3-15-21

My son thinks I work him too hard. Maybe I do. Maybe he’s just used to having classmates around to take away some of the attention and pressure. Maybe it’s a combination of both. But I imagine it can’t be all bad for him. I rarely assign homework, and he hasn’t had a test since October. But unlike real school, with me, there are no fluff days. No periods to sit and do busy work. 

A few weeks ago, after complaining about the latest assignment I had given him, he told me, “School would be so much more fun in only you let me watch movies.” Ah, careful the wish you make. I thought about it for about two seconds, smiled, and agreed. Why not watch a few movies? After all, movies have characters and plots just like novels. Wouldn’t a character analysis of movies teach many of the same skills as a character analysis of novels or short stories? 

Having only one student, I have the freedom to cater my lessons completely to his interests. As my student’s mother, I know him far better than most teachers ever know their students. My son loves movies. If I allowed it, he’d watch movies all day. The characters that draw his attention, the characters he talks about non-stop are the bad guys. Antagonists make him pay attention. And often, when he claims a character is “good” he isn’t talking about the good guy, he’s talking about the depth of the bad guy.

Once, my son told me that a movie is only as good as the bad guy. If the bad guy is mediocre, the movie itself won’t be great. I thought that was a fabulous argument for a paper and so I gave it to him as an assignment. I asked him to pick his three favorite bad guys. That was the easy part. He chose Grindelwald from Fantastic Beasts, Terry Silver from Karate Kid III, and Ivan Vanko from Iron Man II. I then told him, for homework, he had to watch all three movies — and he was happy that I agreed to watch them with him. While watching, he took notes, identifying the main character traits of each bad guy and analyzing exactly what made the characters interesting and exciting. From there he made a chart on which he compared the three men. Finally — and this is where he started to grumble — I told him to write the paper. I helped him with a very skeletal outline and then he dismissed me, “You can look at it when I’m done. I don’t want help with this one.”

And just like that, writing a paper became a simple task. He worked on the initial draft for a couple of weeks, writing about twenty minutes a day. When he finished, I was impressed. Here’s the thing, you have been reading his work all year and some of you have complimented his work. But you see the finished, polished draft. I see the messy, sometimes disjointed work. I read every draft and comment on the drafts the exact same way I commented on the drafts produced by my former college students. I ask him to rewrite certain sentences. I tell him where to provide more detail or where to add specific examples. And of course, I add in all the commas and apostrophes he misses. You don’t see the messy work, the revisions and rewrites. But I do. And that is why this paper impressed me. Sure there were mistakes. Yes, he needed to rewrite, revise, and add to what he had already produced. And his comma skills — or lack of them — might be the death of me. But overall, the initial draft demonstrated a great deal of improvement in his work. I could see how far he has come since September. There is still much he needs to learn, but he is definitely a better writer than he was at the start of the school year.

Now, this is what I would love to do — my dream job, so to speak. Okay, writing is really my dream job but since no agents are knocking down my door, I’ll switch gears for a bit, although, this new dream job is probably just as much of a fantasy, if not more so. I want to be dropped in a very low performing district and I want the ten to fifteen worst students. The troublemakers, the stubborn kids, the ones who everyone else has given up on. And I want to teach them history, writing, and literature for a year. Obviously, this would never happen because no one would be willing to pay me a full time salary just to teach ten or fifteen kids. But if they were, I’m sure I could motivate, if not all of them, most of them. I would love the opportunity to take fifteen kids who are failing, and bring them closer to grade level. I bet I could do it. But since there is never any money for challenges such as this in the academic world, I’ll stick to teaching G3, and I’ll enjoy watching him grow as both a student and a writer.

Here is his latest essay on bad guys:

The Bad Guys: Grindelwald, Silver, and Vanko

To start off, I am a movie addict. When I wake up, to the time of my slumber, I watch movies. Unlike most people, I like the bad guys. Directors always begin with the good guy and make it look like they are good and the people fighting them are bad. To me, there is more to bad guys than what people tell you. What I am saying is that bad guys make the story. They drive the plot. Bad guys invoke feeling whether good or bad. Finally, they make you more interested in them and the story. In this paper, I will be talking about Terry Silver from Karate Kid III, Gellert Grindelwald from Fantastic Beasts, and Ivan Vanko from Iron Man II.

