Dead Poets Society Real Time Notes 10/19

John Keating- Robin Williams

Robert Sean Leonard –Neil Perry

Ethan Hawke – Todd Anderson

Good Teaching: Robin Williams enters the classroom whistling his first day teaching them. He then has

them follow him out of the classroom and asks the class if they know where ”Oh captain my captain”

and lets them know it’s from a poem. He then explains his history as a student at the school and makes

some jokes. He makes fun of a few names in good fun.

“We are food for worms” a line he says to explain life.

He shows them students who since passed and makes a fake ghost sounds “Carpe Diem (Seize the day)”

“Make Your Lives Extraordinary”

The students walk out after the bell and call Mr. Keating’s class weird and spooky.

Mr. Keating asks the class to rip out a page in the book that is an introduction to poetry that gives a

formula for deciding if a poem is good. He does this while graphing on the chalk board. He motivates the

class by telling them they will learn to love poetry by how words and poems can change the world. He

is really upbeat and engages the class the entire time. He then has a huddle where he explains why we

read and write poetry (we are members of the human race) and why poetry is important to life as we

know it. He says that each person’s life is a verse and asks what their verse will be.

Robin Williams explains to students what the dead poets society is at the request of the students. He

gets down on his knees outside the school in the grass field and enthusiastically explains what it was and

then whistles and walks away.

Neil finds the dead poets book in his room with Mr. Keating’s name inscribed on the inside cover.

Mr. Keating called on Todd Anderson who didn’t want to speak so he instead called on Perry without

causing a scene. He then uses several impersonations to inspire the students to want to learn about

Shakespeare. Then he has students stand on his desk to see that sometimes you must look at things

from a different perspective.

Mr. Keating takes the students outside to kick balls and recite Shakespeare while listening to music. He

acts like a coach as he encourages them to be excited.

Mr. Keating lets Student Hopkins get away with joke as he lets him know that he should never be

ordinary.

Mr, Keating has Todd Anderson stand in front of the class and YAWP and answer questions to get him

over his fear of speaking in front of class, and to let him know that he has the ability to be a poet/writer.

Mr. Keating gets the class motivated with sports as classical music plays in the background.

Mr. Keating explains conformity outside with a walking exercise. “ Two Roads…”“ I took the one less

travelled” quote.

Bad Teaching:

Neil’s dad comes into the dorm room and tells him in front of his friends that he should drop

extracurricular activities in favor of academic success. He then asked if they could be excused with Neil

and then exits to the hall and tells him not to defy him and how much it means to his mother that he

attends medical school.

First few teacher scenes seem that they are all very rigid and strict. They seem to be obsessed with

discipline and order.

Library scene: The teacher smoking asks the students to stop chattering and sit down in the library as he

smokes off his pipe. Smoking pipe teacher guy asks the students to shut up.

Mr. Keating later calls out Todd for being shy ion front of class.

First Paper Brainstorming (10/7)

Brainstorming:

Two possible ideas:

1. The effects the death of my father caused on the family.

The situations that occurred as a result of the death.

Relationships that changed.

How each of us as a family dealt with the situation.

Variables such as financial and emotional problems

I will focus on the transformation from the pre-death relationships and the changing

relationship from immediately after till now.

I will focus on the relationships that were brought closer do to similar circumstances with

friends and people I met who I later became friends with.

My greatest delight will be telling the current situation of my family and our close relationship.

The strongest being the relationship between my brother and me.

How my mother is the rock in the family.

2. The way I learned to play music and the inspiration that lead me in that direction.

I will include the family music history starting from my grandpa and how my mom and her 7

siblings all get involved in music in some way.

The outside sources such as friends and distant relatives such as Chris and my uncle in law Bill

Ellis who played music in Vietnam.

I will focus on the importance of music in my life, not just playing but listening and how music is

such an important aspect of the majority of the population’s lives. I will discuss the idea of how I

couldn’t imagine a world without music. I will talk about my grandpa being 90 years old and still

singing karaoke and dancing like he was much younger.

