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The conflict between Hector and Irwin’s educational philosophies is highlighted within this extract, as their differing pedagogical practices are decidedly contrasting. Hector educates with the purpose of developing his students into “more rounded human beings” and believes in “knowledge, and the pursuit of it for its own sake”. The adjective ‘rounded’ is clearly conveyed through the boy’s prevailing use of literary references and poets such as ‘Auden’ and ‘Pascal’ along with their displays of a broad understanding and knowledge of the theatrical arts. He is presented as an anachronous character conveyed through the metaphor “he locks the doors against the future” and “the forces of progress”, and as one who throughout the play, almost purports to despise the pursuit of educational success. His cultural knowledge is perceived as no longer “useful” amongst the boys in regards to “preparing (them) for examination”, an aim sought out by Irwin, a counterpoint to Hector. This suggests one of the key pertinent issues of the play; is there a place and time for culture in today’s changing and politicised educational system? However, Posner and Scripps’ performance of the brief encounter, along with Timms’ claim that poetry “sometimes just flows out” all prove Hector’s pedagogical approach to be effective in achieving what he aims to bring across, and this sense of culture and the power of literature (a crucial theme to the play) still resonates within the boys and the audience…
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The most notable aspect of the film was the transformation and unification of the students. They engaged in discussions about sex, suicide and pressures placed on them by their parents, all while under the influence of…
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of the theme. The boys carefree attitude towards what they are doing with their lives can bring…
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Class plays a significant role in every individual’s life. LaGravenese focuses primarily on the lower class in this movie and shows how much of an impact it can have. Most of the students are portrayed as poor and uneducated, qualities generally consisting of lower class members. In the game that Gruwell plays with the students called ‘the line game,’ she asks students how many of them live in the projects. Incredibly, almost the entire class comes to stand on the line. This game is to show the students that they have more in common than they think and to show how they begin to bond, (Jung-Ah, 246). It also shows the audience what each individual has experienced and to give some background into each person. Learning that the majority of the class lives in the projects and everything they encounter on a daily basis, the audience gains a sense of sympathy and sorrow for them. This is what the director is trying to depict in this movie; that the lower class students’ needs compassion and understanding to help them change from their violent ways into the educated and tolerant youths we know they can be.…
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The story begins setting the scene of a group of adolescent youth living in a small town during the summer time. The characters introduced in the opening scene are established as characters longing for the extremes of new adventure and the utmost experiences. “We were fourteen and fifteen, scornful of childhood, remote from the world of stern and ludicrous adults. ...We were bored, we were restless, we longed to be seized by any whim or passion and follow it to the farthest reaches of our natures.” (Millhauser 75) Restless youth have a tendency for being vulnerable--needing to explore the world and learn the ideas of life for themselves, but along the way making an end number of mistakes because of it. This is something that Millhauser pats down for us during the first few pages of story.…
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Neil’s life within a classroom is far from a struggle. He is able to achieve straight A’s, and doesn’t question the teaching strategies Mr. Keating introduces to his English class. In fact, he welcomes them. Neil’s relationship with Mr. Keating allows him to embrace his fears. It is Mr. Keating that encourages Neil to talk to his father about acting in the play.…
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Meanwhile all these things happen, Mr. Keating, their English teacher, is trying to learn them, to think for themselves, to stand out of the crowd, by doing some different things. As for example, to walk different, from everyone else. It is hard for him to do, when the whole school is so conservative. Mr. Keating also make them see the world differently, by let them stand on his desk, and look out in the classroom. Those classes make the boys think differently, and make them think of different ways to live their life. The one, that changes the most, is Neil. His father, controls him, like if he was a little doll, but Neil gets the idea of being in a play. He fake a letter from his dad, to get permission from Mr. Nolan, the schools headmaster. His father finds out, and becomes very mad. Neil then goes to Mr. Keating, ´to get advice. Mr. Keating tells him, that he has to talk to his father about it, to tell him his passion for acting. He says he will.…
