The Top-10 Best Fictional School Teachers Of All Time
School typically starts in late August or early September, but, thanks to the horrible, horrible marketing gurus, you’ve probably seen your local office supply store hocking “Back 2 School!” merchandise as early as, well, May or June. Right when Summer Vacation is starting, the world would remind you that it will soon end. Thanks a lot, Staples. You just took every last bit of fun I was going to have in my three months of completely non-constructive down-time, where I was going to eat candy, watch cartoons and play video games for hours at a time, and turned it into a horrible existential miasma, where I get to contemplate all the things I hate about going back to school, whether I want to or not.
But then I think of the pleasant things about school, and I don’t seem to mind as much. Taking tests sucks, but passing them is a relief. You’ll get to harbor crushes on a who new set of classmates, make new friends, and, most importantly, meet new teachers. Good schoolteachers are saints, and great schoolteachers can actively change the course of a young person’s life for the better. Weird or eccentric schoolteachers are also a plus, and they give you years of stories to tell friends, and they will also assign the best reading lists; why read “Romeo and Juliet” for the 10th time, when you, at age 12, can be reading Charles Baudelaire? Or Thomas Pynchon?
In honor of those teachers you remember fondly, or the ones you wish you could always have, I have once again whisked through my cobweb-caked brain, and come up with the following list of excellent fictional schoolteachers. Some are friendly and fun. Some are intense and challenging. Some are merely crush-worthy. But all of them are going to remind us of how much fun school could be.
A rule: I have included no coaches, librarians, or people who were once schoolteachers, and are now spies or soldiers or superheroes. I also had to nix from the list any real-life people who were adapted for fiction. Sorry Jaime Escalante. You were a wonderful man and perhaps the best teacher a kid could ask for; you do not belong on a frivolous list like this one.
Without further ado:
10) Mr. Shoop
from “Summer School” (1987)
Freddy Shoop (Mark Harmon) is a gym teacher, yes, who prefers the life of a beach bum, drinking beers in the sun, occasionally surfing, and copiously boinking his beach bunny girlfriend. His summer is interrupted by the sudden requirement to teach a remedial English class to a group of failures and misfits desperate to graduate. He is such a shallow horndog, that Freddy only agrees to take the job when he sees that Kirstie Alley will be teaching next door.
Mr. Shoop’s class is full of fun students, of course (there’s a hot Italian exchange student, a hunky male stripper, a ditz, and, most notably Dean Cameron and Gary Riley as a pair of horror-obsessed weirdos), but it’s the teacher himself that would make this lass so fun. Shiftless, uncaring and lazy, he’s often hungover and naps in class. When it comes time to actually teach, he manages to talk about subjects the kids are interested in, and allows for screening of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” in class.
By the end of the film, naturally, all the kids are on his side. This is the kid of guy I wish was in charge of summer school. He teaches lessons while still remaining true to the spirit of summer, is perhaps slightly resentful of his admittedly low-prestige job, is completely girl-crazy, and manages to actually teach. Let’s hear it for adolescent partyboy teachers.
9) Roy Hinkley, MA, BS, PhD
from “Gilligan’s Island” (1964- 1967)
I like the Professor. He always saved their butts.
He could build a nuclear reactor from a couple of coconuts.
She says “That guy’s a genius!” I shook my head and laughed.
I said “If he’s so fly than tell me why he couldn’t build a lousy raft.”
-lyrics from “Isle Thing” by “Weird Al” Yankovic
While endless jokes have been made about how The Professor (Russell Johnson) had no talent for shipbuilding, it has to be admitted that the bumbling teacher always managed to keep his cool, and approached his desperate situation of being lost on a desert island with a wacky group of weirdos with complete professional aplomb. Yes, yes, yes, he couldn’t build a boat. But the materials were admittedly limited, and he still managed to build a radio out of fruit. This is not something that should be sneezed at.
On a show whose stock and trade was broad caricatures and ever broader slapstick humor, The Professor provided a much-needed practical and empirical point of view. Russel Johnson was a strangely firm presence in the face of his co-habitants. A single straight-man to a group of clowns. And you just know that he was the only one suave and good-looking enough to charm the movie star and the Mary-Ann.
8) Mr. Van Driessen
from “Beavis and Butt-Head” (1993 – 1997)
Mr. Van Driessen came across as a clueless hippie wimp, more interested in playing acoustic guitar and postulating vaguely about the nature of the Earth Mother than he was in actual teaching an engaging his students in any sort of active way. He was milquetoast, prone to backing down, and clueless as to the aggressively violent and horny adolescent tendencies of his borderline-retarded charges. He could never offer any real practical advice, preferring to quote from New-Age self-help books, and preaching peace love and understanding to a group of kids who knew little more than masturbation, homemade highs, and MTV.
