Dewey’s thinking regarding education advocates unstructured progressive education where teachers are not rulers but leaders who have and share deeper knowledge and experience. Further, Dewey views teachers as guides of students in activities that are structured towards optimal learning.
Thus, the paper assumes that past experiences of students should be evaluated and considered by teachers in preparing subject matters which aim to provide the former with new favorable experiences that will, in turn, enable the students to grow personally and substantially contribute to society.
Dead Poets Society
In the 1989 movie, Dead Poets Society, the new teacher John Keating, portrayed by Robin
Williams, veers away from traditional methods of teaching. He is liberal, outgoing and nonconformist.
For instance, on the first day of class, he took the students out in the hallway and told them that they are powerful individuals. This scene potently shows how different
Keating is from other teachers. Most of the teachers will not let the students think that they are powerful because in the traditional, structured and overly ordered classroom setting, the teacher is the ruler and students are like slaves who just obey their ruler (“Thinking in
Education” htpp://ilt.columbia.com). In the next class meeting, Keating ordered his students to rip the essay where mathematical criticism describes how to rate the quality of poetry. He also made the students stand on their desks to have a different view of the http://bestresearchpaper.com 3 world, something that other teachers would not do. In a later scene, Keating once