blackboard jungle

blackboard jungle

1. Schools viewed as a broad group or category. The term implies that they have many pitfalls and difficulties. After working in the blackboard jungle for 20 years, retirement is much more appealing than continuing to teach multiplication tables.
2. A school in which the students are particularly unruly. Teachers keep quitting because that school is a blackboard jungle. You have a good chance of being physically harmed if you teach there.
See also: jungle
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

blackboard jungle

a school, or schools in general, with violent and uncontrollable pupils.
See also: jungle
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • a fishing expedition
  • expedition
  • fishing expedition
  • hanger-on
  • heavy petting
  • take (one's) lumps
  • take lumps
  • take one’s lumps
  • take your lumps
  • wear too many hats
References in periodicals archive
A quantum leap beyond the stiletto-type pushbutton knives of Blackboard Jungle and West Side Story infamy, is Bear's White Smooth Bone Handle Automatic Folding Knife (AC-550-WSB6).
YOUR recent Nostalgia article on the Blackboard Jungle (September 27) brought back more memories from those far off times.
Mr Ford, who also starred in movie classics The Blackboard Jungle and 3.10 To Yuma, was in the valley making a TV documentary.
Fe ysbrydolwyd yr ifanc gyda'r ffilmiau Blackboard Jungle a Rock Around the Clock a cherddoriaeth Bill Haley, Elvis, Carl Perkins, Little Richard, Eddy Cochran, Gene Vincent a Billy Fury fod rhywbeth ar gyfer eu cenhedlaeth nhw ar ol i genhedlaeth eu rhieni ennill yr Ail Ryfel Byd.
Dadier, a beginning teacher in the film Blackboard Jungle (Berman, 1955).
"The first time I saw Rock'n'Roll it was in 1955 - The Blackboard Jungle starring Glenn Ford and Sidney Poitier.
Other highlights include Chris Phipps' events: The Great North Kinetoscope Show, featuring very early film, at The Crescent working men's club in Cullercoats; and events marking the 60-year anniversaries of the Quatermass Experiment at The Lighthouse and Blackboard Jungle at the Jam Jar Cinema with Steve Drayton's Record Club.
And having never heard it before, I was fascinated by the story of how Rock Around The Clock by Bill Haley and The Comets went from obscure B side to theme tune for the film Blackboard Jungle and charttopping A side.
During his previous 13-year stint in RTE, Ray's TV presenting gigs included The Den, The Rose of Tralee, and Blackboard Jungle.
This was 1959-60 when the 22 years old Miss Prichard began her teaching life in north London's blackboard jungle. She reported to Finsbury Park Secondary Modern School, Blackstock Road N.1, close to Highbury where the Arsenal played.
This was evident in the classic films of the decade including The Wild One, Rebel Without a Cause, and Blackboard Jungle; books such as On the Road and The Catcher in the Rye-, and rock 'n' roll in general.
Nobody at that Board does anything without checking with you first, the overdressed Sheena of the Blackboard Jungle. Know what the faculty has nicknamed you this year?
When a young Paul Mazursky blazed onto the screen playing a vicious delinquent in the revolutionary "Blackboard Jungle," no one could have anticipated he would carve further trails during a distinguished screenwriting careen
While incorporating classics of the teen genre such as Blackboard Jungle, Rebel Without a Cause, the John Hughes oeuvre and more recent examples such as Mean Girls and Juno, Driscoll also considers teen horror films, teen comedies, the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises, films such as Kids and Clockwork Orange that invite moral panic-style readings of the activities of young people, and what she calls 'teen films for grown-ups', such as Almost Famous.
The selfless public servant, Richard Dadier (Glenn Ford), subdued the Blackboard jungle in 1955; years later, Jaime Escalante (Edward James Olmos) in Stand and Deliver inspired his East Los Angeles students to success in Advanced Placement Calculus; in 1989, John Keating (Robin Williams) created a Dead Poets Society to reach even the most cynical students at an elite private school.