DEAD POETS THEN AND NOW

“I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.” – Robin Williams in the movie Dead Poet’s Society.

The film came out in 1989 and I saw it in the theater. I was a junior in high school and I went to see it one Saturday night with a bunch of friends. As a high school kid, my take on the film was as follows:

A bunch of rich white boys go to a New England prep boarding school. Said boys are under pressure to live up to the goals and values of their parents. Though most of their classes are boring, a bunch of the students take an English class with Mr. Keating (played by Robin Williams). Keating is completely different from all the other adults at the school. He has engaging lessons, rails against the poetry textbook, takes the kids outside on a regular basis, encourages all of them to think for themselves and live their dreams. His mantra is “Carpe Diem!” Latin for seize the day.

In showing the students the importance of changing your perspective, during one scene, he has each kid stand on the teacher’s desk, look around and then step off the front. He tells the kids that one must do this often. Hence the opening quote of today’s writing.

Fast forward to 1995. I am living in my own apartment with a roommate. It was my final semester of college and I was student teaching at a local high school. Realizing that the kids don’t just listen to the teacher simply because they are at the front of the class, I was getting discouraged. No college course prepares you for classroom management. It had been a tough week and by Friday, I was dragging and wondering if teaching was going to finish me before I even received my college degree.

I went to the video store and rented Dead Poets. I hadn’t seen it since the theater. The movie lifted my spirits and reminded me why I wanted to work with kids: to share my love and passion for music, and show them that the arts are a big reason why we keep living; there is beauty everywhere.

Without realizing it, I had already subscribed to Keating’s philosophy of changing your perspective. When the movie was in the theater, I watched it through the lens of me being the high school student because I was. The second time, I watched it through the eyes of a brand new teacher, who had not been ground down by the system yet. What’s the old expression? You set out to change the world, but, over time, the world changes you. I was standing on the desk, looking around. Metaphorically speaking of course….

During my third or fourth year teaching middle school, a conversation came up during one of my after school jazz band rehearsals about Dead Poet’s. I realized that the movie was more than a decade old, and the students were too young to have seen it in the theater. I sent home permission slips and a week or so later, we had a watch party.

As I watched, my lens was shifting again. These kids were about to go to high school, and asked me if boarding schools were really like this, while I watched how Mr. Keating interacted with the kids….knowing what to say to who, where to push a kid, where to back off, and how all of them were like different types of plants that needed different conditions to grow and be successful.

When we finished the movie, the kids jokingly asked if they could stand on my desk and look around. I let them and I also worked the concept of the desk scene into my band classes. I didn’t have all of those kids stand on my desk, but, at times, I would reverse the seating set up so the percussion section was up front, or I had the kids sit next to someone who played a different instrument. These things change the sound, the approach, and the perspective.

Recently, I watched the film again. This time I took the parent perspective. It didn’t happen on purpose, but having kids makes you stand on the desk once again…..actually, it makes you stand on the desk a lot.

Near the end of the film, one of the lead characters completes suicide as he feels that his life choices are limited due to his overbearing parents. Against their wishes, he auditions and gets the lead role in a high school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He performs well, but his father makes him quit and transfers the kid to another school so he can fulfill dad’s dream of the young man becoming a doctor. Late that evening, the kid takes his father’s gun and uses it to make his final choice.

Did I say no spoilers? Oops. I lied. Sorry. Anyway, watching this scene as a dad was gut wrenching, and allowed me to reflect on how and what I say to my own kids. I began to think about pressures that were put on me when I was young and how or if that also translates into how my wife and I are raising our own children. Without realizing it, I was soon standing on the desk again as I watched the end of the film.

The school, needing to protect itself from scandal, blames the student’s suicide on the teaching of Mr. Keating. The headmaster manipulates other students in Keating’s class to sign a statement claiming Keating to be reckless; brainwashing the kids into having crazy dreams about life that are the main cause for the troubled student(s) on campus. Keating is fired and told to remove his personal items from his classroom immediately.

He enters the room and some of his students stand on their desks to let Mr. Keating know that they understand his message that things are not always as they seem. Through this gesture, they are telling Keating that it is now HIS turn to stand on the desk and look at things differently.

Connecting my own dots, I have “stood on the desk” each time I have watched the film. As I age, life looks different.

In fact, I have been standing on the desk quite a bit since I cheated death in January of 2024. As I’ve written before, where you are is not as important as who you are with, what feelings you give to others and how you travel through this life. Everything else is just noise.

Stand on the desk today. Slow down for a moment and look around. Carpe Diem.

Stay safe, stay awesome, and stay strong.