But I always thought that he was probably the best teacher one could hope to get under the circumstances. Mr. Van Driessen, you see, despite his wimpiness and inability to connect with Beavis and Butt-Head, was possessed of a God-like patience for their antics. He saw their attempts at theft, sex, and tendency to do damage, and saw it all as the hormone-induced stupidity that it was. He actually bothered to reach out to these unreachable kids. His failure to actually reach them only serves as a subtle tragedy. He is the tragic martyr of Beavis and Butt-Head’s tiny, prurient universe.
His singing of “Lesbian Seagull” in “Beavis and Butt-Head Do America” (1996) is the perfect balance between his good intentions and his ridiculous failure. And yet, he is unshaken. He will forever be mildly patient. Forever be willing to endure another year with these two boobs. He deserves some respect for that.
7) Ms. Frizzle
from “The Magic School Bus” (1994)
I know I’ve written about Ms. Frizzle before (in my article on authority figures you don’t want disappointed in you), so I’ll be brief. Ms. Frizzle was the best possible teacher. I’ve had teacher like her: a little bit kooky, very well-dressed, always happy, and so eager to teach, she didn’t care how “cool” she looked to a room of cynical 10-year-olds. But, what’s more, she had access to the best teaching tool one could possibly have: the Magic School Bus. Rather than just lecture on microscopic organisms, she could actually pile her kids on board a bus, shrink them, and show them said creatures close-up. Why talk about ancient Rome, when you can go there almost instantly?
She was essentially a fun, wacky teacher who could arrange, at her own whim, a series of the best field trips imaginable. Her miraculous machine was tempered by her unending enthusiasm. Her weird attitude was tempered by the lessons she taught. What an amazing teacher.
6) Mr. Feeny
from “Boy Meets World” (1993-2000)
“Boy Meet World” was only one of several hundred kid-friendly sitcoms, dealing with the angst of high school life and the wacky antics of your silly peers, but it seems to be one of the most believed by a generation. We can all snicker at the milquetoast conceits of “Saved by the Bell,” or wallow in the lurid, lurid melodrama of the Degrassi kids, but “Boy Meets World” seemed to strike that perfect balance between rock-stupid sitcom predictability, and earnest emotional drama.
The central teacher in “Boy Meets World,” Mr. Feeny, started out as a mere English teacher, soon became the school’s principal, and eventually ended up a professor at the local college, effectively tracing the same group of students for a seven-year period. Mr. Feeny was a wise counselor, a caring father figure, and a smart teacher. He was a benevolent and stable presence in the whirlwind of the students’ personal adolescent dramas. Real-life teachers will often say to troubled students that they may come to them with any problems they may have, but students will likely be too embarrassed or too proud to actually do so. Mr. Feeny actually seemed approachable.
Mr. Feeny also had the heartbreaking final line of the series: “I love you all. Class dismissed.” In a series that focused on Mr. Feeny’s struggle to remain professional with kids he clearly cared about, this admonition struck deep into the hearts of the show’s viewers.
5) Prof. Arthur Chipping
from “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” (1939)
One thing that most British schoolchildren dread, and something American schoolchildren can’t even contemplate, is the need to study The Classical World. To this day, most British boarding schools require that students learn a smattering of Latin, become familiar with the oratory of Cicero, recite the poetry of Catullus, and read all about the conquest of Gaul. American students, especially those in the more unfortunate public school districts, rarely had to endure this sort of thing. It’s enough to make a Yank envious.
The best Classics teachers, though, are the super-nerds who are passionate about their subject, and no one was more passionate, who taught ab imo pectore, than Arthur Chipping, the title character from Sam Wood’s 1939 feature film. He was bookish and disarmingly friendly. The notoriously difficult British schoolchildren, were caught off-balance by his unassuming naïvete, and he was able to engage them not only in the lessons of the ancient world, but in his sweet romantic life.
1939 was a banner year for American film “The Wizard of Oz,” “Gone with the Wind,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”), and Robert Donat, who played Mr. Chips, won the Academy Award that year, upsetting the fans of Clark Gable. Watching the film, though, you begin to understand why he won. He is a perfect softy. A bookish nerd who loves strongly, and cares about his kids over the course of a generation. If I found myself needing to re-translate Virgil, I’d want Mr. Chips at my side to aid me. Cura ut valeas.
4) Prof. John Keating
from “Dead Poets Society” (1989)
And while we’re thinking about the stuffy world of boarding schools, let us contemplate someone who wants to breathe life into such a stuffy place. For many people under the age of 30, Peter Weir’s “Dead Poets Society” is almost a classroom standard. It inspired students without being insipid, and introduced a generation of young, crush-prone teenage girls to the large, dark eyes and perfectly coiffed hair of Robert Sean Leonard. It also proved to many people that the guy from “Mork and Mindy” actually had some acting chops (his work in “Good Morning, Vietnam” notwithstanding).
John Keating breezed into his classroom, currently full of dour, defeated and bored young men, and shouted enthusiastically at them. He told them to stand on their desks, to read unconventional poets like Walt Whitman, and, most importantly, to remember that they are young and full of life, and to carpe diem. It’s the job of schoolteachers to inspire their students, but it’s rare that someone will take such an active role in doing said thing.
