Video: Watch the premiere of Wyatt Cenac’s HBO show “Problem Areas” for free–and truly understand the new educator uprising in America
School is fundamentally one of the greatest sources of humor.
The premise of mainstream schooling is that a lot of young people, at different developmental stages, are packed into a room with an adult who is trying to get them to do something they often have little idea why they should care about. That basic set up produces all kinds of problems but it also produces a natural environment for sitcom. That’s why from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and the Breakfast Club, to Napoleon Dynamite and Freaks and Geeks, everyone has a favorite classroom comedy.
Now Wyatt Cenac, formerly a correspondent and write for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, has brought us season two of his HBO show “Problem Areas,” all about education. The show has been described by Anne Branigin at The Root, as “among the most ambitious comedy shows on TV”….or by one viewer as, “a millennial, stoner version of ‘Mister Rogers’ [Neighborhood].”
Throughout season two, Wyatt travels to some ten cities around the country to explore the education system: From the mass strikes for education and teacher pay in West Virginia, to the struggle to redefine school safety in New York City, to school lunches in Minneapolis, to my home town of Seattle to examine powerful public school innovations, and beyond.
Problem Areas does something all too rare in conversations about education in mainstream media: It centers on the perspectives of educators, students, parents, and community members–rather than politicians and billionaire “education reformers.” I was amazed when I, a classroom teacher, got the call from Wyatt’s studio to join the CONTINUE READING: Video: Watch the premiere of Wyatt Cenac’s HBO show “Problem Areas” for free–and truly understand the new educator uprising in America – I AM AN EDUCATOR
