This blog is about why I want to be a teacher. If you want to know why, you can read about it here.
In the year 2000, I had a teacher by the name of Mrs. Langrehr. She was the English teacher at Chester High for one year before she moved away with her husband-- and honestly, I don't remember a lot about her. I remember her being good at what she did and how most of the guys in my school had some kind of fantasy about her... the Chester Wrestling Team used to talk about her alot. She was that hot teacher that most male students develop a little crush on... she was a babe... aside from that I don't remember a lot about her... except that at the end of the year she showed us a movie titled "Dead Poets Society."
I remember her urging us to "Carpe Diem!" or that is to seize the day on her last day before she left our lives forever.
Since then I have seen the movie a few times and it has always been a movie that has stuck inside my skull... calling me... over the last few months I have had the urge to either rent/buy the movie and finally last Saturday that little voice finally won out and I purchased the movie at Best Buy.
The movie is about an all boys, private, Catholic high school and it focuses around the boys at the school. The different pressures that they face, their desires, their lives, and different moments that all make up what we term the adolescent years in which boys start becoming men.
It also focuses upon the newly hired English teacher at the school, John Keeting (Robin Williams). Keeting is nothing like the other teachers at the private school. He kind of bucks the system and breaks the rules and he encourages his students to have lives of their own.
Different scenes reveal who Keeting is, this is only one of them:
He begins the first class of the year by coming in to the room whistling and then walking out. As the students stare after him dumbfounded he leads them out into the hallway where he introduces them to the pictures of the students that have come before them. Once in the hallways he has them look at the students that have come before them saying:
"They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in..."
As the boys lean in he whispers: "Listen, you hear it? - - Carpe - - hear it? - - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary."
The boys leave the classroom commenting upon how the class was freaky but it seems to resonate with them. Later they begin investigating who John Keeting is and stumble upon the Dead Poets Society the club that Keeting was a part of while he had attended their school as a student.
There are other such moments in "Dead Poets Society" where Keeting motivates his students to think for themselves and to act out their passions and he does so sometimes through humor, personalization, and his own passions.
Watching this movie reminded me of why I want to be a teacher-- and what I could possibly contribute as a teacher.
I want to be a passionate teacher who shows students that he cares that they succeed and motivates them to succeed.
I want to teach students in a way that will make the content accessible for students-- not simply give them something to do, just to give them something to do.
I want to be a teacher who encourages students to find their own voices and live their own lives according to who they are-- and to look at myself as someone who is their to guide students, not tell them what they should do. And that being an individual is more important than conforming to the society around them.
I want to encourage my students to dream and to reach for those dreams.
There are so many different things that I want to do with my career... and so many reasons why I believe teaching is the career for me.
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