Some of the best teachers in history are fake ones. Real teachers don’t spout out inspirational wisdom in every class, but movie teachers seem to. They always struggle to connect with their students at the beginning, but soon win them over with strange tricks/accents/costumes/martial arts, and then the students eventually stand up for themselves and/or their teachers at the end. Now that’s an education. Check out how the following teachers motivate their troubled charges.

Michelle Pfeiffer gets street in Dangerous Minds:

Stand and Deliver shows the benefits of girlfriend math:

Robin Williams makes a young Ethan Hawke yawp in Dead Poets Society:

Rotten Tomatoes sums it up nicely: