Boostrom
EDUC 173
17 February 2012
Public School: One for All
Throughout out the history of the United States the idea of mandated public school by the government has been controversial. In 1971, Ivan Illich wrote a book explaining his views on government-mandated education. He believes that no matter how hard teachers try there will not be universal education. The following explains four different degrees of agreement and disagreement on the issue from 19th century people.
A quote taken from McGuffey’s sixth eclectic reader in 1863 goes as follows, “The business of training youth in elocution, must be commenced in childhood (Fraser 85).” It can be gathered from this quote that McGuffey would support mandated education, especially since he had published a primer, a speller, and four readers to further the education of children. He believes that all children should be well versed in language, pronunciation, and reading. In this sense, McGuffey disagrees with Illich’s opinion about deschooling society. In fact, McGuffey supports education through his work with material to publicly educate young children.
Frederick Dougless would agree with Illich with the goal of mandated public school being impossible for all. As Mr. Auld, Dougless’ owner, says in Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Dougless: An American Slave, “…It would make him discontented and unhappy (Fraser 105).” Dougless respondes to this statement with a desire to further his education with gusto in secret. By the time he becomes fairly more educated in many different matter of the world, Dougless finds himself heavy with discontent and yearning yet again to hold his blissful ignorance. In the early 19th century it would not have been a plausible idea to educate the enslaved people because it would have driven them all mad. In this sense, mandated education would not only been impossible, but it would have caused great unrest amongst those in lesser positions.
Calvin E. Stowe profoundly disagrees with Illich’s proposition about deschooling America. Stowe expresses his views with this quote, “…now actually pursued by thousands of school masters in the best district schools that have ever been organized. It can be done, for it has been done it is now done, and it out to be done. If it can be done in Europe, I believe it can be done in the United States (Fraser 93).” Stowe passionately states how he feels the United States was behind in the times, but is now catching up to Prussia by founding schools that are for everyone. He fights for “a system of common school instruction, fully adequate to all the wants of our population,” meaning that every person needs to be educated, in complete disagreement with Illich’s ideals of mandated school. Stowe truly fights for the system.
“In order that the reader may understand me and why I lay so much stress upon the importance of pushing the doctrine of industrial education for the Negro, it is necessary…” –Booker T. Washington (Fraser 118). Washington finds education necessary to increase the understanding of the African Americans because it will help them in the work place. He later goes on to say, “…acquisition of a knowledge of literature and science, makes a man … above all good (Fraser 119).” This shows how devoted to the spread of education Washington is. He feels it improves upon the mind in such a way as to right any learned wrongs and creates a beautiful environment in which to explore. He would have disagreed with Illich’s views on deschooling America. Washington absolutely wanted to spread knowledge throughout.
These four gentleman have widely varied views on Illich’s deschoolization of America. Whether they agree or disagree with Illich, they hold strong views on their position. Especially in the 19th century, being able to hold a position in opposition of public opinion was quite a feat. If Illich’s position is correct, America’s schooling system needs to have a great change to accomplish what needs to be done.
Work Cited
Cohen, Rosetta Marantz., and Samuel Scheer. The Work of Teachers in America: A Social History through Stories. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997.
Fraser, James W. The School in the United States: A Documentary History. New York: Routledge, 2010.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Comparing and Contrasting on School as a Social Engineer
Boostrom
EDUC 173
26 January 2012
Comparing and Contrasting on School as a Social Engineer
Throughout the school system in America there is a discrepancy in how teachers go about teaching. Should they try to assist children on the emotional journey of growing up by acting like a surrogate parent and a social worker or should they leave well enough alone? The following represents how three quotations from our course readings agree and disagree with this idea.
Philip Freneau thought the idea of being a nanny as well as a teacher preposterous. “…that it is expected the young gentlemen will be at all times under your eye, and that whenever they think proper to go a shooting, swimming, or elsewhere, you must attend them for fear of accidents... And her dear little lambs, may be led, but not drove…” -Philip Freneau (Cohen 25). Philip Freneau was signed up for the job of a private tutor, which he believed to be a position of high importance. He believed his time spent baby sitting five children was wasted. He had no wishes of helping the youngsters along the emotional path to enlightenment, therefore, an agreement with MacKinnon’s statement. Freneau thought his entire experience with the Bunscooten’s was laughable. This explained the reason he wrote a satirical journal entry about them, while the other two entries try to refute MacKinnon’s points about not having overly caring teachers in the school system.
