Fictional teachers we wish we had

Pop Culture Happy Hour

In this episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour, hosts Linda Holmes, Aisha Harris, Glenn Weldon, and B.A. Parker explore fictional teachers from TV and film whom they wish they had in

Key takeaways

• Fictional teachers often represent idealized versions of real educators—compassionate, authentic, and emotionally intelligent.
• Sister Mary Clarence exemplifies a teacher who treats students as equals, embraces their individuality, and creates a safe space for growth.

Main topics

• Fictional educators in film and television
• Compassionate teaching and student empowerment

Notable quotes

Maybe where Maria came from, Mary had a doll. Or a little kitty cat. Or a little bald-headed brother named Bart. It is not her fault that she doesn't know it, and we're not going to hold that against her.

Conclusion

The episode celebrates fictional teachers as powerful symbols of the kind of guidance,

Transcript preview

Speaker 7 (0:00) Fall is right around the corner. That means the midterms. Hey, it's Myles Parks from the NPR Politics Podcast. Now is the perfect time to calibrate your news diet for the fall. Follow our show for short daily episodes that will help you stay ahead of the most important midterm storylines that you need to follow. Find the NPR Politics Podcast on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 2 (0:24) But I think of Lucas having gone to Yoda for an advanced class in Get Over Yourself, which he needs. He needs at that point. And Speaker 3 (0:34) can I just say, do or do not, there is no try. Patently false. There is try. That's absolutely true. That's not a thing. Trying and failing is a thing. Speaker 2 (0:46) We all had favorite teachers growing up, the ones who really saw us, changed our points of view, set us on new paths. Fictional teachers do the same thing for their students. So we asked ourselves, of all the teachers we've seen in TV and movies, which of them do we wish we'd had to educate us in real life? I'm Linda Holmes. Joining me today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour are my fellow hosts, Aisha Harris. Hello, Aisha. Hello, Linda. And Glenn Weldon. Hi, Glenn. Hey, Linda. And also with us delightfully is B.A. Parker. She's one of the hosts of NPR's Code Switch podcast. Hello, Parker. Hello. Speaker 6 (1:18) Thanks for having me. Speaker 2 (1:20) Absolutely. Well, Aisha, I'm going to start with you. When we think about fictional teachers we would most like to have had, who did you choose? Speaker 4 (1:28) Oh, man. This is hard. Once I was staring down, you know, the barrel of, okay, now I have to answer this question, I wound up realizing there's been a lot of great... fictional TV and movie and pop culture teachers. But the one that I wound up landing on is none other than Sister Mary Clarence from Sister Act 2. Of course. Also known as lounge singer Dolores Wilson Van Cartier. Look, Sister Act 2, I'm not sure. It's one of those movies that I think is very, very much rooted. My love of it is rooted in nostalgia. It is not necessarily a great movie, but Whoopi Goldberg is great. Parker? It's a phenomenal movie. Keep going. Keep going. It's a phenomenal movie. Okay, we will talk about that in a second. But you may remember that in the first movie, Sister Act 1, Whoopi Goldberg is playing a loud singer, Dolores Wilson-Van Cartier. And she has to go into witness protection after witnessing a mob execution. So she joins a convent under the alias Sister Mary Clarence. And then she helps revitalize the nun's choir. But then in Sister Act 2, she... back to Louncing in Vegas at the beginning of the movie, but the same nuns who she worked with in the first movie recruit her to return to the San Francisco Catholic school she attended when she was a kid. The school's like in disarray. It's under threat of all the kids not having any education. So she becomes the music teacher to a group of bright but ragtag bunch of high schoolers, which includes Lauryn Hill, a young Lauryn Hill. right around the time of the Fugees, and she's playing Rita. And Rita is kind of the, she's the sassy, like, I don't want this woman here. The other kids are kind of like, oh, maybe we'll deal with her. But Rita's like, no, this woman, she's not coming. She's not going to make us do work. Music class is supposed to be where we just like, we just fool around and we don't do anything. This has all the tropes of. you know, droopy, self-serious movies about teacher saviors who change their troubled students' lives, you know, to serve with love, stand and deliver, dangerous minds. This is that movie in a way, and it's also loosely based on a true story, which is something I just recently learned. I had no idea, but it's based on a actual... Yes, Parker. Okay, it's not just me. I had no idea. It's like many of those other movies, like Dangerous Minds and whatever, it's based on a true story. very, very loosely, of an academic named Iris Stevenson. They basically retrofitted Iris Stevenson's life into the sequel. There's a whole backstory, but anyway. Not Speaker 2 (3:58) originally in Witness Protection. Speaker 4 (3:59) No, that part was not true. Her story came in here. Yeah, like I said, this movie, it's very, very tropey. Are the kids sassy and undisciplined? Yes. Does Delora slash Mary decide early on that they're helpless and she threatens to tap out on teaching? Of course that moment happens. Does she quickly recommit to teaching and then win them over with her stern but whimsical and emotionally attentive instruction? You bet your butt she does. And it's amazing. I love it. Whoopi Goldberg slash Sister Mary Clarence is so good at like tapping into what you would want from a teacher. She is someone who approaches these kids. as if they are human beings who deserve respect. She doesn't look down on them. She doesn't patronize them. She has, I think, what the best kind of teachers have, which is like this ability to interact with them as equals. There's a great scene, and I want to play just a moment of it. She's asking everyone, all the students, to like come up with their own ways to sing Mary Had a Little Lamb. And one of her students, Maria, doesn't actually know Mary had a little lamb. The other kids start teasing her, and Sister Mary Clarence says this. Because maybe, Speaker 7 (5:09) maybe where Maria came from, Mary had a doll. Or a little kitty cat. Or a little bald-headed brother named Bart. It is not her fault that she doesn't know it, and we're not going to hold that against her. No, we are not. Speaker 4 (5:26) Compassion. She can give it to the kids. She can go back and forth. She can sass them right back. But she also is like a safe place. She is a safe home. I loved that about the best of my teachers. They were teachers who I felt like they were talking to me as if I was a human being, as if I may not have been as mature and old as they were and experienced and wise, but they understood that I could be and they set me on the path. And I think that's what makes Sister Mary Clarence just like the perfect teacher, like the ideal kind of teacher you want. And she's fun and she has a past. Like, I love a teacher who has a past. Like, she was a loud singer. That's cool. She had to go into Speaker 2 (6:05) witness protection. Speaker 4 (6:06) She's lived a life. Speaker 2 (6:07) She's lived a life. She's lived a life. Parker, I get the feeling you are also a Sister Mary Clarence fan. Speaker 8 (6:13) 100%. She's phenomenal. She's Speaker 6 (6:15) the reason why I sought out Letters to a Young Poet. Because of Sister Act 2. She's like, if you want to be somebody, if you want to go somewhere, you better wake up and pay Speaker 8 (6:25) attention. Nothing but like... guidance and wisdom from Sister Mary Clarence. Yes. The woman could do no wrong. Speaker 3 (6:33) Also the subtitle, let's not sleep on the subtitle, which is of course Back in the Habit. Very, very good. Speaker 2 (6:40) Yeah. I enjoy those movies as well. You're making me want to go back and watch those movies again, Aisha. And that's all I can really ask of you. I went back to one of the most influential shows to me of kind of my early career caring about good. television, which was My