Awakenings is a movie based on the autobiography of
the neurologist Oliver Sacks, Awakenings tells the true story of the discovery
in 1969 of temporary beneficial effects of L-dopa and its application to
catatonic patients who survived the epidemic of sleeping sickness in 1917-1928.
Oliver Sacks in the film is played by actor Robin Williams under the name of
Malcolm Sayer. Malco Sayer is a doctor who throughout his career has been devoted to experimenting
with earthworms. He got a job at a hospital in New York City, where he began to
treat patients with catatonic disease.
One day he realizes that one of his patients
instinctively grabs his glasses before they fall to the ground. Then he started
researching about the disease and formulating a hypothesis about the possible
causes, but mainly about their treatment.
At this point he is faced to a new problem: the
skepticism of his colleagues and relatives of their patients regarding their
theory that these patients are likely to return to live and that his illness
would be a Parkinson's disease worsened.
Among his various investigations, become familiar
with a new drug, L-dopa, which is used to treat Parkinson's, and decide to try
it with one of his patients, Leonard Lowe (Robert De Niro).
After many failed attempts, Leonard awakens one
night. Thereafter, the doctor receives acceptance from colleagues and relatives
of the victims, and financial aid, thanks to which he can begin to treat all
patients with this drug.
Those patients saw beautiful moments of their lives
coming back again as if never had happened to their healthy lives. They started
to live the life from the point they forgot it, it was really amazing for Sayer
and his colleagues to see those people living on their own like small kids.
Somehow Sayer had awakened them to the life that belongs to them.
However, the problems reappeared when Leonard, the
first patient treated with L-dopa, redeveloped symptoms of the disease, and the
doctor and his patients and their families are deeply affected.
I just have to say that we as teachers are doctors
of our students. We have in our hands what is necessary to awake them, but we
also have the power to keep them asleep forever. Sometimes teaching the
contents of the curriculum is not enough. It is important to keep our students
aware of what is going on outside. They need to be instructed to life, they
need to know the difference of thinking differently (or at least to know the
difference) , our students have the right to know that there is another side to
the side that is always shown to us. We need to make them feel they can live happy
and that learning is part of that happiness, that there is a world outside
waiting for them. The opportunities to live a full life are there but we
sometimes do not even think there is a possibility for us, how can we convince
our students to do so? My reflection goes to the role of the teacher as the
alarm clock that always keeps their students on the same truck to the path of
success.
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