Beecher disagrees with MacKinnon’s statement with this quote. “The simple fact that a teacher succeeds in making a child habitually accurate and thorough in all the lessons of school, may induce mental habits that will have a controlling influence through life.” -Catharine E. Beecher (Fraser 58). Here she shows that by teachers leading exemplary lives their pupils will soon follow in their foot steps. The quote continues. “It is true that mismanagement and indulgence at home may counteract all the good influences of school; and the faithful discharge of parental duty may counteract, to some extent, the bad influences of school; but this does not lessen the force of these considerations.” Here Beecher disagrees with MacKinnon by stating how teachers do act as surrogate parents by being able to counter the bad things that happen at home and, in turn, the parents can counter the bad things at school. Each teacher and parent individually acting as a countering agent against the negative affect of the other, therefore rendering both as influential as the other in the emotional development of the child.
The final quote against MacKinnon deals with letting children discover beautiful things in their path of knowledge. Therefore, opening the doors to their inner poetic beauty which can only be coaxed out through learning. “I should labor to make my explanation and illustration understand their subject, and get them warmed into it, by making them see its beauties and its advantages.” -Emma Hart Willard (Cohen 45). Emma Willard is letting knowledge blossom into its fullest understanding by teaching children with a gentle hand focused on understanding fully and being able to relate to their subject. Through the focus on her students, almost mother like in nature, Willard completely counteracts MacKinnon’s ideals and focuses on nurturing her children socially and emotionally.
The two women discussed in this aspect serve as antitheses of MacKinnon’s view of schooling. They nurture children in a surrogate mother way. While Freneau agrees with MacKinnon’s ideals and wants nothing to do with the upbringing with children.
Work Cited
Cohen, Rosetta Marantz., and Samuel Scheer. The Work of Teachers in America: A Social History through Stories. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997.
Fraser, James W. The School in the United States: A Documentary History. New York: Routledge, 2010.
EDUC 173
26 January 2012
Comparing and Contrasting on School as a Social Engineer
Throughout the school system in America there is a discrepancy in how teachers go about teaching. Should they try to assist children on the emotional journey of growing up by acting like a surrogate parent and a social worker or should they leave well enough alone? The following represents how three quotations from our course readings agree and disagree with this idea.
Philip Freneau thought the idea of being a nanny as well as a teacher preposterous. “…that it is expected the young gentlemen will be at all times under your eye, and that whenever they think proper to go a shooting, swimming, or elsewhere, you must attend them for fear of accidents... And her dear little lambs, may be led, but not drove…” -Philip Freneau (Cohen 25). Philip Freneau was signed up for the job of a private tutor, which he believed to be a position of high importance. He believed his time spent baby sitting five children was wasted. He had no wishes of helping the youngsters along the emotional path to enlightenment, therefore, an agreement with MacKinnon’s statement. Freneau thought his entire experience with the Bunscooten’s was laughable. This explained the reason he wrote a satirical journal entry about them, while the other two entries try to refute MacKinnon’s points about not having overly caring teachers in the school system.
Beecher disagrees with MacKinnon’s statement with this quote. “The simple fact that a teacher succeeds in making a child habitually accurate and thorough in all the lessons of school, may induce mental habits that will have a controlling influence through life.” -Catharine E. Beecher (Fraser 58). Here she shows that by teachers leading exemplary lives their pupils will soon follow in their foot steps. The quote continues. “It is true that mismanagement and indulgence at home may counteract all the good influences of school; and the faithful discharge of parental duty may counteract, to some extent, the bad influences of school; but this does not lessen the force of these considerations.” Here Beecher disagrees with MacKinnon by stating how teachers do act as surrogate parents by being able to counter the bad things that happen at home and, in turn, the parents can counter the bad things at school. Each teacher and parent individually acting as a countering agent against the negative affect of the other, therefore rendering both as influential as the other in the emotional development of the child.
The final quote against MacKinnon deals with letting children discover beautiful things in their path of knowledge. Therefore, opening the doors to their inner poetic beauty which can only be coaxed out through learning. “I should labor to make my explanation and illustration understand their subject, and get them warmed into it, by making them see its beauties and its advantages.” -Emma Hart Willard (Cohen 45). Emma Willard is letting knowledge blossom into its fullest understanding by teaching children with a gentle hand focused on understanding fully and being able to relate to their subject. Through the focus on her students, almost mother like in nature, Willard completely counteracts MacKinnon’s ideals and focuses on nurturing her children socially and emotionally.
