Value of Teaching
Good Will Hunting (1997)
“You wasted $150,000 on an education
you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library.” - Will
Hunting, a janitor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has an
extraordinary ability in mathematics. One day Professor Gerald Lambeau gives
his students difficult problems that seem nobody could solve. By answering this
problem faster than anybody else, Will is found as an unidentified genius and
his rare ability attracts the celebrated professor Lambeau. Since Will has been
prosecuted because of repeated assaulting, the Professor decides to take charge
of Will, to make him work as a member of the advanced mathematic team, and also
to let him take therapy sessions from Dr. Sean Maguire. Sean tries to shine a
light into Will’s closed mind and helps him how to deal with his gift and his
future.
In this story Will has a special skill
but he refuses to use it in his career. As for him it is very natural thing to
know how to solve the problem by just go through it once. He hates those smart people
who show off their knowledge they get from books and don’t speak their own
words. From this point we can see that educational background is not equal to
one’s real ability. Even if he is raised in poor environment or has hardly any
formal schooling, he lives his own life.
“He pushes people away before they
get a chance to leave him. It's a defense mechanism.” - The reason Sean has a
chance to get to Will’s heart is because both of them have the same unfortunate
early background (child abuse). Will’s withdrawn nature is the result of his
home environment. Sean, as a teacher for his way of life, points out that Will has
a certain philosophy. He doesn’t allow anybody to ruin it because it always has
to be perfect, and that way he can go through his entire life without ever having
to really know anybody.
Through once-a-week meetings, Sean
has never given up for Will and at their last one, finally Will has courage to
see himself as he is. He starts to live more in touch with reality and Will and
Sean are already beyond the patient-doctor relationship. We learned that
teacher could be the one who changes the whole world of his student. Sean, as a
therapist and a teacher, always has a resolute will to confront with Will
himself and his painful past. This movie shoots us a considerable question at
us – What is the teaching? What humans live for?
Van Sant, Gus, dir. Good Will Hunting. Prod. Lawrence Bender. 1997. DVD.
