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Allan A. Glatthorn, "Dead Poets: Live Issues"

East Carolina University
Greenville, North Carolina 27858

in: English Journal, vol. 79, 5/1990, p. 83 - 84

Glatthorn betrachtet den Film ausschließlich unter pädagogischen Gesichtspunkten. Er hält ihn aus dieser Perspektive für "superficial, misleading, and seriously flawed" - und schlägt vor, ihn nach gemeinsamer Sichtung in Gesamt- oder Fachkonferenzen unter ganz bestimmten Fragestellungen zu diskutieren. Zum Beispiel:

•  "In reading literature, should a teacher encourage the students to ignore completely      the view of critics?"

•  "Should teachers interpose themselves in conflicts between students and parents?"

• "Should a teacher encourage mindless conformity?" Mag Glatthorns Art der Vorgehensweise auch etwas eigenartig erscheinen, so bietet der Aufsatz doch Material für kontroverse Diskussionen im Unterricht und/oder für Klausuren.

Almost all the educators I have talked with have acclaimed the film Dead Poets Society as one that glorifies teaching, presents a model of what all teachers should be, and dramatizes the imperative need for nonconformity. English teachers seem especially enthusiastic about the film.

If we put aside the cinematic qualities and consider the film solely from a professional perspective, I find it superficial, misleading, and seriously flawed. My views seem generally shared by Mark Collins, who in the December 1989 issue of EJ (74-75) criticized the film for portraying a make-believe world that involves the cult of personality and a romanticized view of change. In this article, I would like to focus more directly on several pedagogical issues. However, these issues are so complex that they need careful examination. In fact, I would recommend to both school administrators and English departments that they use the videotape version of the film as the basis for faculty and department meetings, in which the following issues would be examined.

Should a teacher who suspects that students are about to break school rules connive at their misconduct? The nonconformist teacher in the film, Mr. Keating, is aware that his students are interested in reactivating the "Dead Poets Society," an act which will result in the students' violating curfew, leaving school grounds, smoking, and getting involved with young women. Since from time to time they read aloud from one of the classics and declaim about the importance of living for the day, the teacher winks at their misconduct.

Are "sensitivity games" likely to have a lasting effect on student attitudes and behaviors? Keating wants the students to see things from a different perspective, a worthy goal, so he has them stand on their desks. But the remainder of the film shows them as wrapped up in their own skins, totally unable to see things from someone else's perspective. He wants them to be individualists. So he has them first march in ranks and then tells them to walk any way they wish. But in the crunch, they all conform with the school administrators' attempts to break up the "Dead Poets Society" and dismiss the teacher.

In reading literature, should a teacher encourage the students to ignore completely the views of critics? Early in the film, one of Keating's first acts upon assuming his professional duties is to have the students rip out and discard the author's preface to the literature text. In this instance, of course, that action might seem justified, since the preface is an absurd attempt to evaluate literature quantitatively. However, there are two problems here. First, Keating does not encourage the students to analyze and criticize the preface themselves. He has decided the issue for them: "Tear it out." Second, he implies that any critical commentary should be ignored. All that matters, he seems to say, is what the reader thinks of the poem. (There is an exception here that should be noted: he makes it clear to the students that his view of the literary work matters.)

Should teachers interpose themselves in conflicts between students and parents? One of the boys in the film wants to be an actor. His father, a ridiculous stereotype of the anxious, controlling parent, wants his son to be a doctor. Now a mature teacher would have tried to help the boy understand his father's position, would have helped him examine all the options available for coping with his father's demands (including accepting them until he finished high school), and would have shown the boy how to predict the consequences of each strategy. Instead, the teacher encourages confrontation - a confrontation that ends tragically in the boy's suicide.

Should a teacher encourage mindless nonconformity? In the film, Keating again and again exhorts the boys to be nonconformists: think for yourselves; be independent; be self-reliant. There is no subtlety here: the issue is presented as a dichotomous choice. There is no discussion of the need for some types of conformity in a society. There is no analysis of the dangers of nonconformity. There is no examination of how to predict the consequences of rebellious behavior. Instead, the need for rules in a community is totally ignored in a sophomoric adulation of Emersonian self-reliance.

Should a teacher help students learn how to cope with authoritarian pressures? Disgusted with Keating's behaviors, the headmaster decides to dismiss him by turning the boys against him. Keating seems to stand by passively as, one by one, the boys lie about the teacher's involvement in their rule-breaking. Obviously, the boys are under great pressure to blame the teacher; however, they have several options for dealing with the headmaster, to which they seem completely oblivious.

Should teachers passively accept administrative decisions? After the boys turn on their teacher, the headmaster terminates Keating's contract, and the teacher quietly packs his bag. Now clearly there is no teachers' union in that independent school, but Keating had available other means for fighting an obviously unjust dismissal. Also, he might have decided that he did not want to teach in such an environment; however, the film gives no hint of the teacher's own struggle. Instead, the teacher who exhorted his students to fight for their rights meekly submits to injustice.
Perhaps I feel these issues so keenly because Keating reminds me of myself at age thirty-two - preaching nonconformity, simplifying complex issues, and picturing controlling parents and school administrators as the enemy. So perhaps all the teacher needs is a little bit more seasoning.

Copyright May 9, 1990 by the National Council of Teachers of English. Reprinted with permission.