Reel Education is the first single-authored book to bring together the theoretical and practical considerations of teaching cinematic texts about education that claim a degree of verisimilitude. Given the recent influx of documentaries, biopics, and reality television shows about education, new theoretical frameworks are required to understand how these productions shape public conversations about educational issues. Such texts, with their claims to represent real-life experiences, have a particular power to sway audiences who may uncritically accept these stories as offering "the truth" about what happens in schools. Since all texts, whatever their truth-claims may be, are grounded in specific ideologies, those in the fields of humanities, education, and media and communication studies must pay attention to how these films and television shows are constructed and for what purposes. This book provides an analysis of documentaries, biopics, and reality television, examining the construction of the genres, the explicit and latent ideologies they contain, and the ways in which students and faculty might critically engage with them in classrooms.

Acknowledgments and Introduction - Section I: Race to Represent First: Documentaries - "Something Is Wrong in the Education System": Manufacturing a Crisis in the School Documentary - "But No One Taught Me": An Educational Mockumentary - "You Know that Kids Are Getting a Really Crappy Education Now": Teaching Documentaries through Interpretive, Ideological, and Activist Approaches - Section II: Based on Actual Events: Biopics - "I See the Same F-ing Movies You Do, Man": An Analysis of Three Biopics about Teachers - Trapped by Futility: The Problems with Claiming Connections to Real Classrooms in The Class - "I Can't Teach You That Other Stuff": Incorporating Biopics about Education into the Classroom - Section III: Real Worlds: Reality Television - "An Essential Ingredient of Trust": An Overview of the Pedagogical Aspects of Reality Television - "Are You Here to Tell a Story?": An Analysis of One Reality Television Show about Teaching - "Make It Work": Incorporating Reality Television into the Classroom