EAD 864 Adult Career Development
The course Adult Career Development focuses on various case studies of career development from Michael Bloomberg to Linda Greenlaw, a deep sea fisherwoman. Using the case studies we track the stages and patterns of career development. We then apply the theories of career development to reflect on our own career paths in education. I chose to take this course during the semester that I was beginning the job search to change to another international school, and the confluence of the coursework and my reflections on my own career transition added dimension and applicability to the course. The following essay is an analysis of a film through the lens of career development stages and transitions.
Mr. Holland's Crisis
An Analysis of the Film, Mr. Holland's Opus, through the Lens of Career Development Stages
Glen Holland does not enter the teaching profession with passion but as a means to earn money to satiate his ulterior passion for composing music. Showing up and turning the passionless trick ends when crises converge and necessitate finding authenticity and connection. In a few cinematic days, external and internal influences redirect Holland’s relationship to teaching.
As he bitterly returns test results and insults students, he reaches the climax of his alienation and plummets toward resignation. The same evening his wife announces that she’s pregnant. These two disparate events pin Holland in a state of reflection. Critical personal events, such as pregnancy, pull into sharp focus and distill what one values. Time becomes more precious, and intolerance for inauthentic work and living manifests itself. Perhaps the shock of fatherhood jolts him out of his egocentrism and opens him to the recognition that teaching can be a meaningful act of transference to others of what he is most passionate about. This crisis leads him to acknowledge that his passion for music already exists in his students and he must connect to and nurture their passion.
He returns to work the next day and in his Deweyian epiphany decides to listen to his students’ interest and build from their experience. He connects his passion to theirs and this empathy gives purpose to his teaching.Moving through thesis and antithesis he is renewed by the synthesis of connecting his passion for music with the necessity of work. The tedium of teaching is reduced once the goal is shifted from an ulterior motive to an immediate, authentic purpose. He tells Gertrude Lang to “play the sunset” in order to connect her passion to playing music. From this moment he too begins to “teach the sunset” and realizes that valuing students’ experience is the premise to expanding their appreciation of music. Moments later in the film, he has the self-efficacy to defend his practices to the principal by claiming that he’ll use anything, including diabolical rock and roll, to teach students to enjoy music.
Where in the career development maze is Holland during this transformative moment? He is speeding from reflection to renewal and jumping from induction to enthusiasm. Cinematically, different stages of career development can occur in the course of a few days. The cyclical theory of “reflection-renewal-growth” is applicable to Holland’s crisis and redirection; however, he enters the cycle at the point of reflection rather than after healthy growth during the induction stage.
Movies fool us, as do linear and cyclical theories. Suspension of disbelief aids our desire for narrative and pattern. Perhaps weather is a better metaphor than stages or cycles for career development. Holland begins teaching in a bleak, grey funk moving quickly toward withdrawal when the inertia of his own inauthenticity collides with the obligation of fatherhood pushing clouds away and changing the light. Weather, like career moods, is determined by location, time and multifarious surrounding factors. Yes, seasons provide a cyclical metaphor, yet the weather of each day can bring unpredictable developments to which we must adapt.
The course Adult Career Development focuses on various case studies of career development from Michael Bloomberg to Linda Greenlaw, a deep sea fisherwoman. Using the case studies we track the stages and patterns of career development. We then apply the theories of career development to reflect on our own career paths in education. I chose to take this course during the semester that I was beginning the job search to change to another international school, and the confluence of the coursework and my reflections on my own career transition added dimension and applicability to the course. The following essay is an analysis of a film through the lens of career development stages and transitions.
Mr. Holland's Crisis
An Analysis of the Film, Mr. Holland's Opus, through the Lens of Career Development Stages
Glen Holland does not enter the teaching profession with passion but as a means to earn money to satiate his ulterior passion for composing music. Showing up and turning the passionless trick ends when crises converge and necessitate finding authenticity and connection. In a few cinematic days, external and internal influences redirect Holland’s relationship to teaching.
As he bitterly returns test results and insults students, he reaches the climax of his alienation and plummets toward resignation. The same evening his wife announces that she’s pregnant. These two disparate events pin Holland in a state of reflection. Critical personal events, such as pregnancy, pull into sharp focus and distill what one values. Time becomes more precious, and intolerance for inauthentic work and living manifests itself. Perhaps the shock of fatherhood jolts him out of his egocentrism and opens him to the recognition that teaching can be a meaningful act of transference to others of what he is most passionate about. This crisis leads him to acknowledge that his passion for music already exists in his students and he must connect to and nurture their passion.
He returns to work the next day and in his Deweyian epiphany decides to listen to his students’ interest and build from their experience. He connects his passion to theirs and this empathy gives purpose to his teaching.Moving through thesis and antithesis he is renewed by the synthesis of connecting his passion for music with the necessity of work. The tedium of teaching is reduced once the goal is shifted from an ulterior motive to an immediate, authentic purpose. He tells Gertrude Lang to “play the sunset” in order to connect her passion to playing music. From this moment he too begins to “teach the sunset” and realizes that valuing students’ experience is the premise to expanding their appreciation of music. Moments later in the film, he has the self-efficacy to defend his practices to the principal by claiming that he’ll use anything, including diabolical rock and roll, to teach students to enjoy music.
Where in the career development maze is Holland during this transformative moment? He is speeding from reflection to renewal and jumping from induction to enthusiasm. Cinematically, different stages of career development can occur in the course of a few days. The cyclical theory of “reflection-renewal-growth” is applicable to Holland’s crisis and redirection; however, he enters the cycle at the point of reflection rather than after healthy growth during the induction stage.
Movies fool us, as do linear and cyclical theories. Suspension of disbelief aids our desire for narrative and pattern. Perhaps weather is a better metaphor than stages or cycles for career development. Holland begins teaching in a bleak, grey funk moving quickly toward withdrawal when the inertia of his own inauthenticity collides with the obligation of fatherhood pushing clouds away and changing the light. Weather, like career moods, is determined by location, time and multifarious surrounding factors. Yes, seasons provide a cyclical metaphor, yet the weather of each day can bring unpredictable developments to which we must adapt.
