Film Class Sean & Shain

This week Shain is joined by her sisters Sara and Anisa to discuss the Trojan Horse Affair, in light of the recent Serial podcast series (presented by Brian Reed fellow Brummie Hamza Syed). As three proud Muslim Brummies, Shain and her sisters have been directly affected by the scandal; here they recount their experiences both inside and outside education. 

Listen to learn about the complexities of the hijab, the damage done by Prevent, the nonsensical implementation of British Values in schools, and the fact that (sadly) everyone has worked with a Sue Packer. 

Sara is a senior science technician in a secondary school and Anisa is a specialist pharmacist in a hospital. 

Our first big 'hero coach' film, this time starring Samuel L Jackson as real life high school basketball coach Terence Carter. Carter earns our admiration fo guiding wayward students towards a brighter future through his relentlessly high expectations, but also troubled us with his implication that these young men must always police their language and behaviour to really be accepted. 

This week's film, starring Mads Mikkelson, has an intriguing premise: would teaching slightly drunk improve our lessons? We discuss teaching ruts, taboos around male mental health, and consider whether education really is better in Scandinavia... 

Alexander Payne's deeply cynical comedy presents teachers as frustrated chumps, whilst also taking swipes at the aspirations of Type A students like Reese Witherspoon's Tracey Flick (still her best role - yeah we said it). We talk the importance of civics education and the horrors of school fridges. 

J.K. Simmons puts in a commanding performance as psychotic music teacher Terence Fletcher, determined to drive Miles' Teller's Andrew to great artistic heights. We discuss his philosophy that praise leads only to mediocrity, as well as considering his somewhat idiosyncratic approach to ensuring a disciplined learning environment. Is such a regimented ideology necessary for artistic excellence, or is it anathema to creativity? All that and Shain helpfully defines the raisinet (turns out that is a thing, despite Sean's scepticism).

'I'm right and you're wrong, I'm big and you're small, and there's nothing you can do about it!'

Danny DeVito's Matilda has been one of our most requested films to discuss from the very beginning of the pod, and we finally got round to it (and we think it's one of our best episodes!). We discuss the dichotomy between Agatha Trunchbull and Miss Honey, two extremes of teaching we think are manifest in all practitioners. This leads to us talking about teachers as authority figures, the complexity of school uniform policies, and our own Trunchbull moments (sorry to all fans of whimsical cat ears).