Best Movies to watch on Teacher's Day

(This was my submission for the Internal Assessment for the Feature and Opinion course)

What is a teacher? I asked a teacher as to what they think a teacher is. The reply was, “someone who has lessons planned for the next two weeks, but has no clue about that night’s dinner.”

In 1994, UNESCO proclaimed 5^th October as World Teachers Day. This celebrated a great step for teachers as on 5th October 1966, a special intergovernmental conference in Paris adopted the UNESCO/ILO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers

Countries like Maldives and The Netherlands observe teachers day on 5^th October itself. Countries like India (5^th September) have their own respective teachers days.

The movies have made us laugh and made us cry. They have given us portrayals of teachers that we relate to and love and respect. In today’s day and age we wish we had more teachers like them.

Here are some of the best teacher portrayals in movies. As the efforts of one teacher cannot undermine the efforts of another, the numbers do not determine the ranking.

1. Robin Williams as John Keating (Dead Poets Society)

I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.

             Welton Academy, dubbed “Hellton” by its students has four pillars: Tradition, Honour, Discipline and Excellence. The teachers at Welton follow the first 3 pillars to drive the students towards the fourth pillar. All of them, bar the new teacher-John Keating.

John Keating or O Captain, my Captain (as he wishes to be called) says, “Because I love teaching, I don’t want to be anywhere else.” This shows us an essential quality of a teacher- passion.

John Keating aims to help his students to seize the day and live. It is something that doesn't happen in today's rat race. Teachers like him are a precious commodity.

Mr Keating encourages his students to rip out an entire chapter from a book.

The pages contain an introduction by Dr Pritchard. This introduction seeks to measure poetry based on a graph. According to Keating, measuring poems is similar to armies of academics annihilating the hearts and souls of young ones. Poems can’t be measured. They are filled with passion and are straight from the heart.

In his classes he encourages the students to think for themselves again. Oh how we yearn for such teachers in a world where our original ideas are quashed like bugs, these ideas which if allowed to bloom could change the world or help us be unique. He compares each person’s life as a verse, and how would everyone be unique if they were all the same?

The final scene symbolises wat a teacher can do. A teacher can be the match that lights a fire. The match can be extinguished, but the fire will spread.

 2. Anne Bancroft as Anne Sullivan (The Miracle Worker)

Anne Sullivan attempts to teach Helen Keller the alphabets for ‘doll.’

‘The Miracle Worker’ is based on Hellen Keller’s autobiography, ‘The Story of My Life’. It chronicles the efforts taken by Anne Sullivan to teach alphabets and their meaning to Hellen Keller.

In ‘The Story of My Life’, Helen Keller writes a tribute to her teacher, Anne Sullivan.

“All the best of me belongs to her – there is not a talent, or an aspiration or a joy in me that has not been awakened by her loving touch.”

Hellen Keller is a child who has been rendered deaf and blind since an unfortunate illness struck her in her childhood.

She lived in a dark and isolated world. Even Specialists couldn’t help her out.  Captain and Mrs. Keller seemed to have lost all hope, and then arrived Anne Sullivan. This teacher was the final hope for The Kellers who seemed resigned to sending Helen off to an asylum.

Helen in one of her mad rages knocks out her teacher’s tooth and slaps her across the cheek on multiple occasions. Despite this she stays on, she recognises that the student should not be labelled as bad but as challenging.

Anne Sullivan discovers that Helen first needs to be taught discipline, she knows that the girl’s frustrations need to be checked. Sullivan does not take pity on Helen and battles with her physically (bordering on child abuse) and emotionally (separating Helen from her family for 2 weeks) until she finally makes a breakthrough.

3. Aamir Khan as Ram Shankar Nikumbh (Taare Zameen Par)

Every child is special, but that is not understood by all

9 year old Ishaan Avasthi is misunderstood everywhere and is subjected to thrashings, verbal abuse. He gets shipped off to boarding school as his parents think that his mistakes are not mistakes but acts of rebellion. At his new school, things do not change. He retreats further into his shell and his spirit is broken. The 9 year old now has lifeless eyes and attends class like a robot.

