Date of airing: October 12, 2001 (Disney Channel)
written by: Douglas Tuber, Tim Maile
directed by: Mark Rosman
This was an episode about being a good teacher, as well as an episode about students who decide to listen to their teacher and who learn something beyond dates and places in history. Also, it was an episode about how to teach and how to bring practice into the process, and not just rattle down history lessons in words and with books only, let alone give the lessons context instead of names and dates and places. Because what are we going to learn from history when all we know from it is the straight facts and none of the context?
You can see in current American politics how bad things pan out when you do not teach the context, but we shall not go too deep into American politics while reviewing a Disney Channel show from 2001, even though I really want to. This episode showed that sometimes it might be helpful when you are not just learning, but doing the thing you are supposed to learn about. When the episode contrasted Lizzie, Miranda, and Gordo’s learning practices with the questions Mr. Escobar was asking during the Fact-athlon, my hair was rising in shame, because history does not bring you anything when you know nothing but the numbers and names of historic events.
 |
| English royalty has invaded the Disney Channel. |
That was quite the interesting premise for this episode, and it made the half hour better than it had any right to be. Yes, our three main characters might have horribly lost the Fact-athon, but it is also true they knew more than their competition, they were just not asked the right questions to prove it (you can see it in Miranda’s answer to the question about the Emancipation Proclamation). There is never a better moral in a kids’ show targeted at the middle school and junior high school audience than wanting to know more about history than the year of what is being asked about. And one can only hope some of the real-life teachers who watched this episode when it first aired listened as well and decided to change their lesson plan just a little bit. This should be the first step toward a nationwide education reform, especially in the US.
The scene in which Miranda was telling why the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, instead of just telling the date, was the focal point of the entire episode, the reason why this half hour even exists, and proof that the Disney Channel may have been out to teach their audience some actual facts. Shows like JEOPARDY do not want you to know the backstory or the reason for a certain event, they just want you to know the hard facts, and sometimes those hard facts get lost quickly when more hard facts enter the brains of the students, and then you know nothing. But when you put some effort into recreating the history in your mind (and even practically, like the core three have done when they decided to dress up as English royalty speaking like Shakespeare, and playing Black Jack to learn the intricacy of math), that info will stay with you. And yet, shows like JEOPARDY are still airing, and schools still do multiple-choice tests, because... Well, maybe it is the laziest way to create exams for the majority of teachers and to drag kids through multiple years of school. And you wonder why personalities like Donald Trump get elected to the highest office in the land.
 |
| Rock it out, Lanny! |
Matt’s story was also solid, which shocked me to my core. First of all, I have no idea who Rick Marotta is, but hey, this is a Disney Channel show giving space to some celebrities doing cameo roles, which is not a bad thing (and not the first time the show has done that), and at least Marotta was playing a more fictional version of himself, which was better than the cameos of non-actors who could not act their way through a scene after studying MARRIAGE STORY for weeks. Especially when shows only do that once or twice a season, and have the special guest stars play roles that are not defined by who they are. Okay, Marotta almost played himself and he was drumming a lot throughout the episode, but it is not like the writers tried hard to explain to people who the guy is and why he was here in the first place. It was just a fun role, easy on the eyes and ears, and not too much.
In addition, Matt and Lanny were rocking it out and I almost would have hoped this had been the beginning of a beautiful story about a couple of kids and an aging drummer going through the neighborhood and getting 50 bucks for a one-song concert in their backyards, all with scenes that have a great sound, but show that Matt was not at all playing the guitar correctly.
