Dangerous Minds

Dangerous Minds is a 1995 American drama film directed by John N. Smith and produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. It is based on the autobiography My Posse Don't Do Homework by retired U.S. Marine LouAnne Johnson, who in 1989 took up a teaching position at Carlmont High School in Belmont, California, where most of her students were African-American and Latino teenagers from East Palo Alto, a racially segregated and economically deprived city. Michelle Pfeiffer stars as Johnson. The critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes calls it "rife with stereotypes". The film grossed $179.5 million and led to the creation of a short-lived television series. Plot LouAnne Johnson, a former Marine, applies for a high school teaching job and is surprised and pleased to be offered the position with immediate effect, even though it is a low paying job. Showing up the next day to begin teaching, however, she finds herself confronted with a classroom of tough, sullen teenagers, all from low-income working-class backgrounds, involved in gang warfare and drug pushing, flatly refusing to engage with anything. They immediately coin the nickname "White Bread" for LouAnne, due to her race and apparent lack of authority, to which Louanne responds by returning the next day in a leather jacket and teaching them karate. The students show some interest in such activities, but withdraw when LouAnne tries to teach the curriculum. Desperate to reach the students, LouAnne devises classroom exercises that teach similar principles to the prescribed work but using themes and language that appeal to the students. She also tries to motivate them by giving them all an A grade from the beginning of the year and arguing that the only thing required of them is that they maintain it.