"Emperor's Club reflections"

1.     This quote does not seem quite correct to me. In my opinion, stupid goes along with immaturity and ignorance. If you outgrow immaturity therefore you will outgrow stupid. Everyone comes to a point in there life where they learn lessons and grow smarter and wiser. I guess this question all depends on your definition of the word stupid. To me stupid is making unnecessary mistakes, which in the end you will learn from and therefore outgrow stupid.

2.     He is shaken and altered by this experience because he knows what he did was wrong. He cheated Martin Blythe out of the opportunity to be a contestant in the Mr. Julius Caesar competition. Mr. Hundert knew that Martin fully deserved to be a contestant. What Mr. Hundert did was morally wrong and he knew it.

3.     Sedgewick Bell influences the other boys to rebel. For example he influenced all the boys in the classroom to all open and slam the books shut during class to disturb the teacher. By describing Sedgewick as hypnotic, he means that Sedgewick is able to persuade the boys to do whatever he tells them too. When Sedgewick arrived at the school all the boys admired him because he was different then anyone at the school, he was a rule-breaker.

4.     Mr. Hundert was secretly fond of Sedgewick  because in a sense, he saw himself in him. Sedgewick had struggled with school but was making great improvements over time. Mr. Hundert had corrected the boy’s papers and realized that Sedgewick had not made it into the top three finalists. Mr. Hundert wanted Sedgewick to be in the top three so he changed the score of his paper in order to have Sedgewick as a contender.

5.     At the contest Mr. Hundert saw Sedgwick cheating. He leaned over to the headmaster to tell him but the headmaster told him to leave it alone. Mr. Hundert makes sure that Sedgewick does not win by asking him a simple question that wasn’t on the original question sheet. When Mr. Hundert confronts Sedgewick, all Sedgewick asked was why he didn’t call him out. Then Sedgewick said, “was it because my father was there?” Even thought Mr. Hundert knew the answer to Sedgewick’s question was yes, he replied no.

6.     I believe Mr. Hundert made the choice to host the contest because he felt bad about what he did to Martin Blythe and was hoping Sedgewick would have turned his life around so he wouldn’t feel bad about the decision he had made 25 years ago. What he hopes for when meeting his former students is to know if he had made a difference in their lives. Mr. Hundert had been feeling down because he was rejected for the head master position. His students had given him exactly what he needed; the confidence to move on. His hope was squashed because Sedgewick had not changed but it was renewed because his students had given him the strength to move on.

7.     We want to live a good life and an examined life. The director proves this by having Robert, Sedgewick’s son, walk out of the stall after listening to his father and Mr. Hundert’s conversation. Robert had examined his father’s life and at that very moment, his father had let him down. Sedgewick was not living a good life. Even though he was wealthy and had a beautiful family, Sedgwick’s life was filled with lies. In no way, shape, or form, can that be a good life.

8.     Mr. Hundert returns to teaching because his former students helped him realize that he had made a difference in their lives. Just because he didn’t get to be headmaster didn’t mean that he didn’t love teaching anymore. Mr. Hundert was obviously one of the greatest teachers to ever teach at St. Benedicts, he just needed his former students to help him realize how much of an impact he had on the student’s lives. A surprise for him was having Martin Blythe’s son as a student in his class. In a sense this was giving him a second chance to make up for the mistake he had made 25 years ago.

9.     Mr. Hundert practices discussion in his classroom. He is never just preaching or lecturing the boys, he is always having them answer and ask questions. When he lectures, it is more so giving them wise advice. He does not force his students to learn, he encourages them to do so.

10. Mr. Hundert challenged his students to be the best they could be. He did this by encouraging them to study without forcing them too. By doing this he not only helped them succeed in school he also helped them to become better versions of themselves. Even though they have grown up they still carry the life lessons that Mr. Hundert had taught them at St. Benedicts.