I was just reading Penelope Trunk’s very timely Twitter tips. I’m still trying to figure how to translate my own…uh, complex set of interests into this new-to-me social medium. It’s a dangerous combination: half business tool, half impulsive confessional for bad jokewriting, Cheeto-related ramblings and Heineken-driven “philosophy.”
Or maybe it’s just me. Thanks to a new TV season, my Tweets (usually somewhat education- or at least blog-related) are lycanthropic, devolving nightly into manic love notes for Family Guy and Community.
As I’ve said before, to my mind there’s no reason I can’t translate Greek poetry and love TV. But in case my followers are confused, I feel I should explain.
I’m a sucker for well-executed ensemble workplace comedies — M*A*S*H, Newsradio, The Office, and yes, even Are You Being Served? Ensembles are one of the coolest arguments for human chemistry. You can’t predict what’s going to happen between five people but when it works it’s magic. Family comedies aren’t so good with the ensembles, except maybe All in the Family. That was a fan-freakin’-tastic cast, unparalleled until Family Guy.
Education-related comedies are harder. The students are generally well-written, probably because most people have been students at some time in their lives. But they hardly ever get the teachers right – except for Community’s Señor Chang. He’s the main reason I got hooked; I looked up from my grading, and there he was, speaking directly to me and every other teacher I know.
Señor Chang is the ultimate escapist character for educators. (And I’ve got a lot on escapism and humor, but I’ll spare you.) Last season, he did everything I’ve always wished I could do: yelling at students when they deserve it, rolling your eyes at them when they’re boring, getting up in their faces, and taking extreme measures to halt improper classroom behavior.
In the midst of all this NBC Education Summit malarkey, where they’re still not talking to any teachers, I’d like to make a suggestion: everybody just needs to watch the first season of Community, paying close attention to Señor Chang. That way, the actual teachers will be spared the effort of telling you how tedious yet crazy-making teaching can really be. I hate to break it to people, but students don’t always want to learn, and when you’re faced with recalcitrant and rude classroom subjects, your inner Chang threatens to come out.
Unfortunately, Señor Chang is no longer Señor. As it turned out, he didn’t have proper teaching credentials. He’s become a student so we’ll still get to see Ken Jeong’s excellent comic skills this season. Still, I wonder if the writers know how much they’re letting the teachers of America down — they really captured something with Chang, and now it’s gone. Though Professor Seven or Dr. Ian Duncan have something believably professorial going, they’re not nearly as pedagogically effective.
But hope springs eternal. This was, after all, the first TV show to do a Twittersode. So here’s hoping the writers will re-capture their teaching glory sometime soon.
Some friends in America love Community, and I’m SO upset I haven’t gotten to see it yet! I’ll have to check and see if there’s any news online about it coming across the water to us!
Ohhh, is this one of those things where you can’t get it on Hulu? That sucks! The DVD is available, but not sure about the country codes. And there used to be bootlegs (used for educational purposes, I assure you) but they seem to be gone now.
Senor Chang is legendary. I love students but sometimes I wish I could get crazy like him. Well, I did punch that one student that time. He loves me though.
As long as there’s no lawsuits, I say it’s all good. And in my last semester, I let the inner Chang run free a bit — I think it actually improved my teaching.
I also adore Senor Chang, who’s still the funniest of that cast even though he’s now a student. I have to say, Betty White in the Community premiere as an eccentric anthropology teacher was also awesome.
I enjoyed Betty White too. Ken Jeong is really gifted — and, by the way, for those interested in escape, that’s Dr. Ken Jeong. He used to be a real live doctor, until his wife’s brush with cancer inspired him to go after what he really wanted. Talk about a career transition. If you watch his VMA acceptance speech (after an ad) it will make you want to laugh and cry at the same time.
The desk thing, in the second clip? My 7th grade Math teacher did that to someone. For a similar reason. Just picked up the desk and walked it outside. I don’t remember much about what happened after… we’d all been warned that he was like that, so I don’t think it was a newsflash.
From those two clips alone though, I’m going to have to find a way to watch community.
That. Is. AWESOME. I wish there’d been desks in the college classrooms, I totally would have done that in my last semester!