She decided not to live anymore, and opted not to breathe. And she died in his arms. His life changed forever.

Rick O’ Barry, the man responsible for the capture and training of Flipper, the dolphin in the TV series, had at the time spent 10 years of his life building up the dolphin industry. The last 38 years, he has been trying to tear it down.

Dolphins, when they are in captivity, no matter how happy they may appear at theme parks like Sea World, are extremely unhappy. For that reason, their diet has to be altered to counter the ulcers that form in their mouth as a result of their depression. When Flipper chose to cease breathing, it was a conscious decision. Dolphins, unlike humans and other animals, make a conscious effort to breathe. If they ever reach a point where they feel life is no longer worth living, they can merely choose to not take the next breath.

The Cove is a documentary by Rick O’ Barry, aimed at drawing attention to the small town of Taiji in Japan.  What goes on in Taiji is that dolphins are herded towards a beach, and then trapped in a cove. Talent scouts from theme parks around the world will have the first go at the dolphins, picking the ones that have the highest potential to be show dolphins. The remaining dolphins are then dragged to a neighbouring cove, kept there for a night, and then brutally slaughtered the next morning.  The cruel thing is that the dolphins, stuck in captivity, are fully aware of what is coming their way.

I decided to expose my Wednesday class students to The Cove for a couple reasons: to make them aware of the problem, and to show them the power of the media in changing public policy. Where entire world governments have failed, this film has cut like a warm knife through butter and forced the Japanese government to address some of the issues. From day 1, I’ve often stressed to my kids the power of the pen and the media, often citing the example of the Bible and the Quran, how wars have been waged and prevented because of it. I’ve gone on to explain to them, that what was written in those books is beautiful, but the way some people have chosen to interpret it has not been.

At some point into my role as a teacher, as their Writing and Creative Thinking mentor, I realised that it was important that I not only teach my students how to create, but how to receive, how to take in the world around them with untainted eyes, with kind eyes. From that time, I’ve made every effort to furnish them with a keen understanding of the world, so they are not quick to judge, and are able to arrive at good, solid conclusions of their own. The world, I’ve told them, has turned into a crazy place. And it needs a new voice.

No one cried after the documentary. Or was even close to.  Until I shared what I had seen in another documentary about dolphins. In it was how dolphins were hunted out in the deep sea, how all fishermen had to do was injure one dolphin to get to the rest. Unlike what we commonly see in our human race, dolphins never abandon a fallen comrade, and will pool around the one in their hour of need. Once one dolphin has been maimed, all the fishermen have to do is manoeuvre their boats in a circle around the school, and spear away.

It was difficult. Keeping the tears away. My voice quivered, quaked and broke. And I had to take many breaths, to quell the emotions that were trying to surface. I left them with that Edmund Burke quote, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Unable to keep myself together any longer, I took from the movie Goodwill Hunting and announced, “Time’s up.” And I released to the world, these children.

By class end, I was completely spent, drained of all energy. Before I could catch my breath, my 5 o’clock arrived.

“Hi teacher. Are we continuing the movie we caught last week? The one about dolphins.”

“Yes we are.”

Today was the last Saturday of my 4 Saturday pre-press class. I learned a ton from the instructor who was an old school print guy. Things like masks, curves, channels and adjustment layers are just some of the things I’ve been real lazy to learn in my years of using photoshop and 10 minutes of instruction by this guy probably saved me hours of squinting at Photoshop Bible 6. The problem with learning new tricks is that you’d tend to carelessly use or abuse your new found skill. I can already foresee that in the weeks to come I’ll be making montages whenever and wherever possible… I’ll spend hours color correcting images that don’t need color correcting or don’t need color for that matter. Nonetheless, new knowledge will eventually become old knowledge and you’ll be a notch better than you were the day before.