I tell teachers with whom I journey that they inspire their students all the time but they rarely know it. Too infrequently, our students tell us that we have changed their minds, their days, their lives.
It is not their fault. Students do not often process the effect we have on them until weeks, months and years after they depart our orbit.
Glenn Holland never wanted to be a teacher but his school became his life. His family grew up in it. His story became its story. How true is that of many of us?
I wish we all could have the experience Glenn Holland has at the end of the (most admittedly) simplistic and overwrought Mr. Holland’s Opus. I wish all teachers might know that the work of their lives is an opus, that – no matter the reason they went into teaching and no matter the time they have spent in the work – they have inspired and impacted someone.
Mr. Holland’s Opus may be emotionally manipulative, but I am so here for it!
Thank you, all you Mrs., Ms. and Mr. Hollands!
We never know the influence we have… While culture tends to promulgate the “those who can, do, those who cannot, teach” idiocy, there are hundreds of examples of brilliance and impactful teachers in reality and in pop culture. Every-other-week this year, I will share my brief reflections on Smart People Doing Smart Things be they in literature, in film, in music or in real life. Many will be teachers, but not all. Many will be fictional, but some will be real. All will be inspiring. Welcome to IntelliPop!
