Mr.

Holland

Mr. Hollands Opus is a tale of a man trying to juggle his dreams, his family, and his job. His life consists mainly of music. He is a composer who is forced to begin teaching at a high school in order to get some extra money to pay the rent. He is devastated to find out that his son was born deaf, especially because he wanted him to love and enjoy music as much as he does. He never really forms a strong relationship with his son Cole. He doesnt know how to sign well enough to even communicate with him. Throughout Mr. Hollands Opus you see the psychological aspects of hearing and motivation. Cole (Mr. Hollands son) was born with conductive deafness, which results when the bones connected to the eardrum fails to transmit sound waves properly to the cochlea. He had a 90% hearing loss. In order to understand how deafness affects a person you must first understand the ear. It converts weak sound waves into more intense waves of pressure in the cochlea. The eardrum connects to three small bones. Vibrations travel through these bones and are transformed into stronger vibrations eventually leading to the cochlea where it displaces tiny hairs along the cochleas membrane. The hairs are connected to neurons which in turn makes the auditory nerve transmit impulses to the brain areas that are responsible for hearing (Damage to the hairs, the cochlea or the auditory is known as nerve deafness) People with conductive deafness can still hear themselves talk because voice vibrations run through the skull bones to the cochlea, avoiding the eardrum. As Cole grew up he learned to cope with his deafness by learning sign language and how to read peoples lips. In the movie, Mr. Holland tried to help the deaf community to listen to music. He held a concert and positioned large speakers next to the hearing impaired people so they could feel the different vibrations throughout other parts of their body, in attempt for them to differentiate the mood and/or sound of the piece that was being played. Mr. Holland used other resources such as lighting to help demonstrate the music as well. When one of your senses is gone your others are heightened. So by seeing different colors patterns, sequences and rhythms of lights flashing it has a large impact on that person as to what they are hearing. As a teacher Mr. Holland struggled at first. He was having a hard time getting music through to kids. But as the years unfold the joy of sharing his contagious passion for music with his students becomes his

new definition of success. Kalat says that on average older workers express higher job satisfaction than younger workers do. He goes on to explain that this could be because of several different reasons, the one that works in this case would be that he started out in the wrong job when he was younger. Mr. Holland may never have been meant to live his dream of becoming a famous composer but he found out in the end that as a teacher he achieved far more than anything he could have imagined. In the beginning he was not satisfied with waking up at 7:00 in the morning and going to teach kids who just dont care. By the end of his career (the music program was shut down from lack of funding) the people around him motivated him to realize that he had accomplished more teaching than what he could have ever done composing. He motivated kids to learn , appreciate and love music. Examples of his motivational impact is evident with Gertrude Lang. A student who wanted to be good at something. She had a sister going to college on a ballet scholarship, a brother going to Notre Dame on a football scholarship, a mother who does beautiful water color paintings, and a father who sings for a living. Mr. Holland gave her lessons before school, and helped her find the music inside of herself. 30 years later she became the governor of the state and had Mr. Holland to thank for his motivation and inspiration. Another strong testament fro motivation in this movie is the impact Mr. Holland had on another student Rowena Morgan. Mr. Holland encouraged Rowena to do whatever she wanted after she graduated, so Rowena decided not to work in the restaurant that her family owned, but instead to go New York and sing there. The psychological concepts of hearing and motivation are evident throughout Mr. Hollands Opus. They both played large roles in the movie and it would not have had the same impact on the viewer if these concepts were not so observable.