Timothy
Treadwell, a Jane Goodall of Grizzly bears, indulged his infatuation at the Bear
's Sanctuary in the Alaskan tundra. Watching Grizzly Man, the audience
easily saw Treadwell’s love for bears started early as his mother displayed his first stuffed teddy bear in the film. The documentary conveyed Treadwell’s hatred of civilization: showing his reasoning
to retreat to a secluded land where the bears have food, water, and long grassy
plains. This land, where Treadwell filmed most of the shots seen in the
documentary, is called the Bear’s Sanctuary (Herzog).
Jane Goodall
This sanctuary deemed heavenly for
not only the bears but Treadwell as well. A sanctuary, which acted as a safe-harbor for Treadwell, protected him from his own fury and his temptations of drinking or drugs;
it was just serene for him: a forced rehab. His sanctuary allowed him to be himself shown by his split feelings over why women do not like him or how the
people of the wildlife protection angered him. He was surrounded by his
comforting “pacifier” of his grizzly bears like his stuffed teddy bear he had
as a child. The sanctuary was Treadwell’s fantasy and civilization was his
reality. On that fateful day when Treadwell and his girlfriend were eaten alive
by Treadwell’s one true “pacifier” it must have been a reality check for Treadwell
to realize how one can be brought back from that fantasy/ sanctuary to the cruel
reality. His cruel reality, unveiled, showed his "pacifier" to be a menacing killer.
If you think
about, many doctors you encounter are very good at their job. Why is this? They
spend years as high school, undergraduate, and medical students practicing
sciences and honing their craft to become the optimal doctor you see today.
This intensity of hard work and dedication could be called the “evolution” of
the doctor because those who do not have the level of fitness, or the hard work
and dedication, drop out at any phase where the work is too strenuous. This
creates the “fittest” doctors.
Well,
what if you could apply this “evolution” theory to other careers such as a
teacher? What if there was a requirement for teachers to have a certain level
of schooling like doctors? Teachers that go through more schooling such as a graduate
or doctorate programs hone their knowledge to where they can pass that knowledge
onto their students. Another reason stipulating a higer degrre requirement is the more
schooling they have, the more teaching styles they encounter and learn to adapt
for their own use as a teacher in the future. This would create a teacher who
could teach students with enthusiasm because they spent their entire schooling
evolving into the “fittest” teacher.
The
“evolution” of the teacher could be one solution to the multitude of problems
raised in the documentary Waiting for “Superman”.
If there is a “fit” teacher in the classroom, the students learn 150 percent
of the curriculum which would raise test scores and increase funding
(Guggenheim). This solution requires
dedication not only from rising teachers but from the students, parents, and
educational boards to make even the slightest progress towards a
highly-educated youth.
Works cited: Waiting for“Superman”. Paramount
Vantage, 2012. DVD
