Dead Poets Society

YouTube is a wonderful invention I must say. It taught me how to trouble shoot and fix a problem with a water pump in my house a few years back, made my mouth water with food porn videos, scratched that itch for the song I wanted to hear and left me blubbering with countless videos that meant something to me. Oh, and made me laugh more times than I could ever relate.

It is also really great for little clips of movies that have been opened up to me, recently one of these being Dead Poets Society. A movie I never saw but will soon enough. Why? Because Carpe the fuck out of that Diem! That's why!

How did I not see this movie? Just from the clips I have seen it is amazing, it is inspirational and it is another example of what I have been saying for some time now...the answers are all out there, all we have to do is hear them, read them and see them. That and Robin Williams is one hell of an inspirational actor.

"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. 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. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play 'goes on' and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"

At first my thought was to say, damn, I wish I had a teacher like this growing up. Someone crazy enough to throw off all conventions and let it all hang out in the hopes of truly inspiring a mind. Well, I may not have had this romanticized version of it but you know, I did have a few teachers that to this day I would point to as people that have affected me and my life. Profoundly really. People that have helped to point a new direction out, opened the door a crack on a different way of looking at life. I may not have realized it all in the moment but I did figure it all out in the end. And here they are...in no particular order.

Mr Reid: Ah, Mr Reid with the comb over. You were the first person that seemed to sense in me an ability that I didn't know I had. That is to be a leader of sorts. Thrown into a situation that I didn't want I came out the other end as a winner, not as an individual but as part of a team that I was leading. The first trace of the type of leader I have become. I don't know why you did know or even if you knew but today I still think of that time in grade seven as the beginning.

Mr Chiovetti: The gentle giant. The soft spoken intellectual at the crossroads of science and religion. The guy that blasted me in front of the class for mixing solutions that you had painstakingly prepared for a class on saturation or something like that. You spoke about the conundrum of religion and science in a way that still resonates with me. You encouraged me to run and I did, cross country races all over the city. You saw potential and you gently encouraged me to reach for greater heights...the first time I really wrote was in your class. When I graduated with that award, thus ending my time in elementary school, I knew it was you that had given me the accolades.

Mr Raso: The rebel. That picture of you in a long longshoreman's cap and long hair as if you had just landed in Frisco after having pulled a great escape from a whaling expedition firing squad. The social conscience I have began with you sir. Most of us from those days in high school would remember you railing against the oppression in El Salvador and Nicaragua...and I know today you are still standing up against Drumph and his ilk. Like my father you may be small in stature but taller than all others in passion and conviction.

Mr Cursio: Make it two beers. You were one of the first to show me that you don't need to fit the idea of what a teacher should act like. You allowed yourself to be human and make mistakes. And when you did, you laughed about it. Chefs have a quasi paramilitary reputation out there, fear being a tool to keep the machine going. I am as far from that as you can imagine and a lot of it has to do with your approach to teaching. A ready smile and a story or two that related to what we were learning. How you tied in electronics to your escapades at the cottage I do not know but you did and it worked.

Chef Mike McFadden: Nobody could hang a primadonna moniker on you despite your speciality being a pastry chef. Unlike so many other pastry aficionados I have come across you had the chops in every area of the kitchen. If I had a question about anything I came to you, you seemed to know it all. From your time in Switzerland making rosti potatoes by the hundreds to your time at Expo. You have the wisdom and temperament that made you stand out from the pack, your skills were the icing on the cake. 

Writing these has allowed me to think of other teachers that have influenced me as well, to varying extents and than I realized that that's the point. We are not one person so of course it stands to reason that we would have many influences. Those have shaped, cajoled and directed us into the people that we have become. Mr Shoreman and his "out damn spot" soliloquy. Ms Shanahan and her direction and encouragement with my independent study that I stretched my brain for. Chef Donadio, who brought me on as his assistant and let me do what I needed to do to become his right arm. Ms Mamon (who I called mom a few times), for being the only teacher that seemed to understand the difficulties I was having when I switched in the Catholic system.

Maybe Robin Williams character in the movie is an amalgam of many teachers. Wrapped up together and given the starring role in shaping a life. Regardless, that noble and vital calling is calling to me again...I hope I can once again step into that world with the honour and opportunity to perhaps shape a mind for the future. In the mean time, thank you to all my 'teachers'.

I miss Robin Williams

Ciao

D