"Art Teacher" is the seventh episode of Abbott Elementary's first season.
When the art teacher retires, Janine's college friend Sahar is hired as the school's new volunteer art teacher. Sahar and Melissa disagree over the latter's Peter Rabbit project, and though Janine agrees with Melissa, she finds it hard to turn down Sahar's ideas. When Sahar makes an impressive art piece by tearing up the books Melissa bought for the class, Janine finally stands up to her. Disappointed in the lack of vegetables in the school lunches, Jacob convinces Barbara that they should start a school garden despite having little experience doing so. Experienced in landscaping, a frustrated Gregory secretly tends to their garden to make sure it can thrive.
This episode contains examples of:
- All for Nothing: Jacob's efforts in providing seasoned and well-prepared zucchini ends with his trays being thrown in the trash by Devon.
- And Then What?: After presenting their first grown zucchini, the cafeteria man Devin asks if Mr. Hill and Ms. Howard expects him and his crew to put in the extra work to cook and prepare their vegetables for every kid at Abbott.
- Awesome McCoolname: Janine notes that "Sahar's" real name is Sarah, but she flipped the h and the r to seem cooler.
- Birds of a Feather: To everyone's surprise, including their own, Jacob and Barbara grow closer as friends after realizing how much they have in common. From their interest in gardening to similar tastes in classical music.
- Bourgeois Bohemian: Sahar comes from a privileged background and doesn't understand that the Abbott Elementary teachers don't have the same financial resources she does, so destroying the Peter Rabbit books was something they couldn't really afford.
- Breaking the Fellowship: Sahar decides to end her friendship with Janine when her old friend stands up for Melissa and admits that she doesn't agree with her radical beliefs.
- Caring Gardener: Subverted with the new Garden Club. While Jacob and Barbara made the club with good intentions, they have zero idea on how to properly take care of their produce. They all would have perished if it wasn't for their fairy godbrother Gregory stepping in to give them the care they need to survive.
- The Charmer: Sahar is able to charm Ava by stroking her ego and making her seem more cool then what she is. Ava is so impressed that she wants to be closer friends with the artist.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Barbara lamentably realizes that making a garden to provide nutrition is an impossible task as it takes too much effort to grow and prepare vegetables for an entire student body in a daily basis.
- As Devin crudely explains by throwing away Jacob's vegetables, bringing in outside food to serve the student body is a health code violation.
- Cutting the Knot: Jacob decides to prepare the vegetables himself so Devin and his crew won't have to over-work themselves with it.
- Eccentric Artist: Sahar is presented as a rising artist who wants to revolutionize the minds of younger generations while challenging the old ways. This is what leads to going for a creative take on Peter Rabbit that puts her at odds with Melissa.
- Family Business: Gregory reveals to the camera that his grandfather created his own landscaping business in which his dad and him used to work in. Given how he had to work every summer, he openly admits that he loathes gardening.
- First Friend: Sahar was this to Janine who admits that she had a hard time making friends in her younger years.
- Freudian Excuse: It's heavily implied in this episode that Gregory's father made him into the uptight adult he is in the present.
- The Generation Gap: The conflict between Melissa and Sahar. Melissa, the older teacher, wants to continue the classic tradition of making Peter Rabbit faces for the kids to enjoy. Sahar, an art teacher with new age ideas, wants an alternative take on the story that challenges societal norms and customs.
- I Can't Believe I'm Saying This: Barbara says this just as she agrees with Jacob's gardening project.
- Idle Rich: Janine informs the audience that she was able to make a pseudo-art show out of Sahar's forest set to lure in some art critics who have money to throw away. They're impressed with the piece, buy it and grant her the money to purchase Melissa a new set of Peter Rabbit books.
- Irony: During the retirement party, no one has any idea what Ms. Temple's (the guest of honor) name is or what she teaches. Janine is the only one who remembers along with her favorite vacation spot; Ms. Temple admits in secret that she has no idea who Janine is.
- Kick the Dog: Ava asks if Sahar met Janine as a "Big Sister" or through a "Make a Wish" program when being introduced to her for the first time.
- Mirroring Factions: Despite Devon's brash personality, Barbara knows that he and his crew are just like the teachers: working with their impoverished conditions and doing the best that they can for the kids.
- Person as Verb: After realizing the folly of agreeing to the garden project without looking at it from a long-term perspective, Barbara is shocked to realize that she pulled a "Janine".
- Pretentious Pronunciation: Janine yells out that Sahar's real name is "Sarah" as she leaves the school.
- Soapbox Sadie: Sahar fills this stereotype as she constantly wants to make ideas that challenge the status quo and hopes to inspire kids to be as rebellious and free-thinking as her.
- Start My Own: Jacob teams up with Barbara to make their own school garden so the kids could have vegetables to go with their lackluster lunches.
- Taught by Experience: Due to spending his childhood working in his family's landscaping business, Gregory is shown to be a wizard when it comes to gardening.
- Tranquil Fury: After the shocking reveal that Sahar tore apart all of Melissa's newly bought Peter Rabbit books to create her forest set, Ms. Schemmentti casually gives her earrings to a nearby student and then goes on to look for the heaviest book she can find to bash Sahar's head in.
- Tsundere: Greg serves as a platonic example. He openly professes his hatred for gardening, but he can't stand by and watch Jacob and Barbara destroy innocent plants with their ignorant tactics. So without their knowing, he resorts to modifying the soils and giving the plants the nutrients they need to survive. But it's not like he enjoyed it or anything. Bakas...
- You Owe Me: Despite accepting Janine's apology for the harm her ex-friend did, Melissa states that she owes her 75 brand new copies of Peter Rabbit by the end of the school year. To her surprise, Ms. Teagues gets them back by the end of the week.
