Rookie Teacher on "The Simpsons"

Although this clip is obviously meant to be comical it communicates many common perceptions of teachers. At the beginning of the clip gray-haired Principal Skinner labels the chant of “I hate children, children suck!” as “faculty lounge talk” and is alarmed to hear such things being said in front of students. This joke reflects the common belief that many teachers are bitter about their work and complain harshly and incessantly to each other in the teachers’ lounge. When the Bart Simpson and his principal go out into the hallway a young, hip teacher (wearing skinny jeans and drinking a spiked energy drink) is seen saying many things heard in discussion of educational policy today– that you don’t need to graduate high school to accomplish great things, that school is a “prison,” that schools prepare students for tests but not for the real world. Eventually the drunk teacher is dragged away by the veteran custodian who says “It’s always the good ones that go crazy the fastest,” making his own comment about the recent trend of hiring extremely young, passionate teachers who quickly burn out in tough teaching environments. Finally as the drunk teacher is dragged away screaming about “incompetent bureaucrats “ Principal Skinner acts as a stereotypical administrator and tells his students not to listen to what is being said. Throughout this whole incident the grade-school students seem shocked and unsure how to act showing that even in the parallel Simpsons-universe this is NOT how teachers are supposed to act.