For those of you who’ve been under a rock, "The Dead Poets Society" is an inspiring movie about an English professor who comes in to teach at an uptight, all-boys preparatory school. Through his unorthodox teaching methods, he encourages his students to embrace their true identities, despite the disapproval from the rest of the school and their parents. Professor Keating teaches the boys about passion for life and love and the importance of relying on not only your instincts but your best friends. But most importantly he taught them to seize the day and to suck the marrow out of life.
I aspire to be a teacher who teaches their students to appreciate words. I want my students to read paragraphs and imagine palaces, to read poems and visualize paintings. John Keating said, “We read and write poetry because the human race is filled with passion.” I want my students to understand that life couldn’t exist without words, and that it would never be this beautiful if literature didn’t exist.
I want my students to know that they can always come to me, that no matter how much of an adult I am, and no matter how separate I may seem from them, I’m always there as someone to lean on. I want to help guide my students beyond the classroom, to make a difference in their lives. When they have that moment of realization that they can do absolutely anything in the world, I want to be there.
I want to stand on top of desks and force my students to look at things in a different way, to show them that life requires many perspectives. I hope my students can learn to look at life from every angle, and to not assume things at first glance. I’ll teach them open mindedness and acceptance, just as they teach me to never judge them by their first impressions.
I refuse to sit inside a stuffy classroom all day as my students read word-for-word from a textbook. I want my students to understand that literature requires one to do more than just read. Literature requires experience and thought, and you have to live life in order to understand the complexity of writing.
Most importantly, I want my students to understand that life demands to be lived. That they cannot fall into the schedule of school, work, eat and sleep then repeat. I want to be the teacher who encourages my students to suck the marrow out of life, and to make sure they know that life is more than what it seems at age 17. If my students leave my classroom with a love for words and a hunger for living, then I’ll know I’ve done something right.
