As a young woman of colour, I love seeing characters like me on my TV screen. Quinta Brunson’s Abbott Elementary has been my recent binge series, and I can’t get enough of it! (As of the writing of this article, the series is on a hiatus, but is scheduled to return in a few days!) Brunson’s character, Janine Teagues (a fellow short queen), is already a role model for me because of her strengths and flaws.
*Spoiler Warning*
Abbott Elementary starts at the beginning of Teagues’ teaching career. Through four seasons of sitcom shenanigans, I’ve developed a greater respect for her and the community of passionate public servants she represents. This workplace series focuses on the character Teagues and her coworkers as side characters who collide and pass each other on the rollercoaster of their lives while teaching at the titular public elementary school.
Teagues and her colleagues (except for barely competent Principal Coleman, played by Janelle James)are dealing with significant underfunding in their school district; these characters make it through thanks to their sheer will and the community they develop with each other. Each character has their own arc and motivations, but the main character Teagues compels me the most.
Since day one, Teagues has been a staunch, independent, oldest daughter-type who stubbornly wants to change the world despite her many mishaps and challenges. In season 1, episode 2 “Light Bulb,” Teagues tries to fix the blinking overhead lighting that scares her students. With no electrical know-how and a fear of heights, she climbs a ladder to try and fix the light but ends up cutting power to much of the school. Her colleagues and friends fix it, but this was an important lesson for Teagues—dream big, but only do what you can.
Teagues doesn’t give up though, in season 2, episode 2 “Wrong Delivery,” she was presented with the chance to give her students computers (which other non-public schools already have)—so Teagues brings her A-game to a Shark Tank-style pitch meeting with Principal Coleman so that the rarely-given grant money from the district could go towards those computers. Teagues won, but bigger problems foiled her win. Abbott coincidently got infested with mice. The school had to spend the grant money on pest control instead.
Later in season two, Teagues wins an administrative fellowship with the school district and faces new challenges while trying to improve the elementary school on the institutional scale.
In season 3, episode 3 “Gregory’s Garden Goofballs,” she gets really bogged down in administrative paperwork trying to provide an ASL interpreter for a student. Though she stubbornly gets the job done, with help from her new community of colleagues at the district, the taxing process of trying to help just one student get the education they deserve was a splash of cold water on Teagues’ big dreams. Nevertheless, she finds other ways of being the best educator for her students.
On the cusp of getting a permanent administrative job with the district after her fellowship, Teagues is reminded of her true calling to teach from good-luck presents from Abbott’s finest—her old colleagues and friends. Teagues’ wholesome letters from her friends catalyze her choice to return to teaching because being with her students is her happy place, and that’s why she’s an exemplary teacher.
Teagues is fundamentally guided by her passion for teaching on a personal scale. She’s independent from other characters, even from her romantic interest, Gregory Eddie played by Tyler James Williams (which is a refreshing break from traditional sitcom emphasis on romantic plots).
In every problem Teagues tries to solve, it’s important to know it’s caused by the Philadelphia school district’s systemic underfunding of public schools like Abbott. Nevertheless, Abbott Elementary’s faculty resolve to rise to this challenge. What makes Teagues and her crew of public servants exceptional and inspiring is their gritted-tooth optimism for a better education for their students. “We’ve got broken lights, instead of computers – we’ve got mice, and some students don’t have accessible education.”
Despite overwhelmingly bad odds, Teagues and the Abbott faculty continue to provide excellent education to their students, after all, the message of Abbott Elementary is to “do what needs to be done.”