alt title(s): Hippy Teacher
Let's get in touch with our inner-granola, m'kay?
May or may not be a good teacher, but
never a good disciplinarian. Often let students call them by their first name. Mr Hippie Teacher is my father you can call me Gary. Definitely
Truth In Television, since
everyone has had an art teacher like this. In fiction, however, they can teach any subject.
Contrast with the
Sadist Teacher. Compare
Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher and
Psychologist Teacher.
Examples:
- Mr. Van Driessen on Beavis And Butthead (shown above).
- Mr. O' Neill on Daria, who is scarily similar to Mr. Van Driessen save for the fact that he's not overtly a hippie. When Daria and Jane come to visit his apartment in one episode, it's filled with new age-y paraphernalia, and he offers them tea with a gem tincture.
- Mr. Simmons in Hey Arnold.
- Recess: Ms. Grotke is the most obvious example, but according to The Movie, Principal Prickly and Ms. Finster were Hippie Teachers back in the sixties.
- Mr. Rosso on Freaks And Geeks
- Mr. Burkenbake on The Fairly Oddparents, literally a Hippie Teacher. Also Mrs. Sunshine in "No Substitute for Crazy" until Timmy wishes her into Mr Crocker's job, and she reveals herself to be a scaryly competent Fairy Hunter whose professional name is Miss Doombringer.
- Art Cooney on The Wedge.
- Barbara Finney from The Cat Ate My Gymsuit was the first person to help insecure Marcy Lewis break out of her shell. Her controversial teaching methods has also caused an uproar from a large portion of the school faculty.
- Although not actually hippieish, Madame Frout, headmistress of the Frout Academy of Learning Through Play in the Thief Of Time, has invented a method of teaching that doesn't involve dicipline because she wasn't any good at it. Her best teacher, Susan Sto Helit, completely ignores it.
- Truth In Television: Being a hippie is essentially a prerequisite for a professorship at The Evergreen State College, an "alternative" institute of higher learning in Olympia, WA, which does away with, among other things, grades.
- This troper (who is in high school) thinks that even if removing the grades isn't quite necessary, changing them so they reflect actual understanding and knowledge rather than ability to memorize lots of insignificant details is.
- Doug's school counselor straddles this and Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher. As that he is always suggesting "Hugs" and other "Make Love" solutions to problems, his office is plastered with feel-good posters, and he looks vaguely like a caricature of Bob Dylan in an ugly sweater.
- Mr. Jellineck from Strangers With Candy, in sharp contrast to his secret lover.
- According to Paul Dinello, Jellineck (a totally insecure loser) was based on Hippie Teachers who in real life are often considered kind of creepy by their students, who don't really want a forty-year-old man giving them advice on problems he shouldn't even know about and insisting that he "gets" them all the time.
- Earth Mother (her codename), one of the Magical Arts instructors at Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe. She was a 'flower power' superheroine in the 60's.
- Mr. Mandrill from My Gym Partners A Monkey, another hippie school counselor.
- Hank Hill has locked horns with his share of Hippie Teachers over the years.
- Although he is too young to be a real hippie, Watanabe Osamu of The Prince Of Tennis fits the mold.
- Miracle from Sit Down Shut Up.
- Mr. Freeman, the art teacher from the YA book Speak.
