TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE

This is my movie review for TSL646 - Current Issues in Education subject. Quite long. Around 5 pages of A4. Sorry for that. Again, this a movie review for "Tuesdays with Morrie", not a book review with the same title.

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“Tuesdays with Morrie” is a 1999 television film adaptation of the Mitch Albom's non-fiction novel of the same title. The story is about a sportswriter, Mitch Albom, who recounted time spent with his 78-year old sociology professor, Morrie Schwartz, who was dying from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease. Mitch, a former student of Morrie, had not corresponded with him since attending his college classes 16 years earlier due to his busy life. However, after watching his old professor in a TV show with Ted Koppel and had a few discussion with his girlfriend, Janine, Mitch decided to pay a visit for Morrie at Boston after not seeing him for a very long time. His first meeting with Morrie at Boston was the starting point for him to have a special series of informal lessons with Morrie on every Tuesday, and the subject was about the meaning of life. Therefore, there were many issues discussed by Morrie and Mitch about life that we need to take into consideration.

First of all, we need to look on the teacher and the student for the class of “Tuesdays with Morrie”. We need to see what kind of person of Morrie and Mitch and how they lead their own lives in the story. Morrie was a retired sociology professor who led his life with his own positive ways. He liked to dance very much as his favourite one was tango, and he had his own way of dancing. It was very unfortunate for Morrie as he was forced to stop dancing his normal life due to his suffering of Lou Gehrig's disease. However, that could not stop him from playing a role as a teacher for everyone. During his interview with Tep Koppel in a television show, he said, “I'm on the last great journey here, one we all gotta take. Maybe I can teach people what to pack for the trip. Or maybe my dying can be of value something we can all learn from, like a human textbook. I've been a teacher all my life. You think I'm gonna quit now?” From his saying, we can see how he perceived his dying moments as a part of living, which he wanted to use it as an inspirational lesson for other people who still lead their lives healthily. It is like what William Arthur Ward said about teachers, “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” And that is when we can see how Morrie is very positive and inspirational as a teacher, especially for a person like Mitch.

Meanwhile, Mitch was a very busy sportswriter. Sports are always in season in United States and he covered them all, living in planes and hotels with a laptop and a cell phone. He had a problem in making time for several things in his life, and he too was afraid of death, failure, and love. It is not likes he led a bad life, but it seems like he led a life that meaningless compared to Morrie because of several kind of fears that he had for himself. At this point, his meeting with Morrie every Tuesday was like a blessing to his meaningless life as he needed to get some special lessons in order to improve his life.

After a teacher and a student gathered to have a class, then it is the time to look on the subject matter. The subject matter in the class of “Tuesdays with Morrie” is actually the meaning of life, stated by Mitch in the end of the story. The subject matter has various themes such as death, love, regrets, forgiveness, and dependency. Things which Morrie and Mitch discussed based on the themes are the issues that we can look around in our lives. The issues in “Tuesdays with Morrie” can be seen through seven meetings between Morrie and Mitch.

In the early part of their first meeting, Mitch recalled a particular class with Morrie during his time in college. For about twenty minutes, Morrie did not say a word at that time and the room was started to feel uncomfortable with the totally silence. Morrie broke the silence by asking what was going on in the room. He said, “What is it about silence that makes people uneasy? Why do people only feel comfortable when they're filling the air with words?” At this point, the situation happened was actually a very common issue in any class in this world. Students will have the tendency to make noises in class while the teacher is hoping for them to be silent. At the same time, students will seem to be uncomfortable to keep silent while the teacher is talking. Why is it so? One of the weaknesses of “Tuesdays with Morrie” film, it does not provide us even with a simple answer for that question. For one reason, the story maybe wants us to think about the answers by ourselves. Some people say that silence is boring, that is why they make some noise. That can be one of the answers.

In the next part of their first meeting, Morrie said two things about living. He said, “When you know how to die, you know how to live,” and “It’s a good thing to count your breaths now and then. It keeps you from putting things off.” Both quotes show some good points about how we need to live actually. The first quote gives us a foreshadow on what kind of death moment that we may favour and because of that, we may think about how we want to lead our lives in order to get our favoured death moment. Actually, the first quote is only applicable to educate and people for behaving well and as a reward they may be able to have a proper moment for death in the future. However, in reality, we cannot plan our death and we will not know when and how the death will come to us. The second quote gives us a kind of awareness that our lives will come to the end someday. And because of that, we need to live our lives to the fullest, in a sense that we need to appreciate time and put the best quality in everything we do. The second quote can provide a ground principle for our educational philosophies, especially when it comes to produce the best quality product in education.

In the second meeting, Morrie and Mitch had a discussion about the issue of aging. Morrie said, “Aging isn't just decay, you know? It's growth. The fear of aging, you know what that reflects? Lives that haven't found meaning.” Like what Mitch responded that how come nobody ever says that they wish they are old, Morrie replied that the culture worshipped youth but he did not buy it. Morrie said that he had been young, he had his time to be 22, and he knew how miserable it could be when being young. Most people may have the same responses like Mitch but there are not many people who can avoid themselves from the fear of aging, unless they have the same thinking like Morrie. If we look carefully to Morrie’s view on aging issue, it gives an impression that this can be related with the lifelong learning concept. Lifelong learning is the continuous building of skills and knowledge throughout the life of an individual. It occurs through experiences encountered in the course of a lifetime. When saying about lifetime, it means starting from we were born until we die. This is the point when aging can be considered as growth, in a sense that aging is not the reason for us to stop learning. In particular part of our society, there are some people who still have the mind set that learning process is only occurred in school or college. How about the learning process after that stage? We are still learning actually. It just we may not learn in a formal class session anymore, just like Morrie and Mitch.

