I just figured out all seven seasons of Boy Meets World are available on Hulu. Obviously, I started from Season 1: Episode 1 immediately. Boy Meets World was THE staple of my Friday nights in Elementary school. I vividly remember calling my friend Tyler Goranson... at his parents' house... on a land line... after one episode in 4th grade because I couldn't wait until Monday to talk about it. I was crushing hard on Topanga Lawrence basically from 2nd through 5th grade. I even watched the Disney Channel Reboot "Girl Meets World" out of dutiful obligation to my BMW fandom. It was actually through Girl Meets World that I started thinking about the whole franchise in a new way. I was still following the life of Cory Matthews, who was a kid when I was a kid and now was a teacher when I was a teacher. During GMW's run, Sara Crave, a highly intelligent student I have great respect for once told me "Watching Mr. Matthews on GMW always makes me think of you in 7th grade." That quick comparison to a fictional TV character is legitimately one of the highest moments of praise in my career, but it really got me thinking back to Boy Meets World and the legendary Mr. Feeny. Mr. Feeny and Mr. Matthews (the teacher) are very different in age, but what they both did so well was turn classroom lessons into life lessons. As a kid, it was recognizable and apparent that Mr. Feeny was teaching Cory, Shawn, Topanga, Eric and everyone else about more than just the school curriculum, but in the 90's I was paying much more attention to how the kids were navigating life than how Mr. Feeny was teaching them about it. Now as I start the series over again, I find myself paying attention to what is happening through Mr. Feeny's eyes. As an adult teacher, that is the part of the series that is most relateable to me now, and it makes the whole series well worth another viewing from start to finish. I plan on adding to this series in future posts as I watch later episodes and find myself blown away by the undeniable wisdom of Mr. Feeny, but I will start with the nugget I was blown away with in Season 1: Episode 3... take a look below! Cory failed a test that he slept through after his dad woke him up to watch a late baseball game and spend some quality time together as father and son. Mr. Feeny originally was not going to allow a re-test opportunity, but as the clip shows, he changed his tune after doing some self reflection on the balance between school and life, the importance of each small individual lesson weighed against the importance of a 13 year schooling experience, and what his role as a teacher truly was in the grand scheme of it all.
WOW. So many times, we as teachers find ourselves making our curriculum more important than it needs to be. Some of it is plain old selfishness and pride. Obviously we all find our subjects to be deeply interesting and crucial to the success of students. We try to maximize the small window of time we have with each group of students as they pass through our grade or building. We have standards to teach, learning targets and objectives, essential questions to answer, standardized tests to give and professional goals to meet. It's natural that we hold students accountable to the often very demanding nature of our courses, and we want to push them to meet our high expectations. But that's not all our classrooms should be about. There needs to be that balance. Every single day of curriculum is not life and death. Sometimes it's OK to joke around as human beings and enjoy each other's company. Sometimes you need to escape by playing games. My colleague Cathy Keenan makes a point to set aside time each week to "tell me something good". The infamous Mrs. Dudgeon who I worked with at Turner might understand this whole balance better than anyone I've met and her "Family Days" are wildly successful by any measurement. As I watched Mr. Feeny drink apple juice with Cory and basically admit that his class wasn't as important as he always made it out to be, I was in awe. 3 Episodes in and I was already doing a lot of self reflection on my own classroom and my own career. Once again, Mr. Feeny proved he is the wisest TV character in history, and even though I remember basically every episode's plot from watching re-runs as a kid, I can't wait to see what Mr. Feeny teaches me next.
0 Comments
|
AuthorJohn Honish: Archives
June 2021
Categories |