A person accepts a temporary teaching position in school and a tough neighbourhood filled with sullen, rebellious teenagers, The students give the teacher a harrowing time, who reciprocates with innovative methods and understanding, breaking through their resentment and disadvantages, turning them into bright, sparkling diamonds. If you recognise that as the plot of To Sir, With Love (1967), or Dangerous Minds(1995), or Hichki (2018), you get A++ and a golden star. To Sir, With Love, based on E.R. Braithwaite's 1959 autobiographical novel, features Sidney Poitier as the engineer from British Guyana, who takes up a teaching job at an East End Secondary School after an unsuccessful 18-month job junt. Braithwaite apparantly loathed the film and Poitier's character has come in for some flak for the Magical Negro trope, but the British film has always been popular for its predictable sentimentality. DANGEROUS PARADISE The awfully contrived Dangerous Minds is best remembered for Michelle Pfeiffer as retired U.S. Marine LouAnne Johnson turning up to teach in a leather jacket and Coolio's Grammy-award winning 'Gangasta's Paradise'. Based on Johnson's autobiography, My Posse Don't Do Homework, Dangerous Minds was stuffed with too many stereotypes, and walked to a mainly white audience, to be an effective thesis on education, race or privilege. It was rescued in part by Pfeiffer's all-in performance. Rani Mukherjee as Naina Marthur in Hichki again gets a tough teaching assignment after a fruitless job hunt. Lime Poitier's character who takes his students out of the class on field trips and Johnson who teaches literature through Bob Dylan songs (unfortunately not rap), Naina uses examples from real life to illustrate scientific principles. In Hindi films, apart from music, it is mainly the sciences with the rockstar teachers, the latest in the line being Hrithik Roshan in Vikas Bahl's Super 30 (2019). There is no place for humanities in the present climate, even though one would not mind being in a classroom where Hrithik is holding forth on complex mathematics. Whether exhorting one to be honest -as Charlie does to his students online, learning from Walt Whitman, or figuring out the chemistry of cooking, whether it is a story of the teacher or the students, in a classroom, a Piano recital or a sports field (Chak De! INDIA anyone?), a coming together of the teacher and the taught guarantees heart-breaking drama, with a dash of humour and adventure.