Professional Documents
Culture Documents
In one instance, Keating led his students out of the class, asking three
of them to march around the courtyard as the rest watched.
Demonstrating the pressures of conformity, or, in his words,
conformity: the difficulty in maintaining your own beliefs in the face of
others presented when, after a few strides, all three boys began
marching in time to one another. The rest of the class joined in,
clapping to the beat. Keating condensed this as a result of the great
need for acceptance everyone craves; that which ultimately leads to
one altering his or her actions in order to fit in with the environmental
norm at that given moment.
Baran and Davis also note that observational learning constitutes how
undergoing an experience first-hand can be substituted by a
representation of like behaviour in others. That is, by watching how
well or badly someones actions are received by others, observers can
predict how their own behaviour will be received and change their
predetermined course of action accordingly (184). In this way,
conformity is reinforced as one would rethink and self-censure actions
that are visibly deemed to be socially unacceptable (Bryant and
Zillmann 122).
This is exemplified when Cameron instantly rebuked Neil when he
eagerly proposed a revival of the Dead Poets Society. You know how
many demerits were talking, Cameron had snapped. In another
instance, Cameron demonstrates this theory again, by saying, you tell
the truth or youre expelled. His reactions result from the knowledge
of the consequences that would follow and a desire to stay away from
those adverse results.
Bryant and Zillmann fit into account, however, that inner-conflicts may
happen when one is socially punished for behaviour they highly
value (130) a point evident in the striking final scene that ensued.
Keating was leaving the classroom after being fired when, after much
hesitation, the typically quiet and reserved Todd stood on his table and
called out O Captain, My Captain (what Keating told his students to
call him if they felt daring) as a farewell gesture. The brave move
spurred many of his classmates to do the same, despite Headmaster
Nolan getting increasingly agitated, yelling at and warning the boys
that they should stop before punishments followed.
However, this theory does have its limitations, as Keating
demonstrates. Despite being told that his teaching methods were
misguided and he should stick to the set curriculum by fellow
teachers, he continued to conduct his lessons in his previous fashion.
His lessons were colourful and lively, bearing a markedly stark contrast
against the usual lessons conducted at Welton Academy. The strict
decorum of the school had negligible effects on his personal stance as,
throughout the movie, he clearly rejected the idea of armies of
academics placing education in a box and not letting students learn to
think for themselves.
Closely related to the Social Cognitive Theory would be the Spiral of
Silence, another source of the stringent culture of conformity that
enveloped Welton Academy. Noelle-Neumann explains that the
pressures of conformity manifest within what is said and left unsaid.
The Spiral of Silence results in the reluctance of people to voice out
opinions that do not agree with what they assume to be the general
consensus amongst the public (78). Baran and Davis add that it is
ones fear of isolation that causes this debilitating self-censorship,