Dead Poets Society and Mr. Keating
Dead Poets Society narrates a story about a teacher, Mr. Keating, and a group of students happened in a conservative preparatory high school--Walton. It tells a brave reformation led by Mr. Keating invisibly which would change conformity to individual and unrepressed. However, the efforts didn’t bring success in that traditional environment. The movie turns out to be a tragedy. DPS is really a significant story that influences lots of educators or the public. It finally won an Oscar reward in 1990. Now, let’s talk about what the movie wants to tell us and what on earth reflected in my mind.
The DPS’s author demonstrates how Mr. Keating guides his students to be the free thinker and how these students respect
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He performed their first class in the hall giving his students a new feeling. He made them stand on the desk to change the angle of view. He taught them to walk in their own way. He also let students shout the poem while kicking soccer. He made the boring life more colorful. To deal with Todd, who didn’t write a poem for homework, he made Todd stand in front of the platform to express what he “see”. He stimulated him and aroused his thought. The reason of all these is that he wants his students to be creative, unrepressed even hedonistic. He doesn’t want to see his students trapped in Walton. The students who get used to the conventional education, felt surprised at first. However, they found themselves fall in love with his class and became big fans for this new philosophy----Carpe diem (seize the day). While because Mr. Keating’s method is against other …show more content…
Keating is a good model for education and I also have something on Chinese education. It’s obviously that the final punishment from Walton is really unfair and the school just makes Mr. Keating become their scapegoat. Neil’s suicide is not one’s fault. The contradiction between an unconventional mind and the conventional structure can be the real cause. Mr. Keating’s methodology is badly needed in that extreme traditional age while few people can accept it. In nowadays, Chinese education seems to be regarded as the Walton’s in the result of being inclined to the strict regulation. There’s a large group of people being trained called high-grade with low-competence. In Chinese educational flow line, we native people even criticize it for the order of learning first and being a man later while the right order is completely opposite. People need structure, but we had so many structures already that we need more creative elements added into our education. This is also the reason why we choose WKU. From traditional Chinese education to American less-structure education, the transition needs efforts. However, when we make it, we realize that like Whitman has
Consider McMurphy and Mr. Keating, both characters are very similar in a multitude of ways. Neither of them is in charge as they are both under their respective antagonist, either being Nurse Ratched or Principle Nolan. However throughout the progression of each plot, they both teach and inspire either the patients or the students to become individuals. McMurphy gave the patients the ability to seize back the power from Nurse Ratched through showing them the way how, and teaching the patients that they are their own person and have their own rights. Mr. Keating teaches the students how to be outside the box, as shown when in class he strays from the regular methods of teaching and shows the students a truly out-of-the-box concept about life, “Carpe Diem.” Towards the final moments of the plot, both characters achieve a full commitment to their cause that eventuates in self-sacrifice. McMurphy is lobotomized and Mr. Keating is fired from Welton Academy. However similarly in both plots, after both characters sacrifices themselves they pass on what they have learned and allowed others to beat their struggle for independence. Chief leaves the institution and the students stand up against Principle Nolan with what they believe in. Weir and Kesey use these characters to inspire and support those who struggle for independence and use their characterization as a technique to do so.
Mr. Keating encourages Todd to speak up and voice his opinions. He makes Todd realize that the world will accept him because his thoughts and feelings are so deep and heartfelt. Charles Dalton receives just the spark he needs for action from Mr. Keating. He reforms a group called the Dead Poets Society.
...o think for themselves. He believes that students will become more active and informed citizens if they are brought up to think for themselves (155). Gatto’s proposed solutions can be found successfully applied in Mike Rose’s essay. In his essay he describes the mediocre education he received while on the vocational track. Mike’s future was looking rather grim until he came under the instruction of Jack MacFarland. This man was a wise and enthusiastic teacher who challenged students academically. He encouraged and inspired students to read, to be proactive in their classes, and to think for themselves. His classes were engaging and the students were interested in his teachings (165-167). The fact that the same solutions that Gatto proposed in his essay was successful applied elsewhere proves that teaching practices need and can to change for the better.
My mom would always say, “American born Chinese students have it easy in America.” One key difference between the American education system and Chinese education system is the way they are taught. Being raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I went to school to understand the idea of analyzing and understanding concepts. After reading Only Hope, I realized that their education is based on more memorizations. To Chinese students, understand the concept and apply it is not the most important, you must just memorize it for the exam. Many parents in China would say that going on vacation and relaxing is a waste of time because they need to focus on learning. In Greenspan’s article, it mentions that a student in China is the top of her class and is fluent in English, yet she cannot go on vacation because her mother wants her to spend time learning, many students in China
In the movie Dead Poets Society by Peter Weir and Tom Schulman, Neil Perry, Todd Anderson, Knox Overstreet, Charlie Dalton, Richard Cameron, and Steven Meeks are seniors in the Welton Academy. This academy is a prestigious prep school with a strong tradition, expectation, discipline, and honor. The students are expected to behave as well as focus on learning. Later in the school year, the students meet Mr. Keating, their new English teacher and they experience a new style of teaching which changes their lives and outlook forever. Mr. Keating possess traits that are different from other teachers in the school because he believes the students should have their own choice in order to pursue their own dream and they should not be force to follow
The movie, Dead Poets Society truly captures the essence of the conformities that children are facing. The difference is letting the hourglass run out of time, or making the best of time, facing tough challenges along the way. Todd Anderson makes the best out of his time thanks to the teaching of Mr. Keating, his beloved English teacher. From a misunderstood adolescent to a courageous man, Todd shows his true colors and releases the inferior thoughts stirring up in his developing, young body. In the end, romanticism crushes idealism with power and envy, showing the eye-opening ways that a teacher can contribute to such a tightly wound academy such as Welton.
