Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
JOURNAL FOR CRITICAL EDUCATION POLICY STUDIES, cilt.11, sa.3, ss.146-163, 2013 (ESCI)
In this study we are going to analyze the reflections of neoliberal policies in Turkey, which have occupied the education system since 1980s, within the context of popular Turkish cinema films that focus on teachers. As it has been emphasized by critical educators, during the last 30 years, neoliberal policies and practices, affect all education process fundamentally. Under these new global competitive economical conditions, the content of education is limited and it has begun to be defined according to the demands of the market and it has been shaped more individually. Parallel to these transformations, the teaching profession has been changed significantly. As a matter of fact, teachers have been forced to do extra work after school because of low salaries, teaching has turned out to be technical work without social responsibilities and at the end of this process the teaching profession's social mission has been eroded and it is not a job which guaranties social status nowadays as it was in previous years. These transformations can be observed clearly in the popular Turkish films which present changing plot of teaching profession. Mahmut Hoca who shows successfully that teaching is not only technical work or just content telling but a profession that has social responsibility, such as in the film series called Hababam Sinifi in 1970s, in which the teacher figures sell lemon in order to survive economically, or the films after 1980s in which they questiontheir ideals. Because of the damages created by neoliberal policies after 1980s, in the films of the last decades teacher figures have turned into tragic characters who experience economical hardships or who are in difficulty because of their ideals. In some other films, there is a teacher type who is trivialized or whose relationship with her/his students is shown just in exagerated tension. In this context, it is important to remember Mahmut Hoca because his words can guide the teachers who struggle against neoliberalism: "we are not traders but teachers!"