- The quote from Aristophanes that Mr. Hundert quotes when talking to Sedgewick is very true. He is correct in saying that people don’t outgrow immaturity. People that act immature at a young age don’t seem to mind to change it as they get older.
- Mr. Hundert did not know what to expect when Sedegick Bell walked into the classroom. He did not know that he would have the most difficult time of his teaching career with him. Mr. Hundert was so shaken and then altered by this experience because Bell kept on rebellion in class and would never stop. He was trying to be the class clown.
- When Mr. Hundert describes Sedgewick’s influence as hypotonic he means that whatever he wanted to do the other boys were right behind him. The other boys wanted to do whatever Bell did because it was something new and thrilling. No other boy there acted the way he did.
- Hundert faces a dilemma when he calculates the final marks for the contest. Bell wrote a very good essay to get into the Julius Caesar contest. When Mr. Hundert calculated all the essays up Bell was in fourth place but he had a decision to make. He recalculated Bell’s score and gave him an A+ and bumped another student who should have gotten in to fourth place. He made this decision because he wanted to give Sedgeick a boost of confidence in hopes that he would stop rebelling.
- He faces another dilemma during the contest when he suspects that Bell is cheating. Mr. Hundert would ask him a question and he would but his hands on his face and it would take him awhile to answer. Bell had the answers in his sleeve so Mr. Hundert asked him a trick question and Bell could not answer because he did not know it since it was not written on the cloth in his sleeve. He answered incorrectly and lost the contest.
- Twenty-Seven years later, Mr. Hundert decides to host the contest again because he wants to see his former students again and see what they are doing with their life. He also wants to see if Mr. Bell has changed and is not a cheater anymore. He got to tell Martin what he did with the test scores but Martin doesn’t hold it against him.
- They do resolve the tension at the end of the film when Bell and Mr. Hundert were talking in the bathroom. Hundert confronts him of still being a cheater and never changing. At the contest years later he has an ear piece in and he has some guy telling him the answers. When Hundert confronts him Bell’s son walks out of the restroom. He now has to tell his son what he did when he was young and now how he still has not changed.
- I think Mr. Hundert returned to teaching because he missed being around kids and wanted something new in his life again. He is surprised by seeing that he has Martin’s son in his class. That says something about Martin and how he liked Mr. Hundert as he put his son in his class.
- Problem-posing is the way Mr. Hundert taught his students. He would ask his student’s questions daily about how they feel or what they thought about a particular situation or person. He asked questions that didn’t matter if they were right or wrong it was more of a opinion.
- Studying classics in high school helped Mr. Hundert teach his students about important lessons in life. The students will take everything they read or what he taught them as they get older. He taught them life long lessons that they will learn from and pass it on.
I recall an event in first grade that significantly influenced my education. I was really sloppy with my handwriting, was not organized at all, and did not color in the lines. My teacher had talked to me numerous times about it but I did not improve. At parent teacher conferences she suggested to my mom and dad that I should be on neatness and organized contract. The contract is all I needed to have ambition to fulfill my goal. Once I achieved a high level of success my teacher ripped up my contract. My teacher made me responsible for learning these skills but she provided the motivation to be a better student. Ever since then throughout elementary, middle school, high school and now in college I am very neat and organized to the point that now I have a separate note book for each class, my notes are color coded and I use my planner and desk calendar every day. By using these items I am the type of person who hates being late and always have to be ahead of the game. My writing is neat and thanks to my first grade teacher I am no longer that sloppy, disorganized student. Through this experience I became a successful student. Learning how to be neat and organized in school has carried over to other aspects in my life.
