Review by Sarah Han, 12
The movie begins with Tom Anderson, starting his senior year at Welton Academy, an elite school that sends 70 percent of their students to the ivy league. The students at Welton Academy have to behave with four pillars: honor, discipline, excellence. They sit in the same school uniform, the same chair, read the same textbook with a suppressive life by the principal to make them “successful.”
However, Mr. Keating, the new English teacher suggests unfamiliar ways of teaching. He inspires the students to “carpe diem,” to seize the day. One day, during the class, Neil, the roommate of Tom, reads a page in a textbook, which is trying to inject students a certain way to rate poems and its importance. Mr. Keating suddenly tells the students to rip the page. Mr. Keating emphasizes how the poem is not something that can be judged, that reading poems require the reader to think independently, to sincerely feel the poem itself.
Mr. Keating’s unique teaching starts to change the students. Despite the strong will of his parents to become a doctor, Neil auditions to acting in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He gets out of his formulaic life and follows his own passion. However, after his dad watching Neil act, he tells Neil to quit and attend military school. That night, Neil kills himself.
After Neil’s death, Mr. Keating is pointed out to be the person who initially caused the situation, and he is forced to leave the school. In the last class, seeing Mr. Keating leaving the classroom, Tom stands on the desk, calling Mr. Keating “Oh captain, my captain,” which cannot happen in the suppressive atmosphere of Welton Academy.
Focusing on college admissions and looking at the world from different points of view. This seems very close to the lives of students in Centennial high school. We focus ourselves on activities and class which will help us to get into college but are scared to take part in activities that do not matter to the college admission. Which one is the answer? There is certainly no answer since there are various points of view existing. Some might say Mr. Keating is a fool who made the students to distant themselves from success, and some might say Mr. Keating gave the students the true freedom, true independence.
Since we only see the certain way to be successful, such as getting into good college, we might be missing our creativity and identity. Will you be a student who stands on the desk or sitting on the chair turn away from those stand?
Stand. Carpe Diem.