PSYCHO 202: EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

GRACE A. DE LOS SANTOS

Dead Poets Society
Summary
Neil Perry, Todd Anderson, Knox Overstreet, Charlie Dalton, Richard Cameron, Steven
Meeks, and Gerard Pitts are senior students of the Welton Academy, an elite prep school,
whose ethos is defined by the headmaster Gale Nolan as "tradition, honor, discipline and
excellence".
The teaching methods of their new English teacher, John Keating, are unorthodox by Welton
standards, including whistling the 1812 Overture and taking them out of the classroom to focus
on the idea of carpe diem. He tells the students that they may call him "O Captain! My
Captain!," in reference to a Walt Whitman poem, if they feel daring. In another class, Keating
has Neil read the introduction to their poetry textbook, which prescribes a mathematical
formula to rate the quality of pieces of poetry; Keating finds this ridiculous, and he instructs his
pupils to rip the introduction out of their books, to the amazement of one of his colleagues.
Later he has the students stand on his desk in order to look at the world in a different way. The
boys discover that Keating was a former student at Welton and decide to secretly revive the
school literary club, the Dead Poets Society, to which Keating had belonged, meeting in a cave
off the school grounds.
Due to self-consciousness, Todd fails to complete a writing assignment and Keating takes him
through an exercise in self-expression, realizing the potential he possesses. Charlie publishes an
unauthorized article in the school newspaper, asserting that girls should be admitted to
Welton. At the resulting school inquiry, he offers a phone call from God in support, incurring
the headmaster's wrath. After being lectured by Headmaster Nolan about his teaching
methods, Keating tells the boys to "be wise, not stupid" about protesting against the system.
Knox meets and falls in love with a girl named Chris, using his new-found love of poetry to woo
her. He presents one of these poems in class, and is applauded by Keating. Knox travels to Chris'
school and recites his poem to her, later convincing her to go to a play with him. Neil wants to
be an actor but knows his father will disapprove. Without his father's knowledge, he auditions
for the role of Puck in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. His father finds out and
orders Neil to withdraw. Neil asks Keating for advice and is advised to talk to his father and
make him understand how he feels, but Neil cannot muster the courage to do so. Instead he
goes against his father's wishes. Midway through Neil's performance, his father enters the
auditorium, but remains unimpressed. Visibly irritated, he confronts Keating, demanding he
leave Neil alone. He takes Neil home and tells him that he intends to enroll him in a military
school to prepare him for Harvard University and a career in medicine. Unable to cope with the
future that awaits him, Neil commits suicide.
At the request of Neil's parents, the headmaster launches an investigation. Cameron meets the
school governors and board of regents. Later, confronted by Charlie, Cameron admits that he
"finked," making Keating the scapegoat, and urges the rest of them to let Keating take the fall.
Charlie punches Cameron and is later expelled. Todd is called to Nolan's office, where his
parents are waiting. Nolan forces Todd to admit to being a member of the Dead Poets Society,
and makes him sign a document blaming Keating for inciting the boys to restart the club, and
encouraging Neil to flout his father's wishes. Todd sees the other boys' signatures on the
document, and is ordered by his father to sign it. Keating is fired.
The boys return to English class, now being taught by Nolan, who instructs the boys to read the
introductory essay only to find that they had all ripped it out. Keating enters the room to
retrieve a few belongings. Todd reveals that the boys were intimidated into signing the
denunciation. Nolan orders Todd to be quiet and demands that Keating leave. As Keating is
about to exit, Todd calls out "O Captain! My Captain!" and stands on his desk. Nolan warns
Todd to sit down or face expulsion. Much of the class, including Knox, Meeks, and Pitts, climb
onto their desks and look to Keating, ignoring Nolan's orders until he gives up. Keating, visibly
touched, thanks the students and then leaves.
Problems
Can one man make a huge difference from a simple school room? Dead Poets Society is
an inspiring story of one young teachers life as well as his students lives but also a movie that
discuss many psychological issues. In this movie Keating and the boys address and also embody
many psychological issues, namely conformity, role playing, obedience and identity issues. Mr.
Keating takes his whole class outside and asks three young men to walk in a circle. They all start
with distinct walks but eventually begin to march in formation. The other boys begin to clap.
Keating then explains the dangers of conformity, or adapting personal behavior to parallel the
groups standard, saying that they all need to be individuals and express themselves in their
own way. The students cant express themselves well because of the strict rules the academy
implements. They are treated as mere objects or tabula rasa which means blank slate, without
feelings, without desires, without willpower, without dignity, without knowledge.
In the issue about obedience, Neils character is always following his fathers commands
and doesnt disobey him. Because of his fear to his father he never questions his fathers plan
he has for Neil and he doesnt say anything he wants to him. He learned to keep everything
bottled inside and listen to whatever orders or plans his father had given him. This led to his
suicide. Neil, like the other boys, was also influenced by the roles or norms that explain how a
person in that situation should act and fell victim to role playing. The academy want them to
think that school and being a model student as a Welton student is the most important thing.
Neil also suffers identity crisis that led to his suicide; he is searching for his own identity during
his adolescence years. He was searching for who he was physically, emotionally and
intellectually. When his father told him that he has planned out Neils life for him and this
planned doesnt involved acting which is what he really wants, his only solution is to kill himself.
He will rather die than have his father take the life out of him doing things that he dont want to
do.
Intervention
Mr. Keating has broken free of the strict rules of Weltons limited perspective, and
returned to enlighten students that are tied with the tradition and perspective of the school. He
is determined to free the minds of his students in order to help them enter a larger and richer
world. To captivate his students imagination he employs different teaching methods to arouse
the curiosity of his students. At first, the student thinks that the way he teaches is somewhat
weird and different from the way their other teachers are doing. They are used to the way of
practice of teaching in their school.
Keatings goal is for his students to stop mimicking and reciting the words of others, and
finds their own voice and learns to think for themselves. He wants them to speak up for
themselves and be brave to express their feelings. Mr. Keating wants the student to break the
tradition and the perspective that their school have always instill in their mind. On top of his
desk, he gets them to consider life from different perspective. In the courtyard, he gets them to
fall into the trap of walking in conformity to the life of those around us. On the soccer field, he
inspires them to reach their full potential. We can see through the film that Keating wants that
every single student blossomed and find his own way of thinking, but at the same time he
wants to reinforce the team spirit, we could say that he wants them to be all different but all
together.
In the case of the character of Neil who has a passion in acting but afraid to pursue it
because his father has a different plan for him. Mr. Keating told Neil to say what he really wants
to say to his father and explained his reasons why he wants to act and this may lead to his
father approving of his acting career. It is just a tragedy because Neil committed suicide when
his father doesnt listen to him and still pushes through his plan for his sons life.
Recommendation
If Im in the position of Mr. Keating I would like my students to have freedom to express
their selves and love their life. I would do my best to help them with their problems but when it
comes to problem with parents there is a limit to what a teacher can do. Like in Neils case, Mr.
Keating was blamed for encouraging him to pursue acting instead of being a doctor. A teacher
should know his limitations in giving advice to the students,