Robin Williams is great in the role, and his teaching of poetry and, by extension, philosophy, seem to do more than give his students facts and figured to memorize. He actually manages to give them applicable life views that will serve to make them better people. And while he was eventually fired for being too radical, he had already left his mark in the classroom. Prof. Keating is one to remember.
3) Prof. Charles Xavier
from “ X-Men” (1963 – present)
While I wish that we could see more of what Prof. Xavier actually taught, academically, at his School for Gifted Youngsters, it’s what he’s better known for that makes him so cool. You see, his school is, as anyone reading this site probably knows, is a front for a team of superheroic mutants, each with a specialized superpower, bent on fighting prejudice, and bringing justice to the world. His attitude was one of benevolence and support. He was, according to his creators, clearly inspired by the civil rights rhetoric of Martin Luther King, Jr.
What’s more, Prof. X is one of the world’s most powerful psychics (and there are a lot in this universe), effectively giving him the ability to change the minds of others for them, undermining their free will. That he never does so only proves how good-hearted and resolute he is. He is also given the change to butt-heads, ideologically, with a Malcolm X-type mutant, who would kill all humans, and leave nothing but superpowered mutants on the planet. This may seem all very involved, but it’s second nature to most comic book fans, and serves as a good lead into actual civil rights.
Plus, Prof. X runs a superhero school. How cool is that?
2) Dr. Henry Jones, Jr.
from “Raisers of the Lost Ark” (1981)
He wears tweed jackets, and teaches the notoriously dull subject of archeology, and teaches at a buttoned-down university in the 1940s, but Dr. Jones has more cool in his fingernail than you do in two versions of you. While he manages to make dull archeological lectures fun, and he’s utterly dreamy (his female classmates do nothing but stare moonily at him), he’s more than juts a good teacher. You see, he knows a lot about archeology because he’s done the actual field work, digging up old artifacts, studying ancient religions, and occasionally beating up platoons of Nazis with his bare fists.
Yes, Henry “Indiana” Jones (Harrison Ford) is the teacher who moonlights as a globe-trekking adventurer. When he’s not in class talking about the Cross of Coronado, he’s actually out on the high seas, beating up thugs, actually trying to retrieve it. When he’s not talking about the neolithic era, he’s going to ancient tombs and carefully retrieving ancient artifacts. And when he’s not presenting a general air of intellectual strength, he’s showing off his physical strength by pounding on Nazis, whipping thuggee, and dodging the very wrath of God.
“Raiders of the Lost Ark” is one of my favorite movies to this day, and Indiana Jones is one of the best adventurers the screen has ever seen. He is a down-to-Earth professor who has almost passed into the realm of myth. What a cool guy.
1) Lillian Mueller and Janet Jones
from Van Halen’s “Hot For Teacher” music video (1984)
Everyone remembers that one teacher or professor that they had an enormous burning crush on. We all remember the subtle rivalries we had with classmates to gain the most amount of attention from said teacher. We all remember their pretty face, warm demeanor, and their uncanny ability to turn the most dowdy of outfits into sex-soaked robes of pure erotic energy. These hot teachers got us enthused about going to school, if not necessarily interested in paying direct attention to the subject at hand.
The Platonic ideal of all hot teachers came to an entire generation of young boys in Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” music video. The song was already plenty suggestive with lyrics like “Give me something to write on,” which, even in 1984, sounded like some sort of penis allusion to me, but the music video upped the ante, giving us one of the hottest teachers ever seen. When she comes strolling into the classroom, she’s already played by Playboy model Milliam Mueller. Her short short and button-up shirt carefully orchstrated to drive the kids wild. But during the course of the video, he whips off her outfit to reveal a bikini underneath! Now played by Janet Jones, notorious for marrying hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky, she proceeded to titillate the young boys in the classroom, mostly played by Van Halen band members, and, disturbingly, child versions of themselves as well.
There’s something disgustingly and deliciously trashy about the music video today, but seeing it as a young boy in 1984, before you had any sort of regular access to pornography, it was one of the most important films you could have seen. For a brief period, we were all hot for teacher.
Honorable Mentions:
Otis Drexell from “Drexell’s Class”
Rupert Giles from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (technically a librarian)
Angie Dickenson’s character from “Pretty Maids All in a Row”
Bobbi Harlow from “Bloom County”
Prof. Ned Brainard from “The Absent-Minded Professor”
Jimmy Stewart’s character from “Rope”
Dave Foley as the sidekick teacher in “Sky High”
The faculty at Acme Looniversity in “Tiny Toon Adventures”
Witney Seibold is an AA holder, onetime theater major, onetime film major, living in Los Angeles with his wife, his books, his videos and his collection of lectures on CD. He writes film articles on the days when he’s not feeling lazy, and maintains his own ‘blog, Three Cheers for Darkened Years! where he has posted over 800 articles to date. He is also half of the voice of The B-Movies Podcast, which he co-hosts on CRAVE Online with William Bibbiani.
