Being a teacher is tough particularly in a government or public school as they have to regulate the attention of a roomful of quirky children, sometimes with little or no facilities. Unfortunately, the parents of the students are either unaware or too much involved in their kid’s education that it feels right to tell them directly to find something else to do. Abbott Elementary is a comedy show, airing on ABC in America, starring Quinta Brunson of “A Black Lady Sketch Show”, is based on the faculty and staff of an underfunded and understaffed public school in Philadelphia where teachers are expected to do more with less help and the principal it seems is more engaged in her promotion on social media than the job of leading. The show is a smart representation of men and women on the front lines of public education system in America. The school is Willard R. Abbott Public School and the district is always reluctant to give funds to the school.
Abbot Elementary is set in a mokumentary style which we saw in popular sitcoms such as The Office, Modern Family and Parks and Recreation. The show attempts to take a hilarious look at the profession of teaching. One of the main characters of the show is Janine, played by Quinta Brunson, who is a second-grade teacher, she deeply cares about her students and her colleagues range from veterans in the profession to newcomers like herself. Then there is Gregory, played by Tyler James Williams from Dear White People, who is a substitute teacher and is caught off-guard by the unstable condition of the school. Later there are two experienced teachers Melissa and Barbara Howard while Jacob is an optimist Caucasian newbie trying to find his luck as an educator. And finally there is the principal Ava Coleman, played by Janelle James, who cares about her promotion on Tik Tok just as much about her employees, she also doesn’t hesitate in hitting on a good-looking man.
One of the amazing aspects of Abbott Elementary is that it is a Black show. Meaning the overwhelming number of people associated with the series are Black Americans. Created by Quinta Brunson, a Black woman, this is a step in the fight for representation of minorities in predominantly White movies/series/shows in Hollywood. There are moments in the show which depict that the teachers are willing to do more than the job entails such as Janine doing the task of replacing a dysfunctional lightbulb herself as it was scaring a kid. The story is close to home for Brunson, who is also serving as the writer on the show, as her mother was a teacher in a Philadelphia school for four decades and she wrote in a letter that her mother’s story inspired her to write Abbott Elementary. Depicting the reality of lack funding of schools in minority areas, the series is reviving the trend of network sitcom judging by its ratings.