The two women discussed in this aspect serve as antitheses of MacKinnon’s view of schooling. They nurture children in a surrogate mother way. While Freneau agrees with MacKinnon’s ideals and wants nothing to do with the upbringing with children.
Work Cited
Cohen, Rosetta Marantz., and Samuel Scheer. The Work of Teachers in America: A Social History through Stories. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997.
Fraser, James W. The School in the United States: A Documentary History. New York: Routledge, 2010.
Comparision of Men APA format Movie Night Assignment
Comparison of Men
Abstract
In this paper the movies A Clockwork Orange and Dead Poet Society are compared and contrasted. A synopsis is provided of each movie, as well as focusing on each of the teams in the movie. Dead Poet Society has seven members and an outside group leader, while A Clockwork Orange has four members, one of whom is the leader. Throughout these movies both groups of men use comradery to help overcome obstacles.
Keywords: movie, A Clockwork Orange, Dead Poet Society, groups, synopsis
Dead Poet Society Synopsis
On a foggy evening, the members of Dead Poet Society sneak out of their dorm rooms into a cave to read poetry and feel real emotion. Their meeting begins with a quote from Henry David Thoreau read by Neil, "I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life."
John Keating, an English professor at the school, was a member of Dead Poet Society in his days at Welton Academy for Boys. It seemed that he prompted the boys’ formation of Dead Poet Society by planting seeds of wanting, rebellion, art, and beauty in their minds.
As the story progresses, the head of the school finds out about the society as well as Neil joining a play under false pretenses. Neil lied and said his father gave him permission, when in fact he forbade him from similar activities in the past. The head of the school talks to each boy individually and the results point the blame to Mr. Keating, who eventually gets fired. When Neil’s father finds out about the play and confronts Neil, Neil tells his father that he will quite the play, but disobeys his father instead. His father is outraged and forces him to come home. Neil kills himself with his father’s gun.
In a final scene of the movie, Mr. Keating walking into his old classroom of the boys being taught by a new teacher. Todd stands up on top of the desk and says, “O Captain, my captain!” a name that John told them to call him, soon the other boys follow suit, in much defiance of the new teacher.
Dead Poet Society is all about Carpe Diem, seizing the day (Weir, 1989).
A Clockwork Orange Synopsis
Alex is the leader of the droogs. They go about with violence and sex crimes for the first section of the movie until the droogs realize Alex is abusing them and taking more than his fair share from the robberies. The droogs revolt by leading Alex astray in a robbery, landing him in police captivity.
Once captured, Alex is sentenced to 14 years in prison. Once in, he approaches the subject of The Ludovico Technique, a technique that was said to brainwash prisoners into being good and therefore rendering them a shorter term. His application to the program is successful.
In the program Alex is injected with a serum that creates feelings of extreme displeasure when exposed to violence, sexual temptations, along with Beethoven’s 9th, on accident. One doctor says the treatment is a success while another argues that it has taken away Alex’s human right to choose. At either rate, he is released back into society.
In hugely foreshadowed events, including torture from his former victims, Alex ends up attempting suicide to the 9th and is taken to a hospital. When he awakes the Ludovico Technique had been reversed and the movie’s final scene concludes with Alex fantasizing about an orgy to Ludwig Van Beethoven 9th Symphony.
A conclusion from this movie is the government doesn’t have the right to take away free will, even from criminals. There are many ways this movie could be interpreted, such as leading a life of crime isn’t such a bad thing if you are ready for a rough ride, or drugs, sex, and crime are an interesting experiment if you are willing to pay the consequences (Kubrick, 1971).
Communication Concepts Applied to A Clockwork Orange
Groupthink & Mob Mentality
Groupthink is applied heavily in the first few moments of A Clockwork Orange. When a group unconsciously resorts to groupthink their individual behaviors, ideals, and values are compromised (Beebe, 2012). When the group beats up the wino in the tunnel it is an apparent application of mob mentality. None of the members stand up and ask if it is right to hurt the man, they just go ahead and do what the other members of the group are doing without causing a fuss. Violence is met with violence, escalating the scene to a near end for the wino. Near the end of the movie, it shows how simply sick Alex’s mind truly behaves. While on the other hand, two of the other members of the group went on to become police officers, proving that they did have good in them. Without Alex being the leader of the droogs, the other members lead a life that entailed not beating up innocent people and raping others. Yet upon seeing Alex again the droogs beat him, proves violence that violence resurfaces in groups (Kubrick, 1971).
