Movie Review of the Week: When the Teacher Changes, The Classroom Changes.

Lessons from Gloria Merriex's “Class of Her Own”

Safiya HamzaOctober 2, 2026

0 3 minutes read

What happens when a teacher looks at a classroom full of struggling children and refuses to accept that the children are the problem?

That is the question at the heart of Class of Her Own, the 2024 biographical documentary directed by Boaz Dvir.

The film tells the story of Gloria Jean Merriex, a teacher at Duval Elementary School in Gainesville, Florida, whose school was struggling badly. Faced with poor academic performance and the threat of closure, Merriex made a decision that would change the direction of the school.

She changed the way she taught.

She introduced hip-hop, music, dance, chanting and call-and-response into lessons in mathematics, reading and science. She developed approaches that connected learning with the children she actually had in front of her.

The result was extraordinary. A school that had received an F moved to an A in a single year.

But the most important lesson of the film is not the grade.

It is the question that came before it.

What if we changed the way we teach before we decided that a child could not learn?

That question should trouble every serious educator.

Because education can become so focused on outcomes that we forget the human beings behind them.

A child is reduced to a score.

A classroom becomes a statistic.

A school becomes a grade.

And when the numbers are poor, the child is sometimes described as the problem.

Class of Her Own invites us to look again.

Perhaps the teacher must sometimes ask:

What am I missing?

What does this child need?

What can I change?

What have I assumed about this child that may not be true?

These are not merely questions about teaching technique.

They are questions about professional responsibility.

A teacher is not simply someone who delivers a curriculum. A teacher observes, interprets, adapts and learns.

A teacher must be prepared to recognise when something is not working and have the courage to examine why.

That is what makes Gloria Merriex’s story so relevant to the TeacherFIRE® Revolution.

For 15 years, TeacherFIRE® has carried a simple conviction:

We cannot build a world fit for children without building teachers fit for children.

A teacher fit for children needs more than subject knowledge.

The teacher needs to understand children.

To recognise vulnerability.

To understand the influence and responsibility that come with being an adult in a child’s life.

To create environments where children can learn safely.

To know when to adapt.

To keep learning.

And to understand that behind every educational outcome is a child whose life is being shaped by the experience.

That is why Class of Her Own is such an appropriate film for World Teachers’ Day.

Gloria Merriex did not simply teach differently.

She demonstrated what can happen when a teacher is willing to ask a different question.

“What else can I do?”

Sometimes, that question is where change begins.

As we mark this year’s TeacherFIRE® Revolution Annual Global Conference 2026 in commemoration of the World Teachers’ Day, we are bringing together teachers, school leaders, parents, education policymakers and child advocates to reflect on 15 lessons from 15 years in the field.

Theme:

15 YEARS. 15 LESSONS. ONE REVOLUTION.
…Building the Teacher Who Builds a World Fit for Children.

And we are pleased to introduce the people who will help us explore those lessons.