Riley Stueven
Teacher
comparison essay
There are many types of teachers in the world. Many of
them genuinely try to educate their students and impart messages of wisdom and intelligence,
while others seem to just coast through the curriculum, hope their students
understand the basics so they can pass the class, and simply wait for the nest
paycheck. Then there are the other teachers who truly break the mold, and
attempt to truly connect with their students on a deeper level before they go
out on their own into the world. In this comparative essay, I will be examining
two teachers that, while fictional, truly made a difference in their students’
lives and learned more about themselves in the process. Bill Rago, portrayed by
Danny Devito in Renaissance man, and Dewey Finn, portrayed by Jack Black in
School of Rock, are both people that have not taught before, and they are
thrust out of their comfort zones in order to educate a group of individuals to
make a quick buck, they both have an unorthodox method of teaching their
students which is discouraged by the people who are in charge of them, and they
both begin to identify with their students by sparking their interest in their
own hobbies and looking at things from their students’ perspectives.
Mr. Rago, for example,
previously worked as an advertising consultant, but after missing an important
meeting, he gets fired from his job. In order to keep a steady income, he takes
up a job teaching soldiers at a military base that are deemed illiterate. These
soldiers are referred to by everyone else on the base as Double D’s, or ‘dumb-as-dogshit’,
which for some reason they seem happy to embrace. At first, he seems to hate
his job and the base he works on, and his students aren’t exactly fond of him
either. He soon begins to sympathize with them, because none of them are very
smart and they don’t seem fit to be in the military; however, he soon sparks
interest in them by reading his favorite book, Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare.
They soon become enthralled with the story, and actually seem interested in the
story.
Dewey Finn, however,
begins teaching under much different circumstances. After getting kicked out of
his own band, he steals a substitute teaching job from his roommate, and is
then assigned to teach young teenagers at a prep school. At first, he is
uninterested in the students and their curriculum, and he simply gives them
easy assignments to pass the time. After he watches them in band class, however,
and sees their musical potential, he becomes enamored with them and changes his
approach.
In order to help his
students fully appreciate the genius of Shakespeare (seeing as how they’ve
never read any of his work before), Mr. Rago assigns each student a role in the
story, and begins to go through the whole story with them, helping out with
parts they may not understand. Their interest in the prose is peaked when he
mentions the themes of love, betrayal, revenge, and incest. This approach is
frowned upon by his students’ drill sergeant, because he doesn’t care about
them learning poetry, he only wants them to be smart enough to make it through
basic training, and considers his own physical training to be of the utmost
importance. He doesn’t even allow Mr. Rago to administer a final exam on the
grounds that most of them would fail and get kicked out of the army.
Although they are at a
high-end prep school, Dewey decides to teach his students through music. After
bringing his various instruments to the classroom, he finds out which students
is skilled at each instrument, and begins to form a makeshift band, with
himself as the frontman. He devotes all their time to music rather than their
normal subjects, a truth he has to hide from the other teachers and the dean. While
this is not necessarily a proper teaching method, I’m asking that you suspend
your disbelief on the grounds that it is a comedy, and not to be taken
literally. Furthermore, he gives them a goal to work towards by signing them up
for the battle of the bands at a local theater, against the wishes of the
principle. Many of the children’s parents begin to question his motives when at
a parent/teacher conference, he cannot accurately give them a description of
the curriculum he has been teaching them.
One of the shining
examples of the integrity of these teachers is their ability to put themselves
into the learning process and identify with their students on a deeper level.
Mr. Rago, for example, gets his students interested in literature by reading
them his favorite book, Hamlet. At first they don’t understand any of the
passages, and wonder why it wasn’t written in plain English. He shows them
through similes and metaphors the poetic beauty of the tale, and they all soon
learn to appreciate the knowledge he is presenting them with. He even takes
them to see a live showing of Hamlet, where they are all left speechless and
totally engrossed in the play. He also begins to see that the students aren’t
just dumb kids; after hearing the stories of their upbringing and listening to
all the crap they had to go through, he understands that they simply weren’t
given a fair chance. One student talks about his father who passed away in the
Vietnam war, and how much he misses him, an experience that Mr. Rago is all too
familiar with.
Dewey’s approach is much
more comical; after learning about his students’ playing abilities, he begins
to question them on their musical preferences, and becomes enraged that they
parents discourage them all from listening to rock and roll. His lectures begin
to consist of rock history and analysis, he hands out different albums and explains
that their homework is to simply listen to them, and he even begins to write
songs with them that they’ll perform at their show. After learning that some
students are being punished by their parents for listening to the music, he is
determined to have the show go off without a hitch, prove that his students are
good kids, and show the world that he is not a failure.
The most important thing
that these two teachers did was to put themselves in the process. By showing
their true selves and their hobbies to their students, it allowed them to
actually connect with them as human beings, not simply as teachers and
students. And at the end of the day, they achieved what it means to be a
successful teacher; you learn just as much from your students as they do from
you.
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