Bad guys drive the plot by making the story happen. I say this because it is not like the good guy will attack the bad guy. In Karate Kid III, you slowly learn that Terry Silver isn’t just doing what John Kreese wants him to do. He actually wants to inflict pain on Daniel LaRusso. This adds to the story by showing how psychotic Silver is and how much he wants to hurt Daniel. Silver drives the plot by making Daniel get hurt. The main example of Silver hurting Daniel is when he makes Daniel’s knuckles bleed on a hard wooden board at Kreese’s request. Silver actually makes Daniel agree to his pain by making him think that this is the best way to win the upcoming tournament. In Iron MAN II, you learn that Vanko isn’t just making a weapon, he is making a weapon to kill Tony Stark. The major battle is at the end of the movie. First, Vanko commanders War Machine’s suit to try and kill Stark. Then he sends thirty two war drones at him. Finally, he comes himself with electric whips to kill Stark. This keeps the movie going by having constant fights. In FantasticBeasts, it is very interesting to learn about the creatures. But Grindelwald keeps the story going. Almost every half hour there is a fight. Even within the first five minutes there is a small battle. Grindelwald has consistent talks with Credence (a deadly obscura) to persuade him to Grindelwald’s side. This keeps the audience tuned in, wondering why did he pick Credence to find the obscure. 

All three bad guys in this paper are clever. Grindelwald and Silver need followers so they are masters of persuasion, whereas, Vanko is just smart and works alone. Silver persuades Daniel to trust him. He does this in small segments. One example is when he says Kreese has died (but he hadn’t). This helps because it makes Daniel feel bad for him. Another example is when Silver shows Daniel how to do a front sweep. This makes him look like a good guy. He looks like the good guy because he is encourage Daniel to do the tournament and he shows him how to do new moves when Miyagi won’t. Grindelwald doesn’t persuade people to trust him, but he says that he knows what’s best for them. In the first and second FantasticBeasts, he tries to persuade Credence to join him. He eventually does. At the end of the second movie, he convinces many good people to join him. In the very first scene IronManII, we see Vanko, without any help making what looks like electric whips. This shows that he is a wonderful physicist. One hour later, we see Justin Hammer — a terrible engineer and less interesting bad guy  — thinking he hired Vanko. As time goes on, we learn that Vanko wasn’t woking for Hammer because once again all he wants to do is kill Stark. Vanko only joined Hammer Industries for their resources. This time, instead of making just electric whips, he makes them and a giant suit. 

Bad guys also invoke feeling. Most of the time it is anger, but sometimes it is something else.  In KarateKidIII, Silver has hired a kid who is great at sparring. One thing Silver made him do is destroy Miyagi’s Little Trees shop. Anyone with morals would never do this unless they knew they could get away with it. This is always how it is: the rich (Silver) think they are better than the poor (Miyagi) and they get away with whatever they do. That alone makes me angry. Grindelwald annoys me because he baits good people. Then they join him and are obviously not as kind as they used to be. Imagine if you had a very close brother but Grindelwald messed with his mind. It would be like loosing a part of you. This is infuriating and annoying because he should only take bad people and let the good stay good. I guess, if he did not recruit good people, there would be a story, it just would not be exiting. In the beginning of IronManII, Vanko’s father died. This makes most watchers feel sad for him. The reason he died was because Howard Stark, Tony Stark’s father, exiled him to Siberia because he was going to make more money. Vanko’s father later died because of the cold temperature, drinking, and depression. 

Good bad guys make me think more about them. In FantasticBeasts: CrimesofGrindelwald, I learn that Grindelwald was best friends with Dumbledore. This makes me wonder, why did he turn bad or why did Dumbledore stay good? These kinds of questions, about who are the characters and who do they side with, make a good bad guy by giving them a back story. Terry Silver and John Kreese have a connection from Vietnam. The movie script mentions the war many times. But the question that keeps coming back to me is how and where did they learn karate? Another thing is Silver is a psychopath. This makes me wonder why is he like this. I think it was the war that did it to him. One main question I have about Vanko is, where did he learn everything from? Was it his father? Or was it something else? Another thing is, why does he always tell Tony Stark that he lost when Vanko clearly lost?

These are my four reasons for why good bad guys make good stories. Now that you have read this, I hope I have convinced you that some bad guys have very interesting roles. I want you to watch all three movies and/or other ones and see if you see what I am taking about. 🙂