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Dead poets society on educational
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“I want to make them free thinkers” says Mr Keating to Mr McAllister. This essay will define the meaning of “free thinker”, its importance to the young men of Mr Keating's class, the meaning of Mr Keating's statement and finally the different impacts that this new way of thinking has on the boys.
A “Freethinker” as defined by The Macquarie Dictionary is “someone who forms their opinions independently of authority or tradition, especially in matters of religion”. Therefore a free thinker is someone who can produce ideas for themselves and is not solely reliant on the thoughts and actions of others to predetermine their life path. To pass from childhood to adulthood is usually an adjustment from following the rules and regulations of figures in society such as parents and teachers to making conscience independent decisions about future actions based on one's own beliefs and ideas. Often this pathway is a difficult voyage and those who go through are usually aided by mentors that they can get guidance from. Mr Keating in the Dead Poets Society was such a mentor for a group of confused young men who had been used to convention and stifling of creativity and freethinking all of their time at Welton Preparatory School for Boys.
What Mr Keating means by “i want to make them free thinkers” is that he wants the young men of his English class all to live a fulfilled life and to do this they must stop following the set structure like a herd of sheep following one and another For example in the movie “Dead Poet Society” when Mr Keating gets all the boys within his English class to ripe out the introduction entitled “Understanding Poetry” by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D. Evans explains Poetry by being able to be graded on a graph to determan if a poem is good or not. Mr Keating gets the boys to understand that you can not tell if a poem is good or not by a graph but by how much it means to you and the way it makes you feel. This is becoming a free thinker not using a set structure but actually understanding and appreciating it. He also believes that you can not set an age where free thinking should begin and it should be something that happens all throughout life. For the boys to learn and accomplish the things that Mr Keating wants them to within his class, they must think with there minds and not using a book.
The way a person is taught from a young age often times affects his or her values and perceptions throughout their life. A person is taught how to think and what to think about but is rarely given the choice of how to perceive this information. This can be seen in Plato 's “Allegory of the Cave,” “Learning to Read and Write,” by Frederick Douglass and the speech, “This is Water” by David Wallace. Each of the three pieces talks about characters being born into enslavement either hypothetically or literally. Being born into enslavement resulted in each of them to seek for freedom in different ways. Only knowing one way to see and think due to the environment arises self-centered thoughts by the protagonist.
Northrop Frye is one of the most influential literary critics of his time, and today. Indeed, one of his most applicable articles was published in 1986, titled, “Don’t You Think It’s Time to Start Thinking?”. He uses several key points to argue that most of society does not think critically and that the skills are purposefully not being taught to keep society compliant. This article, which criticizes how students are taught to think, is still very relevant today. While some may argue that the curriculum has changed over time to incorporate more of critical thinking, that is still not the case. Frye’s article is pertinent even today, especially with the inception of the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test. Society still encourages reading
The Poet is about a search for a serial killer that the FBI names “The Poet” due to this person’s signature of forcing the victims to write suicide notes in the form of a quote from Edgar Allen Poe. Jack McEvoy, a newspaper reporter from Denver, is the brother of a victim who was killed by the Poet. In an attempt to avenge his brother’s death McEvoy, and the FBI, form a nation-wide manhunt in search of this cunning illusive killer.
The conflict arose in Dead Poets Society as Keating's philosophies about life were challenged. Keating's fellow teachers at the conservative Welton Academy did not agree with his non-conformist method of teaching. Keating's peers believed that the students were not emotionally equipped to incorporate into their own lives the kind of freedom and nonconformism that Keating was selling. These teachers do not want the students to be free thinkers, only stuffed with facts and forced ideas to become doctors and lawyers.
Throughout the text Keating connects with people on a personal level through his word choice and tone. This connection with his audience allows him to further develop belonging, and evoke a greater emotional response in his audience. This word choice and tone can be seen in the lines, “We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We practiced discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice.”
Elder, Linda. “The 18th International Conference on Critical Thinking and Educational Reform.” 18th International Conference on Critical Thinking. 4 Aug. 1998. The Center for Critical Thinking <http://www.criticalthinking.org/University/univcomm/conf/conftext.nclk>.
“Seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary” is the sentiment new teacher Mr. Keating leaves with his students after the first day of class at Welton Academy (Weir). Mr. Keating teaches in an unorthodox manner, evident on the first day of class when catching the boys off guard by calling the introduction of their poetry textbook “excrement,” and instructing the boys to rip that section out of their book (Weir). His unique style of teaching forces the boys, who face immense pressures from their parents to excel, to think on their own. Using this idea of living for today, a group of boys reestablish the Dead Poet’s Society, which Mr. Keating describes as “dedicated to sucking the marrow out of life” by reading verses of famous poetry (Weir). This live-for-today mentality
Death is one of the only true constants in the universe and is the only guarantee in life. Everyone knows of death and everyone will experience it, but to the living death is still one of life's greatest mysteries. In some cultures death is celebrated and embraced, while in others it is feared. However it is perceived, death holds different meanings for different people. Through the art of poetry a writer can give a reader many different outlooks and maybe a better understanding of life and death.
Who is to blame for the death of Neil Perry? Explore the idea that others, including his father, Mr Keating and Welton Academy expected too much from him.
How the Quotations and Poems Demonstrate the Main Themes or Ideas of the Film Dead Poet's Society
Lipman, M. (1995). Critical thinking - what can it be? In A. Ornstein & L. Behar (Eds.) Contemporary issues in curriculum,pp. 145-152.
Rudd, R. (2007). Defining critical thinking. Techniques: Connecting Education and Careers, pp. 46-49. Retrieved February 5, 2009, from EBSCOhost database.
Since Keating was a Progressive, he provided a student-centered curriculum. A student-centered curriculum “focuses on the needs and attitudes of the individual students. Emphasizes self-expression and the student’s intrinsic motivation” (Ornstein, Levine, Gutek, Vocke, 2004, p. 522). Keating believed that learning is not about forcing routine packages of knowledge on them, but that it has more to do with triggering and inspiring the deepest feelings of his students. His purpose was to have his students think for themselves. Keating tells his students “Try never to think about anything the same way twice!” If you’re sure about something, force yourself to think about it another way.” Student-centered learning allows students the flexibility to learn anytime and anywhere, meaning that student learning can take place outside of the classroom. Keating really wanted to embrace this in his students. It is no coincidence that the Dead Poets Society cave in the woods is where most of the students’ engaging experiences occur, instead of at school in some classroom. According to Bramann, “Classrooms, schools, curricula, and disciplined instruction may be necessary for the education of the students and the maintenance of the life form into which humanity has evolved, but they are meaningless unless some deeper inspiration or vison will
Literary Review of Dead Poet’s Society One of the 20th centuries most compelling and best films goes by the title Dead Poets Society. This movie is set at the Helton Academy for Boys in 1959. The movie focuses in on a small group of boys. They have been sent to this preparatory school, most against their will, and have been forced to conform. However, they come across an English professor, Mr. Keating, whose lesson plan contradicts the entire schools mentality.
“There is a need to address the fundamental issue of how the thinking of these children can be made more effective, also a...