Dead Poets Society Essay

In Dead Poets Society, Mr. Keating shows a different and more hands-on experience of teaching than the standard way the school teaches. Learning by example versus learning by notes is a huge difference for many, and it can drill the message deeper into further understanding. Dead Poets Society does a good job demonstrating the emotions that result from these two different tactics. When educating a teenager, Mr. Keating’s Transcendental philosophies are better to use than Welton Academy’s philosophy of Tradition, Honor, Discipline, and Excellence. Teenagers need guidance, reassurance, and the tools to equip them for life later on. When teaching, to throw a book in students’ face and lecture them on a topic that they have absolutely no interest in, will make them resent that topic or that class even more. Students learn memorization; as a matter of fact, it can be good in some cases, like for a test coming up later that week. On the other hand though, not so much as 10 years goes by and one is trying to recall the symbols and letters of the periodic table they had to memorize their junior year. Experience is what’ll move them forward. School can be challenging, so why make it more exhausting than it needs to be? Excellence: expected to be the greatest. This pressure can cause a massive amount of stress, overwhelming the mind and making it almost …show more content…
Keatings’ ideals are closely related to those of Thoraeu; For example, “In his first years of teaching, he refused to punish his students physically, a harsh but common practice.” (Thoreau, Henry David. Introduction. Walden. Philadelphia, PA: Courage, 1990. N. pag. Print.) The common method of Welton Academy was to practice poetry out of the textbook, which he had no interest to follow. He had the students rip out the introductory pages, which didn’t please one of the professors too much later on. Mr. Keating continued teaching using real life demonstrations, such as when he had the students find their ‘own