For this assignment I chose to watch and review the Dead Poets Society, a favorite movie of mine. We watched it in a high school literature class in a context long forgotten, but the main themes of the movie have stuck with me since that first day I watched it and it has since been watched several times. However I have not before watched it in the context of analyzing teaching style, and while those themes can be interpreted and gleaned throughout the movie even with no knowledge or educator background, it was a unique perspective to look at the film from. Even before we are introduced to Mr. Keating in his prime, we can take in some information about each of his students. Neil Perry, Todd Anderson and Charlie Dalton are all performance …show more content…
Nothing in the terms of fist to five or thumbs up/down for formative assessments either. However, through causal observation of how his students act and how they understand his nontraditional lessons, he can gather all the information he needs on whether they are understanding or not. If they’re not understanding or if he feels that it is just going through their head, then he uses them as an example in one of his lessons or makes the lesson more personal to them so they can begin to make connections. The final measure of what the students learned is seen in the last scene of the movie – as Mr. Keating is leaving and Todd suddenly proclaims that administration set it up and that he knew what happened wasn’t his fault and stands on his desk and says faithfully “Oh captain, my captain,” the other boys slowly start to do the same. We even see boys who are not main characters take a stand. This action shows that his lessons of freethinking and self-assurance really did make it through to his …show more content…
Keating has a very unique, hands on approach. He likes to make the lessons engaging and get the boys involved in one way or another. In this, they can then form a personal connection with the lesson, which will make it stick out amongst all their other monotonous classroom lessons. It makes the students willing to learn, and it gets them excited to learn. It is also important in forming a bond between student and teacher, and we see this when Neil is conflicted about what his father wants him to do – would Neil have gone to Mr. Keating if he were just another snowy-haired old man who droned on and on and made no personal connections with his class? The answer is most definitely
By reading the Bible, a direct instruction of living life by His word, Christians can find this comfort and happiness. To the boys attending the poetry class, Keating is a source of the same comfort. Because of Keating’s helpful instruction and caring attitude towards the boys, his character resembles the wise image of God. Keating often has to advise the students to practice free will with caution because of society’s dramatic responses to transcendental actions. In one scene, Neil is confronted by his selfish father, who stringently demands his son to not take part in the school’s play. Later, Neil goes to Keating for advice on what choice to make and explains that he is the only person who Neil can really talk to about his true feelings. Keating then tells Neil to honestly tell the narrow-minded father about what he really wants to do with his life. This advice follows the importance of self-reliance. “Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession” (Emerson). Neil should be proud of his talent and stay persistent against his father in order to live a life of nonconformity. Just as society denied God’s words before the
Thomas Paine once said “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” Conflict is an obstacle that many characters in books go through. It is what drives the reader to continue reading and make the book enjoyable. Additionally, authors use symbolism to connect their novels to real life, personal experience, or even a life lesson. In “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee and “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest J. Gaines, both take place during a time where colored people were being looked down upon and not treated with the same rights as white people. However, both novels portray the conflict and symbolism many ways that are similar and different. Additionally, both of these novels have many similarities and differences that connect as well as differentiate them to one
It appears appropriate to discuss the film using Peck's ideas on love and discipline since "The Dead Poets Society" involves numerous instances where individual interests, driven by love, come into conflict with discipline invoked by the proponents of social conservation and conformity. It is the situation where the older generation intends to exercise control over the younger one through what it sees as discipline, while at the same time failing to see that the real reason behind the acting out done by the younger generation is not the need to rebel but rather the desire to find their own way in life, to explore the future according to their own interests, while at the same time seeking approval from the older generation towards which the younger one often feels nothing but love.
As two men on the extreme sides of conformity and independence, it is hard for Keating to understand how someone could be so sure of himself, whereas it is incomprehensible for Roark to believe that Keating could have so little self-assurance and such a lack of resolve regarding the decisions he chooses to make. In this r...
Keating is very adamant about how his students need to be their own person in a society that tells them not to. He is a huge inspiration to his students, especially Neil, and impacts all of their lives in a unique way. Neil has a father which represents society as a whole on the youth of today. He tries to force his son down a one-way street and for many years Neil complied, but once Mr. Keating opened his eyes to poetry and the beauty of life Neil had a new view on things. He always tells them to find their own voice and to express it to the world, and he tells them how poetry is a profession of emotion. The students recreate the Dead Poets Society as the story goes on and Mr. Keating gets a quote from poetry which compares life to this powerful play to which people can contribute a verse to. He asks them what will their verse be. He is encouraging the students to speak out and be their own person to make a change in the
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.”
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 Film “Dead Poet Society” provides us with many examples of both these concepts from the school’s traditional method of banking concept educating, to a new teacher 's, John Keating, demonstration of a problem-poser methodology of educating the
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.
refers to a secret club to which Mr. Keating belonged to when he was a
The characters in "The Dead Poet’s Society" were very unique. Mr Keating was a very round character. He has a very unique way of teaching the class about poetry. Mr. Keating had went to the same school he is teaching in now. Knox was flat. He had problems with his dad. Todd was flat. He was on Mr. Keating’s side when the school tried to fire him. Cameron was dynamic. He went with the crowd. If a group of kids did one thing then he would follow right behind.
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.
The scene which resonated with me was when Keating asked Todd to demonstrate a barbaric YAWP and free style a poem. Todd had an aha moment and those happen to be my favorite moments in life, whether my own or witnessing someone else's. How often to we get to Yawp in front of our classmates? Never, but why not? The academic setting can be so rigid, our minds are constantly forced to learn things and the process can be inflexible. If we are able to learn in a way that frees our mind from rigid and down right boring power points, maybe the light will turn on by the path of least resistance and our own ingenious discovered with those glorious aha moments. I actually experienced the aha with some of our poetry reading and the help of Prof Jones'
In Dead Poets Society, John Keating becomes the new English teacher at Welton Academy, an esteemed school rooted in tradition, after attending as a student years ago. He teaches using an unconventional style which is different from the traditional English curriculum, and in the process, he exposes the students to a new perspective on the subject and principles for living life. Keating encourages free-thinking and condemns the textbook which prevents the students from thinking for themselves. Other individuals, including the principal, Mr. Nolan, disagree with his unconventional method of teaching and prefer that he follow a traditional method of teaching through an English textbook. The lessons that Mr. Keating presents the students reflect the transcendentalist beliefs of Ralph Waldo Emerson found in “Self-reliance” and influence the students to become more independent thinkers.
The movie starts out with the opening ceremony of the school and introducing Mr. Keating and Mr. Todd Anderson by name. After the ceremony the scene goes to the dorms where Todd meets his roommate, Neil Perry and his friends: Knox Overstreet, Charlie Dalton, Richard Cameron, and Steven Meeks. The next scene, is first day of school. The boys go through the day collecting mounds of homework, and then they enter Mr. Keating’s class. Mr. Keating walks into class and then walks out telling everyone to follow him and he explains “carpe diem” to the class. The year goes on and the boys re-establish the Dead Poets Society, a group that was dedicated to “Sucking to marrow out of life,” in an old Indian cave outside the school and have meetings there every Friday. The boys soon grow into their new beliefs, Neil gets a part in a play, and when his father finds out they get into a fight opening night Later that night, something horrible happens. The boys are scared because the administration is investigating into what happened the night before, and Cameron cracks and snitches on the boys and tells the administration that it was all Mr. Keating’s fault. Charlie hits Cameron and gets expelled, and the rest of the boys were forced to sign a document stating that all that happened was Keating’s fault. In the end, Keating is fired but many of the boys stand up for him including Todd