EV Road Trip Day 11
(Reunion Day 2) - Favorite Films About Boys’ Boarding Schools’ QUOTES | parrallels
1. Dead Poets Society (1989) Robin Williams, Ethan Hawke
- “You must strive to find your own voice, boys, and the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all.” - John Keating (Robin Williams) | So, my freshman English Teacher, Mr. Carlson at AOF, tolerated my crazy writing style (a cross between Richard Brautigan and Hunter S. Thompson). Instead of criticizing me for my wild prose, he simply gave me A+. I am assuming the plusses were for creativity. Previous schoolteachers would have failed me for not following the assignment.
- “Carpe Diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.” - John Keating (Robin Williams) | My Senior English professor, Mr. Duggan, was even more supportive. He said, “you’re a good writer, Martinson, do something with it!”
- “And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love: these are what we stay alive for.” John Keating (Robin Williams) | Okay, so Mr. Abrioux, my French Teacher at AOF, a strapping young Frenchman, who drove a ‘69 Mustang Mach 1, on day 1 of Introduction to French - “I don’t know why you want to learn French, it’s a dying language unless you are going into the foreign service or plan to study French literature. So I am going to teach you the kind of French you can use…I am going to teach you how to pick up French girls!” THIS was a teacher who understood how to motivate adolescent boys to learn.
2. Class (1983) Andrew McCarthy, Rob Lowe, John Cusak
- Situation: boys boarding school student, Skip (Rob Lowe) hitchhikes into town and enters liquor store, grabs a bottle of whiskey off the shelf and goes to the counter to pay for it.
- Liquor Store Cashier: “How old are you!?
- Skip hands him a $50 bill…. “50!” | THIS is how it’s done.
Today, I sat in on a discussion with a new teacher who had woven a new course of study into the school’s curriculum, something missing from the time I was a student: Character, Masculinity & Brotherhood (see photo of his handout, “What is a Good Man?”)
I had a great time at the reunion — the memories it brought back…and the classmates I spent time with…we all shared something special.
