I finally watched The King’s Speech today in a full movie theater in Korea. I was glad that the movie finally came out on the big screen, even though it’s a bit late. As I sat through the movie, I felt so moved by the relationship between the King and his speech therapist. There were 3 lessons that I took away.
1) You have incredible power through your words. King George the sixth says in one part how he doesn’t have power because he couldn’t make a government or pass laws, but the people of England still looked up to him. He had power through the words that he spoke as a leader for England. His successful speeches ended up having great impact.
As teachers, we have great power through the words that we speak to our students that are in our classroom every day. We need to use this power wisely and be aware of it.
2) The fear of failure can cripple us. The King struggles with this fear of failure inside of him that rooted from a number of different causes. This fear was manifested in one way through his speech impediment.
Some of the students we teach come to us with different fears. Maybe someone told them they were bad writers, or maybe that they’ll never be good at math. Whatever fears they carry with them to our classrooms, as teachers we need to help them overcome their fears by creating a safe environment of trust and mutual respect. We need to help them to have freedom from these fears.
3) We need people that have faith in us, around us.The King didn’t have a single friend, until he met Lionel. This relationship changed his life and helped him get to the root of his speech impediment. Lionel had faith in Bertie and Bertie was able to recognize that in time. It wasn’t always easy at times, and at times they fought and didn’t see eye to eye. Yet, through patience, perseverance and love, Lionel was able to breakthrough Bertie.
As a teacher, we need to have the faith in all of our students, no matter their troubled background, learning difficulties or attitude they have. Our impact might not be as dramatic as the relationship between Lionel and Bertie, but as teacher’s we can plant seeds of hope and life into our students’ lives. We might not always see the results while we teach them, but maybe later on they’ll remember a kind word you said about them, or how you treated them differently than other teachers.
What did you think of the movie? What lessons did you learn from the movie?How do you help create a classroom of trust and mutual respect?
