COMMUNITY: Repilot; Introduction to Teaching

Welcome back Human Beings! It’s been a strange and long hiatus for everyone at Greendale Community College, but now that we’re back, let’s get down to business.

Repilot

So, as the episode says, it’s a re-piloting of things, and that means we have to see everyone at their absolute worst. That means that Jeff’s job as a lawyer had to fail (including a really cheesy commercial that should never see the light of day) and that Greendale has failed yet another student (this time it’s an architect who designed a faulty bridge). Even the rest of the study group has failed at what they wanted to do – awful jobs that are signs of regressing, family’s falling apart, and Troy’s still floundering in what he wants.

But all of that means that the study group has a reason to be back together – if only to right the wrongs that the last four years (including the gas-leak year) back into the fold of a dysfunctional community college that no one really deserves.

To make the point even more clear, Piece’s holographic likeness reminds Jeff that he’s taken a wrong turn and that no one should look at Greendale as if it were the problem and not the solution.

The group plans to burn the study table as a sign of how they are moving on, and with a job teaching at Greendale, Jeff and the study group are going to do it right. This time they aren’t going to go with what felt right, but what is right.

Everyone has a new look on Greendale and a new way to interact with each other: Abed might actually learn how to interact with people; Annie’s going to work on her forensic science degree; Shirley’s going to learn how to run a business the real way; Troy’s going to find himself and Britta’s going to still fail at being a psychology major.

Regardless of any repiloting the show may do, this tag is so over the top that no one should resist it.

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Introduction to Teaching

As a teacher in real life, listening to Jeff and his students ask questions and deflect them is putting way too much of my real life in the show. But that doesn’t mean that the points are valid: teacher’s done get to leer or belittle students, at least not to their faces. There’s an office and a lounge for that.

The push and pull of teaching is at the heart of the episode, watching Jeff learn how to teach – effectively – and for the rest of the group to learn how to learn (to a point).

Jeff’s journey of discovery in how to teach starts with getting looks and catcalls from students who don’t take kindly to his brand of humor and then later with Mr Hickey, his officemate, who shows him around the teacher’s side of the school. The teachers’ lounge is a pool of adults who have given up on doing what they should do and instead of teaching, they give students room to discuss. That’s not a bad practice, but it’s not an always sort of thing. There’s also a secret about teachers giving out A-’s when students deserve A’s that finds the whole campus in a riot.

On the other side, Abed’s desire for always having an answer to a question goes wrong as he can’t figure out if Nicolas Cage is good or bad, as per his class with Prof. Garrity. Nevermind that Abed ignores the rules of the class (no marathoning and only watching five movies) and the end result is a near Cagesque breakdown in the middle of class.

As the riot is about to get very out of control, even Jeff’s patented monologue can’t save the school: everyone at Greendale is broken but that doesn’t mean they can’t get alone. That does nothing to stop the students, but a student and staff group that can discuss issues might actually do the job.

In the end, that is how we find Mr. Hinkey joining Jeff and the group in the old study room for all the issues that are going to befall Greendale. Maybe the group can tackle the issues from the tag and discuss the wages of teachers at the school.