When all hope seems lost, there enters a new art teacher (Ram Shankar Nikumbh). This teacher is different from the rest of the teachers as he doesn’t stamp his authority on the class through fear but gets the students to like him through his unconventional methods. As is the norm with Bollywood films, there are no dialogues but a wonderful song sung by the teacher that encourages children to look at things in a different way. Ishaan however has been scarred so badly that he stops painting. Nikumbh doesn’t seem to mind and he tries to befriend the boy. According to Nikumbh, “every child has his own talent.” Nikumbh finds out that Ishaan’s talent lies in art. The teacher then realises what Ishaan’s disorder is and how it can be countered.

Nikumbh brings out the boys potential through art by teaching him alphabets and numbers through art. In a bid to boost Ishaan’s self-confidence, an all school painting competition is organised.

At the end Mr Avasthi is reduced to tears after seeing his son’s transformation wonders how he can thank the teacher. Nikumbh replies nonchalantly with an, “ah c’mon,” as he was just doing his duty as a teacher.

4. Pat Morita as Keisuke Miyagi (The Karate Kid)

"Either you Karate do yes, or Karate do no. You Karate do guess so you get squish, just like grape."

The words of Keisuke Miyagi are reminiscent of Master Yoda's words from Star Wars. Do or do not there is no try.

We have to learn to take a stand. By acting confused and being in two minds we will neither be here nor there. Imagine you are walking on the road, you either take left side or right side, if you are unsure and walk in centre you will be hit.

We need 100% belief in our own set goals in order to achieve them.

Mr Miyagi saves Daniel LaRusso from a bunch of bullies (The Cobra Kai). As a trade for getting them to lay off him for a while. Mr Miyagi enters Daniel into a Karate Tournament and also trains him for the same. He has one rule-ask no questions. Mr Miyagi makes Daniel do what seems like household work (waxing the car, scrubbing the floor, painting the fence and the house) with particular hand movements. Just as Daniel is about to quit as he is sick and tired of his “karate lessons” Mr Miyagi explains and demonstrates the importance of those tasks to karate.

We then need to believe in the methods of the teacher. They know what the long term goal is. Mr Miyagi, by making Daniel do what seemed like menial household tasks actually imbibed in him the karate movements as natural actions. This style of teaching is not looked at favourably by the student as they want to know why a particular thing is being taught. However we must realise that the teacher is not stupid and doesn’t have time to waste, they also realise that the student has no time to waste and whatever is being taught is for the students benefit.

Another important lesson given here is “first learn walk then learn fly.” It emphasises the need to learn things step by step.

While these actors and actresses pretend for a living, this pretend is based on true stories. Real life isn’t like a movie where the story ends after one success.

The movies end on a high and we assume that it's over. Real life inspires films but what films don't show is that there is so much more effort that a teacher puts in, sometimes even until their death.

The Miracle worker (the only film in this list based on a true story) didn’t mention anything about what happened after Helen Keller Anne Sullivan made a breakthrough in the climax. After teaching Helen Keller the meaning of alphabets and words, Anne Sullivan stayed with Helen for the next 49 years until her death.

The job of a teacher in real life goes back to square one once the next batch comes in. Their stories don't end like how Mr Miyagi’s story ended with Daniel LaRusso winning the tournament. The Mr Miyagi of real life have another Daniel LaRusso and then another and then another and another and another. They have to approach each and every single student with the same level of passion as the first.

There are some teachers who also try and try, but the outcome isn’t like a fairy tale as seen in the above movies. That doesn’t demean the efforts put in by these teachers.

Though the end result may not be as desirable as shown in the movies, but, the effort put in by every single teacher is what we should see and learn from these movies, which can be seen as tributes to the efforts taken by a teacher.

Honourable mentions: Shahrukh Khan as Raj Malhotra from Mohabattein and as Kabir Khan from Chak De! India, Burgess Meredith as Mickey Goldmill from Rocky, Julie Andrews as Maria Von Trapp from The Sound of Music.