The events of Educators take place in a Kiwi secondary school where the students are awful and the teachers are even worse.
Leading the way on the foulmouthed staff is the morally reprehensible Robyn Duffy, played to cynical perfection by Jackie van Beek, who takes great delight in crushing the students’ dreams and aspirations…when she’s not screaming at her ex-husband on the phone.
During one career advice meeting, she asks drama student and aspiring rapper Maria (Ana Scotney) where she sees herself in 10 years.
“I’m looking out and I see New York and a film set,” comes the optimistic reply.
“You’re not seeing a film set,” says Robyn dismissively. “Do you know what I see? Freezing works. The meat industry. So we’re going to take you out of drama [class].”
Source: Distributor
Nearly as bad is the drama teacher, Judy Mokopouwhare (Kura Forrester), who’s dead-keen on staging Equus as the next school play, despite everyone’s uneasiness about the huge amount of nudity in the production.
There’s sleazy staff member John Harrison (Cohen Holloway), who’s keen to coach the girls’ football team just so he can chat up a few single mums after training sessions.
He’s egged on by short-tempered PE teacher Vinnie Thompson (Rick Donald), who bullies his students when he’s not trying to score drugs.
‘Educators’. Source: SBS On Demand
School principal Jarred Needham (Jonny Brugh) is the classic weaselly leader who’s not afraid to pass the buck and run out of the room at the first sign of conflict.
Finally, there’s hapless relief teacher Rudy Beard (Thomas Sainsbury, seen as the equally hapless Constable Parker in Wellington Paranormal), who may not be an actual teacher. His name might not actually be Rudy either.
To put it bluntly, the faculty are incompetent and spiteful. They can’t stand the students and the only people they hate more are the parents, who seem to be constantly coming in to make complaints.
In particular, there’s 46-year-old divorcee Robert (Paul Glover), who claims he wants to enrol as a student so he can spend more time with his daughter without his ex-wife knowing about it.
A nonchalant Jarred lets him come back, not even bothering with a background check.
“I think it’s going to be entertaining,” says a bemused Vinnie as Robyn escorts Robert to the classroom. “But does he have a daughter here? We just sorta went with that.”
Educators paints a fairly bleak picture of the profession, but van Beek hopes that real educators won’t hate the series.
“It’s certainly not a naturalistic portrayal of teachers,” she explains to the . “We’ve used a lot of poetic licence. I’m sure teachers will have a good sense of humour and laugh along with it.”
If they don’t, then the entire cast and crew may find themselves in after-school detention for life.