Coercive Power
Alex’s power is based upon coercive power, the idea of beating and threatening members of a group in order to make them act and conform to ones ideals and overbearing power (Beebe, 2012). Alex uses this technique as his power form over the droogs. This is first seen when the group overhears a woman singing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in the milk bar. While Alex is entranced with her voice, Dim makes farting noises. Alex becomes enraged and hits him. This is example of Alex’s coercive power inflicted upon the lesser members of the group. This, in turn, is why the other group members overthrow him later in the movie. Their repressed anger for Alex surfaces and they act upon it by smashing his head in with a milk bottle and leaving him for the police to take into custody. A prime example of why, in this situation, coercive power is not the correct power for to use (Kubrick, 1971).
Group Formation: Control Factor
This group may have formed out of Alex’s need to control people, while members of the group felt a need to be controlled and told what to do because of their mental capacities (Beebe, 2012). Alex’s apparent characteristics throughout the movie display how much he likes to be in control. In comparison, the other members of the group seemed to have nowhere to go and nothing to do without Alex telling them what to do, until later in the movie (Kubrick, 1971). This fuels the formation of the group based upon power, as does the droogs admiration of Alex because of his apparent superiority. Because of that, they try to surround themselves with a person of superiority with a hope that they too, someday, could be more like him. This was the cause of the two-way negative formation of this group (Beebe, 2012).
Communication Concepts Applied to Dead Poet Society
Leaders: From Power and Direct Stand Points
John Keating from Dead Poet Society acts as an expert power leader. An expert power leader is one who leads because of their direct experience with the subject, while others in the group have not yet experienced what the leader has. He is not directly in the group, but he acts as a leader from the outside. Neil Perry acts as a more direct, in-group leader because of his and Todd’s relationship with Mr. Keating. This strange triangle of shifting leadership leads to the group not having problems in power, but rather gradually shifting power and letting others speak frequently in the group (Beebe, 2012). Mr. Keating first gave Neil the book that inspires Neil to get together the group of boys to go to the Dead Poet Society meetings. If Mr. Keating hadn’t enlightened the youngsters of this new age phenomena, then there wouldn’t have been a second generation Dead Poet Society. Yet again, if Neil hadn’t encouraged his friends and roommate to go to the meetings and kept a sense of comradery, there also wouldn’t have been a Dead Poet Society. This is why Neil and John Keating are both driving leadings of the group (Weir, 1989).
Group Formation: Cause/Form, Norm, Storm, Perform
Dead Poet Society forms out of the need to be united in a common cause. The group’s forming occurs in Mr. Keating classroom. They get together because they want to do more than simply become doctors, lawyers, and professional businessmen. They want to seize the day, be more than what they are, pour some artistic interest into their lives, and be poets. They began doing this by the formation of the Dead Poet Society. Soon they begin to norm at their meetings, only one member will speak their piece at a time, and there is a special opening and closing recited at the meetings. Their stage of storming was fairly short in the group because of the large number of members, conflict did not directly occur in the group, but rather to individual members of the group because of outside influences. Performing is interpreted literally as Neil’s performance on stage, while the boys were in the classroom of John Keating’s, and in the cave reading from the book or their own poems. Their performances are vast and beautiful, even when hardship hits. A reason for the formation of this group was to band together men with a common cause so they would each pursue it with the support of others (Beebe, 2012) (Weir, 1989).
Strong Social Bonds Holding the Group Together
Although they each member of Dead Poet Society has personal goals, some to get the girls, others to have a good time, and yet others to truly express themselves, these goals did not turn into hidden agendas. The strong social bonds each member feels towards one another and the alliance they feel to the group keep the negative consequences of having multiple goals at bay. Their cohesion helps them to overcome, even in the end when Neil died, any obstacle (Beebe, 2012). In one of the final scenes, the boys stand on top of their desks and shout, “O captain, my captain!” to John Keating as he leaves, showing the boys are still united under their principles, and that they can make it through hardships. Their alliance to their fellow artist, dead friend, or fired teacher shows how cohesive their group is (Weir, 1989).
