Lions for Lambs: Selling the Student... to the Student

As happens to be the case for most of us, I too occasionally confuse the desired order of things from time to time.
Like I should have done a week ago, I want to create my own bit of commentary on the film, "Lions for Lambs."
Watching this movie for education psychology, we sat down to take in the portion about the immediacy of education today. Although the film projected a rather political undertone criticizing the American-led wars in the Middle East and the self-important bureaucrats in Washington who claim to be leading us to victory, our purpose was to focus on the issue of education presented in the movie.
Robert Redford plays a political science teacher who, throughout the course of the movie, is trying to convince one of his students that he has potential to fix the problems he sees in politics, if he ups the ante in his academic. The student claims to be sidetracked by many other things (girls, fraternity, etc), but really seems to be discouraged by the seeming ambivalence of the system. The movie comes to a close with a shot of the students face, clearly in turmoil on whether to turn a new leaf, or to continue with his indifference.
Although many educators may not come into contact with extremely gifted students very often, or may not teach the level where their students can make a huge, immediate impact on the world at large, these scenes challenge us to reflect on what we as educators are doing to make a difference. Why do we do what we do? Why are college students like myself willingly going into education, a field where we will be underpaid and sometimes under appreciated? What keeps many teachers doing this?
I have been thinking lately about what my philosophy of education will someday be, and the deep questions presented in this movie have catalyzed a thought. Robert Redford's professor character is fortunate in having this gifted, yet disinterested student. The concept we can take away from it is two-pronged: every student we come into contact with has a definite, positive value, and various gifts. Secondly, (and importantly) it is our job to find this value, cultivate it, and convince the students to continue helping themselves grow.
Teaching may be our job, education our profession. But in our fortunate and truly powerful position, it is our moral responsibility to make sure that before we finish our time with each group of students every spring, they leave school knowing that they have a positive value, and they should revel in cultivating that potential.