The Emperor's Club

1)     "Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, drunkenness sobered, but stupid last forever." - Aristophanes
To me this quote seems correct of the most part.  I do believe that all of those things will change as a person grows.  However, I don't know how I feel about the use of the word stupid.  It is obvious that as humans we will never be perfect and therefore make a "stupid" decision every now and then, so it can never fully be cured.  But I do believe that as we mature and become more educated the "stupidity" begins to lessen.

2)     Mr. Hundert is so shaken and altered by the experience of teaching a boy such as Sedgewick Bell because we has never had a student that behaved that way.  He has never had a student talk back that way and be so disrespectful towards him.  But, at the same time, Mr. Hundert is shaken because of the level that he can relate with Sedgewick.  They have similar relationships with their fathers, which bring up many old memories for Mr. Hundert.

3)     I think that when Mr. Hundert described Sedgewick's influence on the other boys in class as "hypnotic" he was right on the money.  Sedgewick's behavior slowly started to bring out different attitudes and behaviors in the other boys that normally they would not display in the classroom.

4)     The ethical dilemma and Mr. Hundert faces when calculating the final marks to determine the three candidates for the contest begins when Sedgewick just missed the cut by making fourth place.  Mr. Hundert feels as though Sedgewick deserves and place in the contest because of how hard and he has worked and how much he has improved over the course of the year.  So he changes Sedgewicks A- to an A+ and that eliminated Martin Bluth, whose father once won the contest, from the final round.

5)     The second dilemma that Mr. Hundert faces happens at the contest.  This dilemma is that he catches Sedgewick cheating to win the competition.  Rather than disqualifying him, Mr. Hundert asks Sedgewick a question he knows he will not have the answer for, but the other boy will, thus Sedgewick loses the contest fair and square.  Later when Mr. Hundert confronted him about it Sedgewick did not understand why he didn't call him out in front of the whole school.

6)     I think that Mr. Hundert agreed to host a rematch of the contest because he still felt guilty about giving Martins place to Sedgewick only to watch Sedgewick cheat to try and win the contest.  I think that this brought up a lot of emotions in Mr. Hundert because he remembered the love he had to his students and for teaching.  I think the fact that Sedgewick once again cheated to try to win really hurt Mr. Hundert.

7)     I do not think the film resolves this tension.  I do not believe that this tension will ever be resolved.  When you see Sedgewick's son Robert run out of the bathroom stall upset after hearing what it father says it makes you think that lying could never be worth it.  But then you see later on in the movie and Sedgewick did not change is ways, because to him there was nothing wrong with it.  I think we will always have this problem in the world because there is rarely just one view on things.

8)     Mr. Hundert returns to teaching because he is reminded of his great love for it.  He wants to touch the lives of more students, and try to help mold them into characters of integrity.  The surprise that was waiting for Mr. Hundert when he returned to teaching was that he now has Martin Bluth's son in his class.  Maybe this will be Mr. Hundert's turn to correct a wrong.

9)     Mr. Hundert was very passionate about the subject that he taught.  He used lots of dialogue and communication with the students.  He kept the students thinking at all times, and did the best he could to know that every student was learning to the best of their abilities.

10)     Studying the classics helped every boy that was in Mr. Hundert's class see that it is us who make our decisions about our lives.  We control the choices that we make, and we are responsible for our actions.  I think through learning about the classics they learned from the greatest of the greats how to contribute to society whether through money, work, or relationships.