My greatest delight will be talking about my family, music, and how music brings my family

closer each year.

I will talk about the music bond I share with friends who I grew up with and still have a strong

spiritual, close relationship, and music bond.

The importance of creating a connection with another artist.

Ken Robinson notes 10/17

Notes 10/17: Ken Robinson How Schools kill creativity

3 themes from lecture

1. Evidence of human creativity

2. No Idea what’s going to happen

3. Extraordinary capacities of children

Creativity is as important is literacy. Treat them equally.

If you’re not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original.

Picasso “All children are born artists”

We get educated out of creativity.

We start to educate from the waist up then to the head

Purpose of education is to come with University Professors

Intelligence is dynamic; interactive

Creativity comes from the interaction of different ways of doing things

Blog post with Cami, Lucas, Patty and Dan "Is Mr. Escalante a Good Teacher (Group Post 10/24)

There were two scenes from the movie "Stand and Deliver" that we focused on that we felt showed that Mr. Escalante was a good teacher:

The first was one was when Jaime Escalante was taunting Tito(?) about his use of his fingers.  He called him 'Finger Man"
          Jamie approaches Tito and holds up his hands and proceeds to show him how he uses his fingers to multiply.
  "Are you the Finger Man? I'm the finger man too. You know what I can do? I know how to multiply by nine.  9 X 3 - 1,2,3.  What do what you got?  27.  6 x 9 - 1,2,3,4,5,6.  What do you got? 54
Yeah.  You want a hard one? 8 X 9.  1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. What do you got?  72"
Although in most places we would not consider this to be an instance of good teaching, in the environment of East Los  Angeles it was a way for Mr. Escalante to make more of an impact with Tito.  Mr.. Escalante knew he had to approach each kid differently. He also took the opportunity to show Tito that he was not easily intimidated.

The second scene we selected was the restaurant scene where Mr. Escalante has just finished dinner with his wife and the owner of the restaurant asks him if he enjoyed his taquitos.
  Mr. Escalante says "Muy benento.  except for one thing." He shows the receipt to the owner who is Anna's(Anita) dad.  Someone doesn't know how to add"
Dad looks at the receipt and calls Anna over and talks to her in Spanish.
Mr.. Escalante says " She should be going back to school."
Anna introduces her father to Mr. Escalante as her math teacher and Mr. Escalante invites the dad to have a seat.  He does and asks Anna to bring a couple of beers.  When she leaves Mr. Escalante tells the dad he should get another  waitress.  Dad laughs.
Mr.. Escalante says " Anna can be the first in your  family to graduate high school, go to college. "
Dad "Thank you for your concern, her mother works here, her sisters, her brothers.  Its a family business.  She is needed."  Mr. Escalante responds that's she can help the family more  by getting an  education.
The conversation continues and the dad is starting to get defensive.  Mr. Escalante tells him that his daughter has talked about going to  medical school and that she will waste her life if she doesn't go back to school.  "She is top kid!" says Mr. Escalante.  "She could go to college and come back and teach you how to  run the place."
From there it is down hill and as Mr. Escalante gets up to leave he puts his money on the table but the dad gives it back to him saying that he does not need his money or his business.
This was a good example of the passion that Mr. Escalante has for his students.  He sees the potential and drive in Anna and wants her to succeed.
As far as any instances of bad teaching, we really did not have any examples.   The only thing that might be questionable was the references to  sex and gigolos but then one needs to remember where the school is and the rough environment that the students live every day.  Again Mr. Escalante is interacting with the students on their level.

Lorde's Essay (10/17)

Audre Lorde’s early education sounded horrible. A bad school for the visually challenged followed by what sounded like a very strict Catholic School. Lorde wrote about an experience in catholic school where after telling the truth about a project she had done on her own, said that her teacher did not believe her after questioning her and said “"Our guardian angels weep when we don't tell the truth, Audre. I want a note from your mother tomorrow telling me that you are sorry for lying to the baby Jesus." Her teachers at the catholic school were instructed to spank Audre if she misbehaved and they seemed more than happy to abide by her parents’ wishes. Lorde said “A week after I started school she sent a note home to my mother asking her not to dress me in so many layers of clothing because then I couldn't feel the strap on my behind when I was punished.