A Comparison of the Two Groups
A Clockwork Orange’s meaning is a bit more ambiguous when compared with Dead Poet Society. With certain strange, made up words meaning peculiar things, and classical music inspiring violence, sex, and drugs, while Dead Poet Society directly correlates to creating an artistic, freethinking community when one was discouraged.
Each group possesses several homogeneous properties, neither group is too diverse on the surface. The men from A Clockwork Orange and Dead Poet Society, each in turn, have similar backgrounds, cultural ethics, language, status, age, and gender (Beebe, 2012). Of course, there are deep-level diversities in each member from each group, because no two people have the same point of views on every issue. The members are intuitively bound by similarity, although with time in A Clockwork Orange the group’s deep-level differences drive the members apart. Whereas in Dead Poet Society they remain strong in their bonds.
A difference lends itself to the size of the group. The group from A Clockwork Orange is an ideal size for a group, four, while the group from Dead Poet Society is larger than the ideal size of a group with seven or eight members, depending upon who is counted.
An exceptionally strange point of the Dead Poet Society is John Keating. Although he is a driving force of the group and shows some heavy influence, he does not attend the meeting in person. He appears to be a leader in this group, but he is not quite in the group. This tends to be a somewhat singular occurrence in this group. While on the other hand with A Clockwork Orange, Alex emerges as the leader and he is most prominently a part of the group.
The two groups vary quite broadly with their goals. The men of A Clockwork Orange seem to have no specific goals, are brought together out of comradery, and aren’t cohesive. This leads to the internal destruction of their group. While Dead Poet Society, on the other hand, forms from the need to find creativity where it is being suppressed. Their groups has a huge since of cohesion, leading the group to still be there for one another even through the harsh times of death and dismissal conditions. Dead Poet Society shows the leading factors of social bonds being able to conquer great hard ships, while A Clockwork Orange simply falls apart once one member becomes dominate and aggressive. Proving that homogenous groups can be positive or negative.
Works Cited
Angeli, E., Wagner, J., Lawrick, E., Moore, K., Anderson, M., Soderlund, L., & Brizee, A. (2010, May 5). General format. Retrieved from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
Beebe, S. A., & Masterson, J. T. (2012). Communicating in Small Groups Principles and Practices, 10, 1-203.
Kubrick, S. (Director) (1971). In Litvinoff, S. (Ececutive Producer), A Clockwork Orange.
Weir, P. (Director) (1989). In Haft, S. (Executive Producer), Dead Poet Society.
Abstract
In this paper the movies A Clockwork Orange and Dead Poet Society are compared and contrasted. A synopsis is provided of each movie, as well as focusing on each of the teams in the movie. Dead Poet Society has seven members and an outside group leader, while A Clockwork Orange has four members, one of whom is the leader. Throughout these movies both groups of men use comradery to help overcome obstacles.
Keywords: movie, A Clockwork Orange, Dead Poet Society, groups, synopsis
Dead Poet Society Synopsis
On a foggy evening, the members of Dead Poet Society sneak out of their dorm rooms into a cave to read poetry and feel real emotion. Their meeting begins with a quote from Henry David Thoreau read by Neil, "I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life."
John Keating, an English professor at the school, was a member of Dead Poet Society in his days at Welton Academy for Boys. It seemed that he prompted the boys’ formation of Dead Poet Society by planting seeds of wanting, rebellion, art, and beauty in their minds.
As the story progresses, the head of the school finds out about the society as well as Neil joining a play under false pretenses. Neil lied and said his father gave him permission, when in fact he forbade him from similar activities in the past. The head of the school talks to each boy individually and the results point the blame to Mr. Keating, who eventually gets fired. When Neil’s father finds out about the play and confronts Neil, Neil tells his father that he will quite the play, but disobeys his father instead. His father is outraged and forces him to come home. Neil kills himself with his father’s gun.
In a final scene of the movie, Mr. Keating walking into his old classroom of the boys being taught by a new teacher. Todd stands up on top of the desk and says, “O Captain, my captain!” a name that John told them to call him, soon the other boys follow suit, in much defiance of the new teacher.
Dead Poet Society is all about Carpe Diem, seizing the day (Weir, 1989).
