Dead Poet’s Society Notes: Part 1

• The school has a law of discipline, excellence
•  Best school in the united states, lots of ivy league graduates
•  Todd’s older brother was apparently a great student and everybody reminds
• The one kid’s dad is very controlling; it seems that all of the kids have parents who dictate their lives
• The classes seem very difficult, with strict demands
•   The new English teacher walks in whistling and walks right out, urging the students to follow. They obviously have never seen anything like this in other classes
•   The new English teacher makes jokes, and the students don’t seem to know what to do with it
• The students think the new teacher is weird and creepy
•  Todd seems reluctant to join in with the other students. Is he shy?
•   Knox meets a beautiful girl in love with someone he considers a jerk
•   Mr. Keating has the boys rip a couple pages out of the book. They all seem to have fun. One of the teachers walks in and seems to be surprised by the fact that the teacher is sanctioning it.
•   That same teacher later talks to him with ‘realism’
•   Mr. Keating wants to teach the students to be ‘free thinkers’
•  Keating’s description of the dead poets society inspires the boys to resurrect it
•  Keating gives the boys a book for the society, apparently knowing they would start it
• The boys have to be very careful to sneak out at nigh
•  Mr. Keating makes the boys laugh all the time and teaches them how to enjoy Shakespeare
•   Keating encourages the boys to think for themselves, not to simply consider what the author thinks, but what they think
•   Neil gets excited about becoming an actor and trying out for a play
•  Neil keeps encouraging Todd to invest. He refused to let him stay in his own ideas
•  Keating uses sport to help his students get into poetry
•  Neil gets his part and writes a fake letter of permission so he can do it
•  Keating encourages the students—even the one who writes a bad poem
• Keating pulls Todd out and makes him do poetry, even when he didn’t write one. He makes Todd speak his thoughts and it turns it a poem, and everybody loves it. As he says, “don’t you forget this”
•  Knox gets invited to a party  by the girl he likes
•   Keating talks to the students of conformity and encourages the boys to believe they have unique ideas and stick with them
• Todd’s parents send him the same desk for his birthday two years in a row
•  Unlike in Stand and deliver, where the school was full of poverty and the educational level was lacking, this school is for the wealthy, is very high end, and demands excellence from teachers and students.
• Keating and Mr. Escalante both poke fun at their students, but Keating seems much more gentle and good natured about it, where Escalante sometimes stepped over lines