In the third meeting, Morrie started to talk about the issue of love. He said, “Not letting ourselves be loved because we're too afraid of giving ourselves to someone we might lose.” This quote is actually a point of reference to human relationships. However, when considering about our fear of giving ourselves to something we might lose, we can relate such thinking to our commitment in things that we always do. Have we ever given up in learning or teaching? Have we ever felt that we afraid that everything we do in learning or teaching are not being appreciated by others? If yes, this is when we need to get rid of our fear in giving commitment for important things such as learning and teaching. If we do not get rid such fear, it means that we are giving up. And when we are giving up, it means nothing we can do or achieve anymore for our education.

In the fourth meeting, Morrie highlighted the reasons why he wanted to be a teacher. For the first reason, he said he wanted to be a teacher just because he needed a job. For the second reason, he chose to be a teacher rather than other professions such as doctor and lawyer because he hated the sight of blood and he also hated lawyers. For the third reason, he did not want to involve in a kind of work that used the sweat and pain of other people, like his father had experienced in the past. And for the fourth reason, everything he loved about education, he learned it from his stepmother. That is why he wants to be a teacher. Morrie said, “It's what I call the tension of opposites. Life pulling you back and forth likes a rubber band. Pull you one way; you think that's what you want to do. Pull you another way; you think that's what you have to do.” Such tension of opposites, we can say it as usually happened when we are in our own dilemma in understanding the actual thing that we want in our lives. Specifically in this context, it is about the dilemma in choosing our own ambition. This is also the issue which future teachers faced before entering teaching profession. The future teachers choose to be a teacher because of their families’ decision, vacancies available in the field of education, rewards that they may get from the teaching profession, and not to forget, maybe because of their self interest. Whatever reasons that they have, their inner self is always fighting between things that they want to do and things that they have to do. This can be a never ending dilemma for them. However, the important thing that future teachers need the most is support from everyone in their life, which can give a drive for them to keep a positive mind and feel responsible in everything they do for education.

For the fifth meeting, Mitch brought Janine to meet Morrie. Then, Morrie told them a story about a wave on the ocean. The wave had felt good until it had realized that, like all the other waves, it would soon crash to shore and be destroyed. Another wave told him not to be afraid, for all of the small waves are a part of the larger ocean. The story is actually a symbolization of death, in a sense that the ocean actually represents our lives. So, the story tells us that death is the only part of our lives. Nothing to be worried as all of us will die someday. It just the people who are still alive should take examples from the people who died. Just like Mitch who learned many things from dying people like Morrie.

For the first part of sixth meeting, Morrie and Mitch had a discussion about dependency. Morrie said, “When we're infants, we need others to survive. When we're dying, we need others to survive. But here's the secret. In between, we need others even more.” At this point, Morrie made a good point about dependency because that led to Mitch’s statement quoting Morrie, “We must love one another and die.” Based on those quotes, we can see that dependency on others is a symbol of our love and care for other people, as long as we never take it for granted. To relate that with education, this is the point when we can say that teachers and students need each other. Students need the teachers in order to get the knowledge and guides on how to survive in this world very well while teachers need the student in order to get their self worth in producing good citizens for the future generation.

For the second part of sixth meeting, Morrie told Mitch about his regrets, especially on the part that he was very too late in forgiving his father. Because of that, Morrie felt that his father died without peace in his heart, as he might hope for forgiveness from Morrie before he died. Morrie said, “Forgive everybody everything! Now! Don't wait! Not everybody has the time that I'm getting. I won't die like he did. I'll be surrounded by love of my family, my friends. At peace.” Such advice on forgiveness is really important for us to ponder. The key for the peace of our mind can be forgiveness. In order to forgive others, we need to forgive ourselves first by reflecting our flaws as a human being. It is because when we give forgiveness to other people, we need to be able to accept their flaws as human beings. When we can accept our flaws and other people too, then we are blessed and loved by everyone around us. That is how we can have our peace of mind and die peacefully. We as the human beings always make mistakes to other people, regardless we are the students or we are the teachers. As students, we need to give respects to our teachers and forgive them for their flaws in teaching. Meanwhile as teachers, we need to have a concern towards our students and forgive them for the misbehaviour in learning. In the end, both parties will be blessed with peace of mind in teaching and learning process.

The last meeting in “Tuesdays with Morrie” film happened a few days before Morrie died. In the last meeting, Mitch asked Morrie about things that he would do if he was given a one day of perfect health. Mitch felt very sad as he started to feel that it was not easy to accept the fact that Morrie would leave him forever. Morrie said, “Death ends a life, not a relationship.” It means that although death occurs and people die, the living people and the dead ones still can connect each other through prayers and wishes.

In conclusion, “Tuesdays with Morrie” is a wonderful story about the meaning of life. Like what Oprah Winfrey said, “Tuesdays with Morrie resonates with everybody. I think we all relate to Mitch. His life is just going by too quickly. And then he was blessed to stop and find his old teacher Morrie. And even though Morrie was dying, he taught us about living. All of life is about teaching and learning. When you learn, teach. When you get, give. Life is filled with Morries. We all just need to look around.” We need to agree that our lives are all about teaching and learning. Our lives can be our school or class. Our experiences and other people around us can be our teachers. We ourselves are the students and the subject matter of our lessons is the meaning of our lives.