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Mr Keating encourages his pupils to have independent ideas. For instance, in their second English lesson, he instructed the boys to rip out the introduction to their poetry textbooks, because he believed that the pupils should develop their own responses to poetry rather than follow the guidance of the editor. Throughout the film Mr Keating repeatedly says to the boys “carpe diem” which means seize the day, so Mr Keating was not in fact ever saying that suicide was not conforming or seizing the day, it was completely against what he was trying to teach the boys.…
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This movie had a few educational points as far as that the students all disliked authority and were afraid of becoming like their parents. Also, there was the fact that they were all in detention, but it was on Saturday, which we do not in today’s society do anymore, at least around here. The principal had his mind set on what he thought of each individual student, regardless of what they really were because deep down they were all the same, but were afraid that when Monday came that they would end up going back to their same routines of hanging with their cliques, and not knowing each other, or at least acting that way.…
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Mr. John Keating taught his students about how you need to look at things from a different perspective. They stood on a desk and looked around. It was showing how the students only see thing one way, as opposed to seeing things multiple ways. Growing up in strict families, the boys couldn’t really think how they wanted to. He also introduced them to carpe diem. It means seize the day.…
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In the movie Dead Poets Society, there are many disagreements on how the children should learn. The issue being discussed was everyone believed that the traditional way of teaching was a superior technique of education and the school did not want to change. Once Mr. Keating came into the picture and started teaching in a new way, administrators believed he was in the wrong by the way he taught. If the opinion of the students mattered then Mr. Keating’s way was the best. Not one of the students were ever allowed to live their life to the fullest but Keating showed the students how to have fun but still learn. This all came to an end when one student took his own life and Mr. Keating’s free ways of thinking were blamed. Although the school, Welton Academy, believed the traditional method was best, Mr. Keating’s method of teaching helped his students make their own decisions and do things for themselves. Mr. Keating’s way of teaching inspired the students to live their lives to the fullest, look at everything in different ways, and prepared them for the future by teaching them to make their own decisions and learn to do things their selves.…
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By 'inspiring and preaching freethinking to his students Mr. Keating was asking for trouble. Keating's teachings led to conflict in all the DPS members lives, as it would have been difficult, if not impossible for students, and even teachers like Keating to hold romantic and existential views without attracting attention and clashing with authority. These clashes are shown regularly…
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There was a clear clash between the traditional and conservative values espoused by Welton Academy as an institution, and the progressive teaching methods of John Keating. Welton Academy’s ethos of “tradition, honor, discipline, and excellence not only discourages but makes it a crime for a student to exercise a critical political consciousness. Professor John Keating, on the other hand, is concerned with the political and moral quality of his students. He challenges them to question the social and political norms that defines their lives at Welton. As a result, he inspires Charlie to publish an article in the school newspaper, arguing for why Welton should be coeducational. In the end, Headmaster Gale Nolan, was so unwilling to even consider the possibility that Neil Perry’s suicide was a product of the intellectually and political repressive atmosphere at Welton, that he compelled every member of the Dead Poet’s Society on threat of expulsion to sign a form stating that Keating’s “destructive” teaching method was the true culprit. By the end of the film, it was clear that what transpires at Welton Academy is not true learning, but rather an insidious form of social and political control in which the dynamics of the dominant, established society, as exemplified by Neil’s father’s suppression of his son’s desire to pursue acting, reproduce themselves in the classroom. In this type of society, children are treated as mere objects or tabulae rasae, without feelings, without desires, without willpower, without dignity, without knowledge. They are to remain docile, unthinking, predetermined automatons subject to the moldings of wiser adults who are the creators, possessors, and dispensers of all necessary knowledge. They are the passive receptacles of information, the Oppressed, in Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of The Oppressed. They are the sufferers of Welton Academy’s most hateful and repressive representation of Freire’s “Banking” method of education. While…
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