The power of a teacher.
To sum up the importance of teachers in the lives of their students, you can look at a myriad of movies both fictional and based on true stories.
Mr. Holland's Opus is perhaps my favorite.
This would explain why it is on the list, and we are not discussing Lean on Me, or Stand and Deliver, or...well, you get the point.
Amusingly, Mr. Holland (Richard Dreyfuss) never wanted to be a teacher. No, he had designs and dreams to be a composer! However, there isn't much money to be had being a composer of music, until you are already rich and famous, so the poor guy has to do something to make ends meet.
Enter: High School Teacher.
And so begins his odyssey as reluctant teacher to generations of students. He is good at what he does, and he makes a change in the lives of many of the kids that pass through his classroom over the decades. As the movie singles out a few select stories, you see how Holland bonds with his students, and grows to be a great teacher, who never wanted to teach.
Of course, Mr. Holland has a wife and son, and we see their bond through the years, and the difficulties he has with his son who is deaf.
The movie is at turns hilarious, heartwarming, and heartbreaking.
And when it's time for Mr. Holland to call it a career...
Yeah, well it still gets me everytime.
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