FALL BACK INTO SCHOOL

BELINDA M. PASCHAL

So I’ve been thinking about going back to school at the ripe old age of twenty-ni—uh, thirty-sev—um … let’s just say I’m older than the average “traditional” student. Since I started tossing the idea around, I’ve had flashbacks of retirement-age Rodney Dangerfield in “Back to School,” a movie I hated when I first saw it in 1986, but have since upgraded to “doesn’t TOTALLY suck, but Rodney still gets no respect for this one.”

Then I got to thinking about the many films revolving around institutions of higher learning and came up with more than you can shake a yardstick at. I divided my mental list, reduced it to its lowest terms and I now present the remainder: 10 of my favorite films about lessons learned both in and out of the classroom.

“To Sir With Love” (1967) – The quintessential parable of the dedicated teacher winning over a class of rebellious malcontents. Standouts include Sidney Poitier as Mark Thackeray (“Sir” to his pupils), Judy Geeson as Pamela Dare, and Lulu’s hit song sharing the film’s title.

“Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (1982) – With a cast of future stars including a young Sean Penn as stoner surf-rat Jeff Spicoli, “Fast Times” taught us words like “wuss,” and “gnarly,” plus that the settlers “left this England place 'cause it was bogus.”

“The Breakfast Club” (1985) – Most of us identified with at least one of these five student caricatures (“a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal”) who meet in Saturday detention and find they have more in common than they thought. (As a freshman, I was a less-nerdy version of Anthony Michael Hall’s “brain”; by graduation, I’d morphed into Ally Sheedy’s not-so-insane “basket case.”)

“School Daze” (1988) – Spike Lee trains his gimlet eye on intra-racial color discrimination and Greek vs. non-Greek conflict among students at a historically black college. With musical numbers!

“Stand and Deliver” (1988) – This is the movie “Dangerous Minds” wanted to be. Though both are based on true stories, Edward James Olmos is infinitely more credible than Michelle Pfeiffer as a teacher who transforms underachievers into honor roll students.

“Lean on Me” (1989) – Morgan Freeman as tyrannical-but-dedicated principal Joe Clark saves this from being just another fact-based tale of an inner-city miracle worker.

“Dazed and Confused” (1993) – Imagine what “The Breakfast Club” got up to after detention and it might look something like this peek into the lives of nerds, jocks, stoners, cheerleaders and that creepy guy who graduated five years ago but still hangs around the high school.

“Rushmore” (1999) – Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman make extracurricular activities more hilarious than giving wedgies to Chess Club geeks.

“Mean Girls” (2004) – One of the many reasons I love Tina Fey, who turned a nonfiction book about cliques into one of the smartest, funniest teen movies of the decade (starring Lindsay Lohan, pre-downward spiral). You go, Glen Coco!

“Napoleon Dynamite” (2004) – Gawky Napoleon has one goal during his senior year: To ask his secret crush to the prom. Lessons learned: Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills and D-Qwon has the dopest dance grooves.