Helping them Find Their Voice

One of my favorite movies is The King's Speech. I am pretty sure I went to see it at least two times when it was out in the theaters. It's out on Netflix now, and I was watching it the other night and a scene popped out at me. It was about helping the king, who has a stammer, find his voice. I thought about it, and think I am helping the football team have a voice.

For those that have not seen it, The King's Speech is about King George VI, who had a very bad stammer. He never thought he would be the king of England, being that he was the second son of King George V. But his brother, who became King Edward VIII, abdicated the throne in 1936 (the same year he became king). Complicated laws and morality regarding the king of England also being the head of the Church of England required Edward to abdicate when he took up with a twice-divorced American woman. And this puts George VI, also known in his family as "Bertie," on the throne.

In the movie, the reluctant "king-to-be" seeks help for his stammer from a speech therapist, Lionel Logue, who is a wanna-be actor from Australia. They work together on the physical problems of George/Bertie's stammer, but it is the work they do about his family, the pains and hurts he endured as a child, that helps him step up and assume the role of King.

In my opinion, the best scene, and the one that inspired this post, is when the speech therapist is with the soon-to-be-crowned King George in Westminster Abbey. George is complaining that the speech therapist does not have credentials to be treating him, even though none was ever claimed. And then the speech therapist sits in the throne of King Edward, the throne upon which every monarch is crowned in England. George/Bertie goes nuts, yelling and telling the speech therapist him to get up! The  therapist then goads George/Bertie by saying, "What right do you tell me that I can't sit on this throne?" (paraphrased) George/Bertie then says that the therapist must listen to him, the king, because he has a right; he has a voice.

He has a voice.

The therapist responds, "Yes you do." And he gets up from the famous seat of King Edward and says to King George, about to crowned, "You have such perseverance, Bertie. You're the bravest man I know."

This scene (you can watch it here) resonated with me. Earlier this month I helped several students, a number of whom are on the football team, with letters of appeal for their academic dismissal to the college. Most of them had their appeals granted and are coming back. They will return to college. They are very brave students. They are facing issues and problems that have been dogging them in their pursuit of an education. They were brave enough to face these problems and issues, to "man up" to their failed situations and make a vow to do better.

I feel like the speech therapist, in the movie because I have helped give voice to these students, these brave young men, who have had to restate with assurance that some of them may not feel, that they have a voice and a right to return to the college.

Indeed, they all do. And I'll be there to help them develop and use their voices for as long as I'm able.