   Another example of a bad teacher experience she wrote about was her teacher in the school for the visually impaired. She wrote the teacher said to her, after not understanding the assignment she was trying to do, "Imagine that, a big girl like you. Such a shame, I'll have to tell your mother that you won't even try. And such a big girl like you!” The teacher basically calls her stupid and fat in front of the whole class and belittles her accusing her of not trying to do the exercise. Lorde gives the impression that the teachers she encountered at a young age were impeding her ability to learn and punishing her for no reason except their inability to teach. 

Ranking of 5 Authors

1. Large – I believe is number 1 because of all the readings, I believe a strong character is the best offense in building successful people. I have met and listened to many successful people throughout my life and the first thing I notice most of the time is the strength of their character.

2. hooks – There are too many teachers who only teach their students to learn from a stringent learning plan that  only gives one point of view. I almost rated this number 1 because how important I think it is for teachers to help encourage critical thinking especially when instructing young, impressionable minds. Also, the second part of her writing where she explains the importance of group participation in the learning process is a part of this ranking as well.

3. Gilyard- I believe as humans we are programmed to be involved in the humanities in some fashion or another. Music being the number 1 part of this but also poetry, acting, dancing, and many others play huge roles  in learning creativity.  Learning humanities also open up different parts of our brains and can help with learning in other areas .

4. Boyce- I don’t know how realistic this is as a long term solution. It is good advice but to me it kind seems a little out there as far as it being an attainable goal. I see this more of a parental role and as a choice they can make if they see fit to do so.

5. Aronson – I like that there were some very impressive results according to the statistics in the writing. I do however believe we’ll never get past race as an issue if we don’t treat each other equally. There are many opinions on this, and it is a very touchy issue. I just wish schools were schools, private or public and there was no reason that race had to be involved in any way and we just stop making it an issue. I would have rated this higher if it didn't have to do with race, but rather poverty or for troubled youth. 

Large, Boyce, Gilyard, Aronson, and hooks Ideas

Large is writing about the author Paul Tough, who in his book emphasizes the importance of building character in children from a young age. His suggestion is that IQ tests and testing scores are not a way to predict success later in life, and rather the character of the children is a better determining factor. He brings up a study about rats which shows that when they are young and nurtured by their mothers, they are able to navigate “stressful” situations much more effectively.

Boyce writes about Mark Greenberg, and his views of using mindfulness exercises as a way to help educators and parents to teach children how to not react to emotion, and to step back from it in order to gain a better perspective on the current situation. In the article the turtle technique is recommended to teach to children to help them step back and look at things from a different view.

Gilyard talks about a visit to a public elementary school to discuss, in front of young students, the history of his life and his work with the humanities. After his visit he found out that the school was cutting back on the humanities credits to focus on other areas due to funding cuts. He argues that humanities should be included on par with other fields in public education. Gilyard quotes W.E.B. Du Bois several times in his writing to illustrate the importance of the humanities

Aronson writes about a controversial school program called the Mexican American Studies program that helped Hispanic students learn more about their heritage and writers in their culture. Her point of view is that this program encouraged Hispanics to do better in school and she demonstrates her argument with graduation statistics locally within the program compared to national statistics. She includes quotes from teachers and others who participated in the program to support her argument.

bell hooks reading argues that critical thinking is essential to humans. She mentions that from a young age we are obsessed with gaining knowledge by any means necessary. Hooks then goes on to argue that we are taught not to be critical thinkers and instead filled with information to interpret and “regurgitate” at a later time.  Her main point in the writing is that teachers must encourage free thinking in order to produce successful student minds. The second part of her reading is about the importance of the students’ participation and working hand-in-hand with each other. Her argument is that they should be  getting to know the other students as well as the teacher and to be willing to accept some failure in order to be more successful critical thinkers.