I
have just revisited the great film from 1989 entitled, “Dead Poets Society.”
It is one of those films that you must make a point of revisiting every
so often, especially if you’re a teacher!
There are so many inspirational and moving poems and quotes in the film,
but I think there are 3 parts of the film too often overlooked. First, I love the dedication the young
kids have to their studies. No
question it is often misguided and for all the wrong reasons, but a great
teacher can give that motivation a proper compass and steer those kids the
right directions. Second, is Mr.
Keating’s passion for his students to develop “outside of the classroom.” Clearly he is great inside the
classroom, but it is his concern and compassion for his students to develop as
complete well-rounded people.
Finally, the ending. Mr.
Keating, despite being the best role-model and inspiration any of these
students have ever had, loses his job.
Sometimes doing the right thing takes some sacrifice, and Mr. Keating
knew that.
The
various characters are clearly similar in so many ways. They are all young, rich, white boys
who attend the best Prep School in America. However, they each have a unique character about them. The one similarity they all share, due
to their similar backgrounds, is a seriousness about their education. Even when they have a bad teacher, and
there are many examples of the old fogy teachers teaching quite badly, they
still stay focused, respect their teacher and give it their best. There’s a sense that they are studying
for a higher purpose and they aren’t going to let some ridiculous teacher ruin
their success. Great teachers
inspire students to do their best and work hard, but there are great many lessons
that can be learned by students when they don’t have a great teacher. It can show their true character to not
sit back, complain and blame someone else, but instead to show that person that
they can’t hold you down. Don’t
get me wrong, I think that many of these boys are trying hard for all the wrong
reasons and they do things more out of fear than any real desire to better
themselves as people, but a great teacher, as Mr. Keating, will surely take
these boys’ amazing work ethic and point it in a proper direction. He will help them to find authentic
reasons to study and work hard and then the students’ lives will truly be all
that they can be, and not some shallow reflection of their parents’ lives.
Someday
our students will no longer be our students. Someday students will become the generation that leads their
nation and world. It is a teacher’s
job to prepare students for the future, not just to earn certain grades or for
standardized tests or for admission into a particular college, but it is our
duty to make them better people and in turn prepare them for their life outside
of school. In the film, it is very
clear which teachers are preparing their students for just the next exam and
which teacher is preparing the students for life. Mr. Keating is a role model for all teachers. He cares very much for his students as
people. He teaches a poetry class,
and readily admits that this may not be a “practical” class for most of his
students who want to be doctors and lawyers, but he appeals to their humanity,
saying that poetry is about love and emotion, the things that we can’t
calculate and measure, but that everyone has! He wants to educate the “whole person” and for them to be in
touch with all sides of their brains and develop their entire person, not just
a part. Mr. Keating surely teaches
the curriculum, but he goes beyond that narrow mandate to truly give his
students an education and help to make them better people.
Maybe
the most overlooked part of the story is the fact at the end that Mr. Keating
loses his job with integrity. Too
often people will do anything to keep their job, often times not speaking
“truth to power” and not standing up for what is right. Mr. Keating knows what is right and
knows that he is fighting an uphill battle against “traditional” teaching
methods. He realizes that there is
a gigantic difference between teaching and educating. If you educate the whole person and help them to become
better people with a clear base of priorities, then good grades, entrance into
college and job prospects will follow.
If a teacher doesn’t educate the whole person then we have people
floating through life who may have good grades and a job, but who are self
consumed and narrow-minded. That
doesn’t make the world a better place for them or our children. Too often school and teachers are short
term oriented around goals that in themselves do not produce better
people. The catch is that if we
try to produce better people all of those short-term goals will be achieved through
the journey of becoming the best person that they can be.
Mr.
Keating is clearly an amazing teacher.
The only thing that is greater than his passion for poetry is his
passion and love for his students.
That is evidenced by how he attempts to offer his students work ethic a
proper compass, how he works diligently to educate the whole person and how he
was willing to risk his own personal security to do what was right for his
students. Because of this, the
future for Mr. Keating’s students and all students of great teachers has opened
wide and students begin to see the world and the possibilities of their lives
from a whole new perspective.
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