Film Review: American Teacher

Rated: G
Directed by Vanessa Roth and Brian McGinn
In theaters: September 30th, 2011
On DVD: February 13th, 2012
Synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes:

American Teacher is the feature-length documentary created and produced by Vanessa Roth, Nínive Calegari, Dave Eggers, and Brian McGinn. The film includes a musical score by Thao Nguyen and is narrated by Matt Damon. The film chronicles the stories of four teachers living and working in disparate urban and rural areas of the country. Their stories are told through a mixture of footage and interviews with students, families, and colleagues, as well as the teachers themselves. By following these teachers as they reach different milestones in their careers, our film tells the deeper story of the teaching profession in America today. -- (C) Official Site

Review:

I highly enjoyed this documentary. I'll admit I may be a little biased as I'm currently studying to be a teacher, so everything covered in this documentary is on my mind all the time. It's not really an incredibly optimistic view of teaching, but it's not anything I didn't already know. That being said, the only reason I knew most of the information was because I'm studying to be a teacher. I wish everyone was aware of the information in this documentary, but as I said, I'm a bit biased.

I'd recommend checking the documentary out if you can. It's on Netflix. I think this film does a great job of showing some of the things that are wrong with the way teachers are treated today, and it's important to remember that all of that goes on to affect the education of the students as well. That's why I feel like this is a documentary that people should see.