Adam CP, you have the right of it. Those statements are exactly right, about what teachers are and do. Except for the blanket statement about it being "crappy."
Of course, as for the "perspective on educators", it depends on your perspective, too. If you are taking the movie as what an educator is supposed to be, it has some good, some bad. If you take the movie as what the title is, Mr. Holland's OPUS, in other words, a story of ONE man's journey, his life's work, then it is wonderful (my opinion, of course).
I have just become a teacher, leaving the profession of interpreting for the deaf. I could pick apart the movie, citing the "continuity" problem of the son not being able to talk at all as a teen, then later being semi-oral at age 28, and going to become a teacher. In real life deaf people don't suddenly become orally proficient at age 28 (perhaps he got a cochlear implant, I jest).
On the other hand, though, I'd much rather be a teacher like Mr. Holland and his P.E. teacher friend, than like the assistant principal.
All in all the movie makes some good points about teaching and about life. We all have the chance and the choice of whether to leave this earth a better place (as teachers are SUPPOSED to do, after all, we ARE working with the next generation), or to be part of the problems. This movie is about the former, and therefore provides much better "food" for the mind than murder and mayhem movies.
Sure, it's "Hollywood" and contrived, but aren't MOST of the movies just that?
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