Glenn Holland (Dreyfuss) is a musician and composer who takes a teaching job to pay the rent while, in his ‘spare time’, he can strive to achieve his true goal – compose one memorable piece of music to leave his mark on the world. As Holland discovers ‘Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans’ and as the years unfold the joy of sharing his contagious passion for music with his students becomes his new definition of success.
Trevor McKinney, troubled by his mother’s alcoholism and fears of his abusive but absent father, is caught up by an intriguing assignment from his new social studies teacher, Mr. Simonet. The assignment: think of something to change the world and put it into action. Trevor conjures the notion of paying a favor not back, but forward–repaying good deeds not with payback, but with new good deeds done to three new people.
Jack Black plays a guitarist who gets kicked out of a band because he grandstands too much – or, to put it another way, enjoys himself. Through an intercepted phone call, he gets a job as a substitute teacher for fifth grade at a private school. Neither students nor teacher quite know what to do with each other until Finn discovers that some of his young charges can play instruments; at once he starts turning them into a great rock & roll troupe that can crush his former band at an upcoming competition.
Jaime Escalante is a male mathematics teacher in a school in a latino neighbourhood. Convinced that his students have potential, he adopts unconventional teaching methods to try and turn gang members and no-hopers into some of the country’s top algebra and calculus students. He inspires his dropout prone students to learn calculus to build up their self-esteem and do so well that they are accused of cheating.
Directed by Samira Makhmalbaf. A group of male teachers crosses the mountainous paths of remote Iranian Kurdish region. The men wander from village to village in search of students, carrying large blackboards on their backs – used as shelter, camouflage, and shields instead of for teaching purposes. One by one the men venture away from the group in search of students to teach. Along their way they face other hardships and obstacles, including enemy helicopters and gunfire.
When he takes a job teaching music at a school for troubled boys, Clément Mathieu is unprepared for its harsh discipline and depressing atmosphere. But with passion and unconventional teaching methods, he’s able to spark his students’ interest in music and bring them a newfound joy. It also puts him at odds with the school’s overbearing headmaster, however, locking Mathieu in a battle between politics and the determination to change his pupils’ lives.