Keating is the main influence of individualism, which is the idea that we are unique and there is nothing wrong with that, in the movie Dead Poets’ society. All of the teachers at Welton were straitlaced and do not want the kids to be their own person. The goal of the school and of the children's’ parents is to prepare the kids to go to ivy league schools and become either lawyers or doctors. However, Mr. Keating is the opposite of these teachers. For example, in class one day he asks some of the boys to walk around in a circle. After a while, he stops them because they had become conformists. He explains how, at first, all the boys have their own unique strides, but after a while they all started to walk the same way. He is trying to show them that you do not have to walk the same way as anyone else because you are perfect just the way you are. A negative example of individualism is showed when Neil tried to stand up to his father and ask if he could be unique and act. His father refused to allow him to act and took it so far that he pulled Neil out of Welton and enrolled him in military school. Neil could not live with the his father’s constant control over his life and he ended up killing himself. Individualism was used in Dead Poets’ Society to show that it is better to be unique than like everyone else.
Dead Poets Society is a 1989 film about a literature teacher named Mr. Keating who changes the lives of his students at Welton Academy. While many of the characters in the movie show heroic qualities, Mr. Keating is one character who is undeniably a hero. Through his words and actions, it is clear that Mr. Keating always strives to help his students and truly wants them to be strong, happy individuals. Mr. Keating clearly has a heroic personality and acts as a friend and guide to all his students. His selflessness, determination, and his impact are all testaments to the heroic nature of Mr. Keating.
Director Peter Weir, director of The Truman Show, presents the importance of individuality and speaking up in his movie Dead Poets Society, a fictional but realistic story that tells the story of a group of friends at the Wellington Academy prep school and their interactions with their new English teacher, John Keating (Robin Williams). Keating teaches the boys life lessons through some interesting teaching methods that end up changing his students’ approach to life’s challenging situations. Throughout watching Dead Poets Society, I found myself liking the movie more and more as it progressed.
So, the Dead Poets Society was about an English Teacher at the Welton Academy for Boys who was trying new methods of teaching so he will be able to actually get through to the boys. The boys are also under a lot of pressure by their parents and the rest of the members of the school. The problem with Mr. Keating (the English Teacher) was that his method of teaching is very different from how the school has been doing things in the last decades. Mr. Keating has been teaching the boys that they need to pursue their dreams and believe in romanticism. This leads to a path of destruction for Mr. Keating.
“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
Transcendentalist ideas have inspired many generations to be unique and stand up for their beliefs. These ideas are portrayed in Dead Poets Society, especially with Welton Academy’s new English teacher, Mr. Keating. His students are held to high standards while attending a very strict, traditional school. Their lives are already laid out for them by their controlling parents, and many of them do not wish to take the path that their parents wish. Similar to the Transcendentalists, Mr. Keating introduces new ideas to the students that they would never even think of doing. He encourages his students to face their fears, to stand out, and live their lives the way they want to.
In the movie, Dead Poets Society, the basic idea of expression is being taught by Keating. Keating is a very unique instructor who uses many different methods of teaching to get the students involved, but he shows them ways to have fun also. That in itself is very unique. Keating is trying to release the emotions these students have within themselves. He is teaching them to make their lives extraordinary, think for themselves, and be an individual instead of a follower. In one lesson with these students he expressed this to the fullest, by having them rip out the introduction of their text books because of what J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D. tells them to do with poetry. By ripping that out they realize that they have a mind of their own and others should not think for them or tell them what they should think. The most important lesson Keating teaches is "Carpe Diem," which means "Seize the Day." Even though this method of instruction is phenomenal and has many benefits, there are a few critiques on Keating's method of ...
Film Review of Dead Poets Society Dead Poets Society explores the conflict between realism and romanticism as these contrasting ideals are presented to the students at an all boys preparatory school. Welton Academy is founded on tradition and excellence and is bent on providing strict structured lessons prescribed by the realist, anti-youth administration. John Keating is a new English teacher with a passion for poetry. When he returns to his own strict childhood school to teach, his unconventional methods quickly prove to be inspirational to a group of students. He inspires them to pursue their desires and live life to the fullest.
"The Dead Poet’s Society" is a movie about a group of kids. The conflict, characters, plot and theme are very interesting. So now I am going to tell you a little about it.