Dan Zehr of Coffee With Kenobi uses his experience as a high school English teacher to examine how The Last Jedi is a powerful fable on the importance of teaching.
Here is an extract from the Official Star Wars website:
Teaching and learning is among the most prevalent motifs in Star Wars, particularly in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The mentor figure instructs the willing student in the ways of the Force. However, it’s not that cut and dry in Rian Johnson’s film. It’s much more of an unorthodox process for the Force-wielders on Ahch-To, and provides a masterful commentary on what pedagogy is all about. The line between teacher and learner blurs, as well as the lessons learned, and they often come from unexpected places.
Yoda
Perhaps no Star Wars instructor demonstrates this better than Yoda. He appears to call down lightning on the uneti tree and destroys the bound library of Jedi knowledge, much to Luke’s shock and consternation. In essence, Yoda appears to tell Luke that everything the curmudgeonly Jedi Master has held sacrosanct doesn’t matter all that much. On an initial pass, this may seem contrary to the diminutive Jedi Master’s previous lessons, but this is not the case at all.
Yoda is modeling a valuable tool used by many educators: adaptability. As a teacher, you may have an airtight lesson, but if you do not know your students, the lesson may fall flat. Hence, the need to modify the initial plan to best serve the needs of the learner. Yoda knows Luke is hurting, encourages him to take himself a little less seriously, and tells him failure is the best teacher. An unconventional philosophy for some, but Yoda sees things in a much more enlightened way. His appearance in The Last Jedi is paramount to understanding the unconventional nature of teaching for these characters.
