kept it.  She had to to the same thing a few years later when she was pregnant with me. I don't think the word "pregnant" was ever actually used, though.

[txhorns79]

On 3/3/2022 at 12:01 PM, Sarah 103 said:

Also, I think Lilian had a line something like "It's about time the school had a black teacher," but the school was only integrated that year or the year before (depending on if this episode takes place during 7th grade or 8th grade). I can understand the school wanting to take some  before integrating the faculty.  

It's interesting.  My mother had the opposite experience.  She was a new teacher when the school district she worked for integrated, and they sent a number of the newer white teachers to schools that were still majority black.  She said she loved the kids, but she felt a lot of resentment from the black teachers who had been at that school for years.  She thought she was viewed as an interloper.     

I'm also a little surprised that this was the first black teacher in Dean's school.  In the pilot, they showed that Dean's old segregated school had closed, and the students there were sent to formally all white schools.  I would have thought at least a few of their teachers would have gone with them.  

[tennisgurl]

I am always happy to see Gaius Charles, sad that he had to go so quickly. 

Narrator Dean saying that the next blackest teacher he had was his white African American studies professor in college made me laugh, reminds me very much of some professors I had in undergrad. I like this show, but I feel like it always pulls back right before it gets interesting.

[andromeda331]

This episode was really off. The episode could have been really good if they picked Dean trying to be fair or the new black teacher. They could have done a lot with both but they didn't. Of course the black teacher leaves at the end of the episode. They both "decided". Yeah right.

Edited March 13, 2022 by andromeda331