A Clockwork Orange Synopsis
Alex is the leader of the droogs. They go about with violence and sex crimes for the first section of the movie until the droogs realize Alex is abusing them and taking more than his fair share from the robberies. The droogs revolt by leading Alex astray in a robbery, landing him in police captivity.
Once captured, Alex is sentenced to 14 years in prison. Once in, he approaches the subject of The Ludovico Technique, a technique that was said to brainwash prisoners into being good and therefore rendering them a shorter term. His application to the program is successful.
In the program Alex is injected with a serum that creates feelings of extreme displeasure when exposed to violence, sexual temptations, along with Beethoven’s 9th, on accident. One doctor says the treatment is a success while another argues that it has taken away Alex’s human right to choose. At either rate, he is released back into society.
In hugely foreshadowed events, including torture from his former victims, Alex ends up attempting suicide to the 9th and is taken to a hospital. When he awakes the Ludovico Technique had been reversed and the movie’s final scene concludes with Alex fantasizing about an orgy to Ludwig Van Beethoven 9th Symphony.
A conclusion from this movie is the government doesn’t have the right to take away free will, even from criminals. There are many ways this movie could be interpreted, such as leading a life of crime isn’t such a bad thing if you are ready for a rough ride, or drugs, sex, and crime are an interesting experiment if you are willing to pay the consequences (Kubrick, 1971).
Communication Concepts Applied to A Clockwork Orange
Groupthink & Mob Mentality
Groupthink is applied heavily in the first few moments of A Clockwork Orange. When a group unconsciously resorts to groupthink their individual behaviors, ideals, and values are compromised (Beebe, 2012). When the group beats up the wino in the tunnel it is an apparent application of mob mentality. None of the members stand up and ask if it is right to hurt the man, they just go ahead and do what the other members of the group are doing without causing a fuss. Violence is met with violence, escalating the scene to a near end for the wino. Near the end of the movie, it shows how simply sick Alex’s mind truly behaves. While on the other hand, two of the other members of the group went on to become police officers, proving that they did have good in them. Without Alex being the leader of the droogs, the other members lead a life that entailed not beating up innocent people and raping others. Yet upon seeing Alex again the droogs beat him, proves violence that violence resurfaces in groups (Kubrick, 1971).
Coercive Power
Alex’s power is based upon coercive power, the idea of beating and threatening members of a group in order to make them act and conform to ones ideals and overbearing power (Beebe, 2012). Alex uses this technique as his power form over the droogs. This is first seen when the group overhears a woman singing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in the milk bar. While Alex is entranced with her voice, Dim makes farting noises. Alex becomes enraged and hits him. This is example of Alex’s coercive power inflicted upon the lesser members of the group. This, in turn, is why the other group members overthrow him later in the movie. Their repressed anger for Alex surfaces and they act upon it by smashing his head in with a milk bottle and leaving him for the police to take into custody. A prime example of why, in this situation, coercive power is not the correct power for to use (Kubrick, 1971).
Group Formation: Control Factor
This group may have formed out of Alex’s need to control people, while members of the group felt a need to be controlled and told what to do because of their mental capacities (Beebe, 2012). Alex’s apparent characteristics throughout the movie display how much he likes to be in control. In comparison, the other members of the group seemed to have nowhere to go and nothing to do without Alex telling them what to do, until later in the movie (Kubrick, 1971). This fuels the formation of the group based upon power, as does the droogs admiration of Alex because of his apparent superiority. Because of that, they try to surround themselves with a person of superiority with a hope that they too, someday, could be more like him. This was the cause of the two-way negative formation of this group (Beebe, 2012).
Communication Concepts Applied to Dead Poet Society
Leaders: From Power and Direct Stand Points
John Keating from Dead Poet Society acts as an expert power leader. An expert power leader is one who leads because of their direct experience with the subject, while others in the group have not yet experienced what the leader has. He is not directly in the group, but he acts as a leader from the outside. Neil Perry acts as a more direct, in-group leader because of his and Todd’s relationship with Mr. Keating. This strange triangle of shifting leadership leads to the group not having problems in power, but rather gradually shifting power and letting others speak frequently in the group (Beebe, 2012). Mr. Keating first gave Neil the book that inspires Neil to get together the group of boys to go to the Dead Poet Society meetings. If Mr. Keating hadn’t enlightened the youngsters of this new age phenomena, then there wouldn’t have been a second generation Dead Poet Society. Yet again, if Neil hadn’t encouraged his friends and roommate to go to the meetings and kept a sense of comradery, there also wouldn’t have been a Dead Poet Society. This is why Neil and John Keating are both driving leadings of the group (Weir, 1989).
