Again, there was nothing on TV, and Mr Holland’s Opus was starting, so I decided to watch it. I know my husband loves the movie and it’s a classic. I saw parts of it when it first came out, but never really sat through the whole thing. Well, I’m glad I did tonight. I’m also glad I got to see it with my husband.
The plot is simple: a musician/composer takes a teaching gig at a high school hoping it will give him enough free time to compose his ultimate symphony. Like every teacher movie, he ends up deeply touching the lives of all of his students by his modern, playful and caring style. All while he was raising a deaf son, or not raising him, rather. He becomes detached from his own family, and he realizes later in life that he doesn’t know his son. In the end, 30 years later, they cut the arts/theater/music program from the school due to budget constraints, and his students from the past 30 years (one of which became the governor of the state) gather in the auditorium and allow him to direct them all in playing the Opus he has been composing for the past 30 years.
I was crying and crying by the end of the movie. It was incredibly touching.
As with every review, let me tell you how this applied to my regular life. For the past few days, as I have been considering a career change to teaching, I have been struggling with the lack of validation/rewards in the school system. I recommend that you read Teaching in the 408‘s blog entry on The Ledge that teachers live on: whether to leave or stay. The main idea here is that teachers stay for the kids. They do genuinely care about them, but, as professionals, teachers need to feel like their careers are advancing, or that their efforts to improve are actually being recognized by higher forces in the school system. This reward system does not currently exist, or at least not in any efficient fashion. This has been on my mind a lot: do I really want to go from a really frustrating job to a really frustrating job? Will making class educationally entertaining for the kids be driver enough to keep me going year after year?
After watching Mr Holland’s Opus, it’s easy to think that these issues won’t matter in the long run or in the day-to-day. It makes you believe that it IS all for the kids after all, and everything else is a side issue. Occupational hazards, if you will. However, not all teachers will get a standing ovation from all of the children they have impacted over the years at the end of their careers; even if they did, would that be enough of a reward?
This movie did not plug all the holes in my aspiration for a new career, and did not answer all of my questions; but, by golly, it made me feel so inspired. It made me feel like maybe there is something to just doing it for the kids. Maybe the work itself is its own reward. Maybe being a teacher is really that romantic and a path worth going down. Whatever the reality actually might be, it’s movies like these that make us work towards a common goal: a better world for our kids.
I feel like going out on Netflix and queuing up all those good teacher movies. Lean on Me is a good one. Another good one is Chalk — it’s filmed as a documentary, same style as The Office, and it was a great flick, especially if you work in the school system. Are there any other good teacher movies? (please don’t mention the one with James Belushi or the one with Michelle Pfeiffer — I’m over those)
This is a must see. If you have any other inspirational movies you would like to recommend to me, I am ALL ears. I’m always looking for those uplifting feel-good movies 🙂
Check out the New York Times’ review of Mr Holland’s Opus.
ina