User Reviews

If you are lucky as a student, you get to have a teacher who likes to do things differently and wants students to think outside the box.

In this episode, an exchange teacher from England doesn't believe in having permanent seats, taking daily attendance, or assigning specific writing assignments. The teacher involves her creative writing students with the lyrics of the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel. I recall one of my own Junior High School 194 English teachers Richard Greene doing the same thing with the lyrics of Simon and Garfunkel, and I recall the impression he and his class made on me since I too became an English teacher.

This episode ends not as happily as it should have. The teacher resigns and returns home, but the episode could have shown how she could have adjusted her style with the rules of Walt Whitman High School so both sides could be winners.

Dora Hughes is the newest addition to Walt Whitman High. She is an "exchange teacher" from England, the program is the brainchild of Pete and Liz and Mister Kaufman is a bit wary of it. Dora immediately comes across as a dear, sweet lady with a bubbly personality (think of an older version of Alice Johnson with an English accent). She is definitely RADICAL she refuses to take attendance and tells the students to sit wherever they want. She even encourages students to leave the class if they don't like it! You would think English people are the "stiff upper lip" type who would be stricter. You would think being from England she would be a Beatles fan but she likes Simon and Garfunkel! Mister Kaufman, the self described "benevolent dictator" tries to get through to. Ms. Hughes that high school is not a democracy and students shouldn't decide on what they want to write. Pete and Liz try the kind and gentle approach and she agrees to stick to the rules. The sad thing is the students she was able to reach react negatively and she decides to go back to England. Not a very traditional "happy" end to this episode. Karen Valentine doesn't appear in it by the way.