Group Formation: Cause/Form, Norm, Storm, Perform
Dead Poet Society forms out of the need to be united in a common cause. The group’s forming occurs in Mr. Keating classroom. They get together because they want to do more than simply become doctors, lawyers, and professional businessmen. They want to seize the day, be more than what they are, pour some artistic interest into their lives, and be poets. They began doing this by the formation of the Dead Poet Society. Soon they begin to norm at their meetings, only one member will speak their piece at a time, and there is a special opening and closing recited at the meetings. Their stage of storming was fairly short in the group because of the large number of members, conflict did not directly occur in the group, but rather to individual members of the group because of outside influences. Performing is interpreted literally as Neil’s performance on stage, while the boys were in the classroom of John Keating’s, and in the cave reading from the book or their own poems. Their performances are vast and beautiful, even when hardship hits. A reason for the formation of this group was to band together men with a common cause so they would each pursue it with the support of others (Beebe, 2012) (Weir, 1989).
Strong Social Bonds Holding the Group Together
Although they each member of Dead Poet Society has personal goals, some to get the girls, others to have a good time, and yet others to truly express themselves, these goals did not turn into hidden agendas. The strong social bonds each member feels towards one another and the alliance they feel to the group keep the negative consequences of having multiple goals at bay. Their cohesion helps them to overcome, even in the end when Neil died, any obstacle (Beebe, 2012). In one of the final scenes, the boys stand on top of their desks and shout, “O captain, my captain!” to John Keating as he leaves, showing the boys are still united under their principles, and that they can make it through hardships. Their alliance to their fellow artist, dead friend, or fired teacher shows how cohesive their group is (Weir, 1989).
A Comparison of the Two Groups
A Clockwork Orange’s meaning is a bit more ambiguous when compared with Dead Poet Society. With certain strange, made up words meaning peculiar things, and classical music inspiring violence, sex, and drugs, while Dead Poet Society directly correlates to creating an artistic, freethinking community when one was discouraged.
Each group possesses several homogeneous properties, neither group is too diverse on the surface. The men from A Clockwork Orange and Dead Poet Society, each in turn, have similar backgrounds, cultural ethics, language, status, age, and gender (Beebe, 2012). Of course, there are deep-level diversities in each member from each group, because no two people have the same point of views on every issue. The members are intuitively bound by similarity, although with time in A Clockwork Orange the group’s deep-level differences drive the members apart. Whereas in Dead Poet Society they remain strong in their bonds.
A difference lends itself to the size of the group. The group from A Clockwork Orange is an ideal size for a group, four, while the group from Dead Poet Society is larger than the ideal size of a group with seven or eight members, depending upon who is counted.
An exceptionally strange point of the Dead Poet Society is John Keating. Although he is a driving force of the group and shows some heavy influence, he does not attend the meeting in person. He appears to be a leader in this group, but he is not quite in the group. This tends to be a somewhat singular occurrence in this group. While on the other hand with A Clockwork Orange, Alex emerges as the leader and he is most prominently a part of the group.
The two groups vary quite broadly with their goals. The men of A Clockwork Orange seem to have no specific goals, are brought together out of comradery, and aren’t cohesive. This leads to the internal destruction of their group. While Dead Poet Society, on the other hand, forms from the need to find creativity where it is being suppressed. Their groups has a huge since of cohesion, leading the group to still be there for one another even through the harsh times of death and dismissal conditions. Dead Poet Society shows the leading factors of social bonds being able to conquer great hard ships, while A Clockwork Orange simply falls apart once one member becomes dominate and aggressive. Proving that homogenous groups can be positive or negative.
Works Cited
Angeli, E., Wagner, J., Lawrick, E., Moore, K., Anderson, M., Soderlund, L., & Brizee, A. (2010, May 5). General format. Retrieved from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
Beebe, S. A., & Masterson, J. T. (2012). Communicating in Small Groups Principles and Practices, 10, 1-203.
Kubrick, S. (Director) (1971). In Litvinoff, S. (Ececutive Producer), A Clockwork Orange.
Weir, P. (Director) (1989). In Haft, S. (Executive Producer), Dead Poet Society.
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