dangerous minds
...ohnson, who is played by Michelle Pfeiffer, arrives at an inner-city high school in East Palo Alto, California in search of a job as a student teacher. What she gets instead is a full-time position teaching English. Here she finds a class of tough, street-wise kids, involved in gangs and drugs, whom Johnson quickly dubs the "rejects from hell” (Dangerous Minds, 1995). Her initially meek demeanor, small stature, first day school attire, and white skin earn her the nickname "white bread" from her students. Determined to have them trust and respect her, she quickly changes her presentation, wearing leather jackets, teaching karate to her students and cursing in the classroom as cleanly as the students do to her. Creating her own curriculum for her "socially challenged" but otherwise extremely bright class, she starts having them read college-level texts despite protestations f...