John Keating

John Keating is the new English teacher at Welton Academy. He is a young man in his early 30s at the most. The junior boys are exhausted by the time they get to Keating’s class on their first day of the new school year. They have been laden down with homework from math, Latin and history. They are quite surprised by Mr. Keating. Not only does he give them no homework, he basically just talks to the boys – about his love of poetry and the importance of youngsters like these boys becoming free thinkers. He wants the boys to be their own person and push aside tradition and conformity.

To make his point, Keating often leaps atop his desk. He does so, he tells the boys, as a reminder to always look at any issue from different perspectives. He reads a line from a poem containing...