Films that Make You Wanna Be a Teacher - Kindergarten Cop

It was January 1991, my dad and friends were loaded into the Suburban on our way to the Poughkeepsie Galleria movie theaters for my tenth birthday. Kindergarten Cop looked funny enough during the holiday season, plus Arnold Schwarzenegger was one bad dude in a comedy

The years have passed on, and the film will always be a classic to me for it's one liners, bad Arnold acting and another gem by Ivan Reitman. But I could instantly relate to the character of detective John Kimbel when my own career in education started off as a sub.

After recently quitting my five year long stint in retail in the promise of a side career as a postal worker, I had to quickly change gears again when I found out I couldn't work for the U.S. Post Office due to a previous car accident.

My mother suggested that I should become a substitute, as I only needed my recently obtained BFA. It wasn't too long before I landed a long term substitute position as a sub for another sub - which is just the same predicament that befalls Arnold's character.

For those of you that haven't seen the film, Arnold and his partner are undercover cops that go to Astoria, Oregon in hopes of catching a deadly drug dealer, Crisp, that is looking for his ex wife so that she wont testify against him and to take back the son that he hasn't seen in ages. Arnold's partner gets sick, so Arnold needs to become the teacher, find this boy and his mother before Crisp does.

There is some sexual tension in the town as it has a high divorce rate and Arnold grabs the attention of most women. But the mere fact that the principal in this movie is in perfect agreement with a cop in their schools to teach young minds with virtually no experience with teaching and that kids are in danger is quite absurd.

I also fell into the position of initially teaching keyboarding and technology. I had experiences by experimenting with some of the computer stuff, but everything that i knew about education was baptism by fire, thinking fast on my feet, observing a peer teacher and utilizing my background of being the oldest sibling allowed me some leverage by working with this overwhelming amount of middle school students.

I had never even taken a course on technology, but here I was teaching it. I would also normally come home so exhausted like Arnold, that I do a face plant on the bed and could only utter out, "monsters."I feel that Arnold learns that teaching takes a lot of patience and care. From his first day and screaming at the students, "SHUT UP!" really isn't that effective. While working with the youngsters, he develops a great relationship with them, as Kimbel's class goes from the worst to the best. He also falls for Dominic (the Crisp's son), and his mom, who is also a teacher (coincidence? I think not.)The film ends happily, but more importantly that Kimbel learns to develop a much more patient and caring side. I think anyone in education would enjoy this film and understand the parallels to their own education careers on the first day. But I think that this is something important that more and more teachers need to tell themselves every day, that they remind themselves they are doing it for the kids and that they need to be examples of patience and caring.