the groundhog day project

I've mentioned Dead Poets Society in this blog before (I'm pretty sure). Despite some arguments to the contrary--I will get to one in particular in just a moment--I think John Keating is a great teacher. Somewhere between the way he teaches and the way Tripper in Meatballs ... counsels? is how I want to be when I teach. I want to inspire students to want to know more. I want to offer them more than is on the syllabus or in the textbook. For context, I'm watching the movie in a classroom tonight. Asked to sub a class in which a movie I love was already on the schedule--that was a no-brainer. A short lecture about the four organizational frames--structural, human resource, political and symbolic--and we're into the film. Ostensibly, we're going to discuss the organizations within the film afterward in light of the four frames, but since I'm here, typing away at the back of the room in the meantime, I'm interested in how different people see certain films dif...

I find it interesting that Dutch Dooley and Del Griffith are both men used to being on the road. Neal Page and Doyle Standish, on the other hand—they aren’t used to it. For them, the road is a foreign place, somewhere beneath them. Neal’s house isn’t quite as big as the Standish home, but both are definitely a class or two above the likes of Dutch Dooley or Del Griffith. Speaking of class, the classist overtones in Dutch are quite deliberate. Consider the opening sequence at the fancy party. Not only is it strange that Natalie was invited after she has been divorced out of the club for a while now, but it is strange that she would show up when they did invite her. Really, there is no reason for her to be there in-story; rather, she is there simply so we can get some awkward information dumping out of the way quickly. Natalie is not really high-class, she got knocked up into it. So, there’s hope for Doyle—who Tim at the Antagony & Ecstasy blog says John Hughes “absolutely detest...