“It wasn’t worth crying over,” she tells me.
Yes, it was.
For us, artists, this school was the ultimate haven for self-expression, a place where we held ourselves to high standards within our respective art forms. The academic and art teachers were often at odds—the academic teachers frustrated by students being pulled out of class for performances, and the art teachers, our heroes, defiantly doing just that. So when we read Thoreau’s declaration, “I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion,” in On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, we didn’t just understand it—we embraced it as permission to skip math class to practice for an upcoming show. Self-expression and beauty above all else.
To wrap up our transcendentalist unit, Mr. Russell showed us Dead Poets Society, a movie set in the rigid, traditional world of Welton Academy, a stark contrast to our colorful art school existence. While we skipped classes to pursue our craft, the boys at Welton risked everything for a taste of the artistic freedom we took for granted. This contrast made the film’s message hit even harder for us.
The film follows English teacher John Keating (Robin Williams), who inspires his students to “seize the day” and think independently, leading a group of them to revive the secret Dead Poets Society. Through poetry and defiance, they begin to pursue their passions against the school’s suffocating expectations. Their journey unfolds against a backdrop of strict tradition, culminating in tragedy that left us both captivated and shaken.
The conflicts presented in the film are extreme—Neil, who dreams of acting but faces his father's demands to become a doctor; Mr. Keating's teachings, too boundless for Welton's walls; Todd, struggling to live up to his brother's shadow. As sullen teenagers, we saw ourselves as heroes battling authority—an oversimplification, maybe, but one that felt true at the time. This black-and-white perspective made sense to our younger selves, but looking back now, I see how extreme the film really is. In reality, there's often a middle ground (though perhaps not for Neil—because a doctor who does acting on the side? Fuggedaboutit). Yet the film forces me to consider the cost of self-expression as an adult. I want to prioritize integrity and personal meaning, but there's always a price. It's about how we price the risk of authenticity in a world that demands conformity.
Mr. Keating tells his students, “There's a time for daring and there's a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for.” But how do we know when to dare? How do we assess the risk? These questions only seem to get harder with age. As teenagers, the answers were obvious as we saw the world as black and white; as adults, we must balance personal truth with the realities of society.
This tension forms the emotional core of Dead Poets Society, which explores the constraints and consequences of defying convention, ultimately arguing that such risks are worth taking—because living in rigid conformity is its own kind of death.
Perhaps this is why I've been revisiting this film. My priority is still to live with integrity, but I struggle to see where compromise turns into self-sacrifice. It's hard to know when to conform and when to stand firm.
Maybe that’s the film’s most enduring lesson: the courage to stand on your desk doesn’t come from knowing you’re right—it comes from knowing you must live with yourself either way.
*btw, Sandy wants to make clear that this is said out of love and humor