Читать книгу Hope’s Daughters - R. Wayne Willis - Страница 66

I’m incapable of watching the conclusion of Mr. Holland’s Opus without choking. Maybe principals should make it required viewing for everyone on the faculty at the beginning of the school year.

In the movie Richard Dreyfus plays Glenn Holland, a gifted musician and composer who believes his destiny in life is to compose one great symphony. He takes a high school teaching job only to pay the bills.

Over the next thirty years, he fails to become famous as a composer. But he does endear himself, through great caring and competence, to hundreds of students.

At the end of the film, an auditorium of adoring former students surprise Mr. Holland with a “This Is Your Life” kind of tribute. One former student who went on to become the state governor delivered this living eulogy:

Mr. Holland isn’t rich and he isn’t famous, at least not outside of our little town. So it might be easy for him to think himself a failure. But he would be wrong, because I think that he’s achieved a success far beyond riches and fame. Look around you. There is not a life in this room that you have not touched, and each of us is a better person because of you. We are your symphony, Mr. Holland. We are the melodies and the notes of your opus. We are the music of your life.

In Camelot, every good teacher at career’s end would get fifteen minutes of fame. Grateful former students would return home, fill the auditorium, use some ruse to lure the teacher there, rise when she enters the room, and give her a standing ovation.

Back in our real world, an “I’m a better person because of you” letter will have to do.