Chalk Notes

• What the movie is about--How important teachers are.
• 50% of teachers quite teaching in the first threes years of teaching.
• The history teacher (Mr Lowry) has no umph, totally dry. He starts the year off by letting the students know that they will need to come prepared. Which means that they will always need to bring paper and pencil. This is the only rule.
• He tries to give a lesson, but it is really dry and choppy. It's horrible. He looses the students right away.
• Principle does not offer any relevant or constructive advise to his assistant principle. Talks about himself.
• Teachers in the lounge eating and talking about their educational weaknesses.
• Mr. Stroop, the other history teacher. It is his third year teaching. He is a having an evaluation. He has difficulty recalling the goals that they had set at his last evaluation. You can tell that he does not take this seriously. His goals are: 1) use less sarcasm, 2) be more organized, 3) his cleanliness, 4) write and follow a lesson plan. 
• Mr. Lowry's class is out of control
• Mr Stroop has poor boundaries in regard to how to have a relationship with the students.
• Mr. Lowry had been working as a computer engineer, we are not told whether or not he has had any teacher training (it seems like no). He became a teacher because he took two different aptitude tests that suggested teaching was a good fit for him.
• Mr. Strrop is talking to an older teacher who has one the prize for best teacher. He asks what you need to do to win. She responds, focus on the students not on the prize.
• Mr. Lowry seems lost. Awkward with students and teachers.
• Ms. Webb confronts a teacher for letting kids in late. Though she is good with her students, she is very abrasive with the staff. She is exited that her friend is now the assistant principle because she is hoping that will translate into an "in" for her. She is a bit of a control freak. She has the idea to make the students think they are who they think you think they are.
• Mr. Lowry is totally stressed and unprepared to deal with students.
• Assistant principle is really stressed. She is doing a ton. working early and late and on weekends. Her personal life is suffering.
• Mr. Stroop asks the smart kids to dumb down.
• Mr. Lowry goes to the library and checks out a book on classroom management.
• Stroop pretends to call a students father.
• Mr. Lowry has a very angry outburst. He is out of control. He kicks a kid out of class. He goes to the kids house to talk to the mother. He and the mother have some wine and a talk. We don't hear the whole conversation, but it appears that she helps him with some things.
• Ms. Webb and Ass. Principle fight over the tardy policy. Ms. Webb is a stickler for the rules. Ass. Principle says that yes sometimes kids are late. They don't bust them all because you never know all of the details of what is going on for the kid and teacher.
• Stroop is soliciting cotes for teacher of the year and asking his students to campaign for him. There is a debate. It all seems inappropriate. His passions seem a little misplaced. He does not care about teaching, he cares about himself. When he looses the teacher award, he has a tantrum. 
• The teachers all seem to have a lot of personal issues that are keeping them from fully engaging as teachers.
• Ass. Principle loves teaching, but she has been moved to administration.
• Mr. Lowry develops the spelling Hornet which is a contest for the teachers to spell the slang terms that the kids use everyday. Teachers are not that great at it, but seem to enjoy it. The students love it. Mr. Lowry wins and he seems to loosen up and feel really great. He begins to mellow out and be ok. Says that IF he comes back next year he would set things up differently.
• Ms. Webb says that people are insecure and that maybe she should be more encouraging of her fellow teachers.
• Mr. Lowry says, "teaching is a gift, maybe he can learn but nobody has taught him"
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