Blog 5 - Mr. Holland's Opus - A Compass

“A teacher has two jobs. Fill young minds with knowledge, yes. But more important, give those minds a compass so that that knowledge doesn't go to waste.” - Principal Helen Jacobs, Mr. Holland’s Opus.

Mr. Holland’s Opus, a 1995 drama film directed by Stephen Herek, centres around Mr. Glenn Holland, a music appreciation teacher at John F. Kennedy High School, who struggles with his job and with teaching his students to appreciate music. To begin with, he tries very little and employees little strategies to find connections between each individual student and music. But a little farther into the film, Mr. Holland is confronted by Principal Jacobs, who insists that Mr. Holland isn’t being the compass he needs to be (see quote above). After this proclamation, Mr. Holland gradually improves, taking time out of his afternoons to help students and becoming the teacher that the students, when much older, would remember fondly. This blog post will describe Mr. Holland’s job throughout the film and my personal opinion about the quote and Mr. Holland’s slow-but-steady attempts to heed it.

As mentioned above, in the beginning, Mr. Holland doesn’t try very hard to encourage his students to feel a connection to music. Instead, he gives them a lot of paper work about music theory, which isn’t very effective and just makes the students like music even less. He focuses on simply teaching what he needs to teach, which is only one of the two jobs a teacher must do. This continues until Mrs. Jacobs reprimands him, after which Mr. Holland offered to help Gertrude Lang, a student who has trouble with playing the clarinet. Instructing her to ignore the sheet music and simply “play the sunset” encourages her connection to music and marks Mr. Holland’s first step in the right direction. As the film progresses, Mr. Holland helps numerous students after hours, becoming a popular teacher and a good friend to staff members, including Mr. Meister, the gym teacher, and Principal Jacobs. Mr. Holland begins to understand what his role as a compass for students really is: guiding and helping students to achieve their goals, no matter how impossible they seem. At one point Mr. Holland takes his job a bit too seriously and his wife, Iris Holland, complains he spends more time with his students than his own son, Cole. Mr. Holland is also tempted to leave for New York City with a singing prodigy, but refuses at the last minute with a kiss. After these incidents, Mr. Holland tried to balance his work life and home life, giving time to his wife and son, and being a compass for his students.

By the end of the film, Mr. Holland strives to help, advise, and guide his students towards their goals like a compass, along with teaching the expected curriculum. He truly surpasses Mrs. Jacob’s expectations, and touches hundreds of lives. The celebration at the end of the film alone is evidence that by the end of the film, Mr. Holland has become everything he needs to become, done everything he needed to do. By the end of the film, Mr. Holland has become a compass.