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The four movies which are to be discussed as examples are very typical American education movies. The genre is very inspiring. Here is the usual scenario: the teacher believes in a group of students, who don't believe in themselves. Then through tough love and encouragement, the students start to believe they have some value. Usually the teacher is transformed in the process, as well. In these movies, the relationship between teachers and students is also embodied vividly.
The movie Mona Lisa Smile is set in the background of 1950s in America, describing a free-spirited graduate of UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles)--Katherine Watson’s experience of working at Wellesley College, which is a school for girls only, where the students are torn between the repressive mores of the time and their longing for intellectual freedom. Not only teaching them but also setting herself as a role model, Miss Watson evokes the girls and turns them into the most independent women.
Dead Poets Society tells a story about a group of young students, oppressed by school authority and parents’ heavy expectations, meet an inspiring teacher--Mr. Keating, who tells them Dead Poets Society, and guides and encourages them to seize the day, to find their own paths of life and to bravely pursue their dreams.
The plot of Dangerous Minds is based on the autobiography My Posse Don't Do Homework by discharged U.S. Marine LouAnne Johnson, who accepts a full-time job offer at Carlmont High School in Belmont, California, in 1989, where most students in her class were African-American and Latino teenagers from East Palo Alto, a poverty stricken, racially segregated, economically deprived city at the opposite end of the school district. Although her students are troubled by various social problems, they in their heart of hearts are highly intelligent and sensible. Miss Johnson adopts every method she can, and even use “carrot and stick” to make efforts to enlighten and change her students’ minds. At last, it turns out to be that it’s her students who comfort her when she’s upset and make her go on by telling her that she’s their “light”.
Mr. Holland's Opus, in another name “Life is sweet of you”, is a story of a music teacher, whose professional career spanned three decades. To start with, Glenn Holland is a musician and composer who takes up teaching just for the purpose of paying rent. His true goal--compose one memorable piece of music to leave his mark on the world, is soon found unachievable because of little time to concentrate on his own music. With time goes by, his definition of success changes to be contagious passion for music with his students. In the end, his teaching career turns out to be such a reward that all his students think that they are his “symphony”; they are “the melodies and notes” of his opus; they are the “music” of his life.
1.2. Reasons of Choosing the Four Movies as Examples
The relationship between teachers and students is the most primary and important aspect of interpersonal relation in educational environment. It is a complex and abstract concept, differs in each different stages and certain cultural backgrounds, and is also influenced by teachers and students involved.
The relations between teachers and students in these four movies are quite different from those traditional and conventional relations where teachers are the center, the controller, the instructor, and dictator, while students remain the same role of knowledge receiver, listener , and note-taker. Instead, teachers in these movies pay much attention to students’ feedback and communication with them to show cares and concerns to students and to their study and life.
Mr. Keating is praised “captain” by his students; Miss Johnson is called “light” by her students; Mr. Holland is regarded as “a great musician of opus ” with students as his symphony, the melodies and notes; Miss Watson is seen as a role model and mind opener. The relationship in these four movies are representative enough to be discussed as examples.