Movie Analysis: Pay It Forward

Preamble

The Hollywood movie Pay It Forward, starring Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, and Haley Joel Osment, tells the story of a young boy’s idealistic hope for changing the world. Challenged by his teacher Mr. Simonet to “think of an idea to change the world and put it into action,” Trevor, the story’s protagonist, creates a plan to cause this transformation (Abrams & Levy, 2000). The premise is that each individual would need to do something really good and really hard for three other people who would then be required to “pay it forward” to three other people. This pyramid scheme would end up causing exponential amounts of people doing really good and really hard things for countless others in a very short period of time. Trevor McKinney seeks

The HOPS program is an initial first step in a counseling program that would benefit 7th grade students at Trevor’s school. The HOPS program addresses a multitude of areas through psychoeducational groups in coordination with parent meetings. The program would help students in all the basic areas of Middle School that could keep them from being successful: homework, organization and planning skills (Studer, Ch. 5, 2005), as well as giving support to parents and ensuring that all the key stakeholders know how to best support each student. In collaboration with Mr. Simonet, a task group could be arranged in order to support students that struggle with the challenge that the teacher had given. In the task group, the group members could work together towards the accomplishment of the goal with the support of a counselor (Studer, Ch. 5, 2005). Trevor would also benefit from Solution-Focused Brief Counseling. In the short term, this type of counseling could assist in promoting positive behavior and be used to help Trevor identify areas where he has been even minimally successful thus far and use those as motivation to keep going (Studer, Ch.5, 2005). In relationship to the challenge that Mr. Simonet has given, this type of counseling integrates really well for students like Trevor who are already inquisitive and creative. Lastly, creating a peer mentor or peer tutoring framework within the school would benefit not only Trevor, but also multiple other students who do not have academic support at home. This type of initiative could take place as a lunch time club or as an after school