Abbott Elementary is a show you can watch by yourself, with family or in school. I’ve been a fan since season two, so around 2022. The show follows the teachers of Abbott Elementary, a Philadelphia school that struggles with adequate funding and resources. The main cast of characters includes over-eager second year teachers Janine Teagues and Jacob Hill and veteran teachers Barbara Howard and Melissa Schementti. When watching the show, you might think there’s no way this principal is qualified for her job. And you would be correct. While Ava Coleman is a woman of many talents and hustles, she does not have the educational qualifications necessary for a job as principal. Ava got lucky though, and got her job by blackmailing the superintendent of the school district. While lucky for Ava, this means bad news for Gregory Eddie. Gregory went to school with the intent to become a principal, interviewed for the job, and was all set to be Abbott’s new principal until Ava got her way. Gregory enters Abbott Elementary as a substitute teacher who’s not very excited at the prospect of teaching young children. Last of the main cast is Mr. Johnson, the school custodian with an interesting (possibly fabricated?) past.

As for the show itself, one of the things that I really enjoyed while watching the first few episodes was the documentary style of filming. Similar to Modern Family, the documentary style of the show makes it feel more authentic because the characters are written to act as they would in real-life, without a camera on them. I might not be explaining this the best, but
I feel like I could walk into this school’s teacher lounge (not that I would, I would never) and see teachers interacting with one another as the teachers on Abbott do. I also feel as though the setting plays a massive role in the show. Establishing the setting as a primarily Black public elementary school in Philadelphia adds to the authenticity of the plot. Many of the issues discussed on the show are issues I’d expect educators to actually deal with: misbehaving students, social media phenomena, issues with the budget and parents. In my Principles of Teaching class, my teacher showed episodes of “Abbott Elementary” as a way to connect our curriculum to an enjoyable medium.

The first season is mostly about setting the stage for the show and I’d say it does a great job. The individual episodes have plots of their own, like “desking” and when the Halloween candy is stolen,  with the overarching plot revolving around speculation of what budget allotment the school board will give to Abbott. An issue I see a lot with recent television shows is the shortened length of seasons means every episode, practically every scene, needs to keep the story going. “Filler episodes”, that are kinda random and often never referenced again in subsequent episodes, are a thing of the past. “Abbott Elementary” has done an excellent job of taking the fun and enjoyable aspects of filler episodes while incorporating recurring gags or jokes into the show.

While there are some aspects of the show I don’t love, (Janine is painfully cringy at times) I can acknowledge that even that is purposeful and meant to add to the characterization of Janine as a teacher with good intentions with sometimes poor execution skills. Overall, I love Abbott Elementary and can’t wait for the winter hiatus to end to get more. I highly recommend anyone to take thirty minutes to watch the first episode and see what Abbott has to offer.

On this blog, members of the Carmel High School chapter of the Quill and Scroll International Honorary Society for High School Journalists (and the occasional guest writer) produce curations of all facets of popular culture, from TV shows to music to novels to technology. We hope our readers always leave with something new to muse over. Click here to read more from the MUSE Winter Collection.