Mr Keating Research Paper

Was Mr. Keating A Good Teacher? What is a good teacher? In many people’s opinions, a good teacher is an educator who not only gives the students the education needed for the course, but teaches them life long lessons to help them succeed as human beings. In the film Dead Poets Society, Mr. Keating, an english teacher at an all boys prep school called Welton Academy, was a good teacher. He really reached out to all of his students and changed them in a way that a not all teachers can change their students. His goal as a teacher was to teach his students to live life with absolute passion, and to do so, he used poetry. Mr. Keating had the strongest impact on 7 boys in particular who attended his english class. Their names were Todd Anderson,

Keating used poetry as a way to teach his students many things. One way he used poetry was to teach them to be brave. One day in class, one of the more shy students, Todd Anderson, was asked to recite his poem that they were assigned to write. Todd told Mr. Keating he had not written one and was asked to make one up on the spot in front of the entire class. As Todd stood in the front of the classroom, watched by all his classmates, he became very nervous and didn’t know what to say. Mr. Keating stood with him and questioned him, which brought out the true poet within Todd, and Todd started to recite something beautiful about a picture of a madman on a wall. After Mr. Keating did this for Todd he changed, and suddenly having the pressure of being put on the spot in front of people didn’t daunt him so much anymore, and he truly realized that if he seized the moment and the day, he could be brave. Adding on to why Mr. Keating was a good teacher, was the fact that he made his students do certain exercises to take them out of their comfort zone while still teaching them what they needed to know. To teach them poetry meter and rhythm, he took them to the courtyard and had them march around and clap while reading poetry. Some students thought that the others looked ridiculous when they did the exercise first and did not want to participate, but in the end they all joined in and ended up having fun and learning, even though they were taken out of their comfort