Thursday

In Lit and Language 11 we tackled chapter 11 of TKM. I think it’s my favorite chapter in the whole book. For those who don’t remember the novel - chapter 11 is where Miss Lafayette Dubose reappears and ridicules Jem and Scout. Atticus encourages them to be strong. He also reminds them that she is a sick old lady and can’t be held responsible for what she says. Scout has already learned to let the insults about Atticus “lawing for niggers” not get to her. But Dubose finally gets to Jem and he lashes her camellia bushes to ribbons with a baton he had bought for Scout.

As punishment (and it really isn’t punishment we find out later), Atticus makes Jem read to Dubose every afternoon (except Sundays) for a month. Only later does the reader realizes this is to help Dubose break her addiction to morphine (and Atticus would have had Jem read to her anyway). While Jem reads (with Scout at his side) Dubose pays attention for a few minutes and then slips away into some kind of stupor. Scout notes, though, after a few weeks, the stupors seem to occur later and later in their reading sessions. Finally, she doesn’t slip into a stupor at all.

It is only after Dubose’s death, which occurs one month after Jem stops reading to her, that Atticus informs the children of her addiction and that she wanted to die “beholdin’ to nothin’ or no one.”

Atticus has two reason for making Jem read to her -- First, to offer her a distraction while she broke her addiction. Second, to show him what true bravery is.

Now I like this last reason the best. I think it’s one reason this chapter is so powerful. Atticus is offering Jem a chance to do what Atticus always tells him - step inside someone else’s shoes and see what the world looks like through their eyes.

Yes, Miss Dubose was a mean, spiteful, cruel, and racist woman, but she had a virtuous side too. Atticus knows that in order for the kids to make it through the trial and to continue to live in Maycomb without resentment or bitterness, he must make them see that people, no matter how rotten or vile, have the potential for goodness inside them.

*****

While looking over my poor, tattered copy of TKM, I found a note from last year in chapter 9 about how Atticus doesn’t want the kids to catch Maycomb’s usual disease (racism). The note was about an incident that related perfectly to this. I was attending one of KoKo’s 6th grade basketball games in Fertile. I was sitting in the bleachers with other parents and grandparents. Kristie was coaching. One of the players - or maybe it was her assistant coach - turned to their parent or grandparent and asked for her to run and get them something to drink. Then the parent/grandparent turned to whoever was sitting next to her and grumbled under her breath, “What color am I?”

I couldn’t believe it. My mouth gaped open.

I know there are pockets of ignorance and hicks around this area, but to say something like that was horrible. Especially when one of her grandkids’ teammates was black!

I just shook my head and told the parent sitting next to me that while rednecks may very well exist, mullets (which the lady was proudly adorning) had gone out 15 years ago. In fact, I was pretty sure that mullet would have been embarrasses to sit atop that hag.

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Since we lengthened our classes from one quarter to a semester, we are now able to read several novels. Currently, my classes are reading a novel apiece - TKM and Dorian Gray. I forgot how exhausting it is teaching novels. Even though I’ve read them dozens of times, I still struggle to teach them. One would think you could turn them lose to read or work on an assignment and you could get some other work done (my themes and quizzes are piling up), but you can’t.

*****

I’ve been thinking of the novels I read in high school. In 7th grade we read something called “God Bless the Beasts and Children.” In 9th grade we read “The Outsiders” and “Romeo and Juliet” (I know it’s a novel, but it was damn hard). In 10th grade we read the first novel that I felt I really understood in terms of themes and symbols - “Les Mis” -- Ha. No. Not quite. The novel was really “Of Mice and Men.” As a junior we read a short novel called “The Acorn People.” That year I also read “Hamlet” in a humanities class. Then either during my junior or senior year - I think my senior year - we read “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.” Oh yeah, for a book report I read “The Time Machine” my senior year. I read it in what felt like one sitting in our library. It must have been a condensed version, but I got so swept up in the damn thing that I read right through class and study hall. I probably finished it at home - now that I think about it - how could I have finished it in one sitting? Either way, I loved it and devoured it in a matter of hours. We still read it in my science fiction class too.

For six years worth of English classes, that doesn’t seem like much.

****

I finally finished my lesson plan for the MNHS class from this fall. The deadline is December 3. Nothing like waiting until the last minute. But I’ve had the main idea bouncing around my head ever since the class ended. The class focused on the settlement and industrialization of early MN. I was fascinated by the early industries (grain and lumber mills, mining, and the rail roads. I never quite realized how vital these were to the towns that sprang up because of them.

My hometown, Red Lake Falls, sprang up because it straddles two rivers, the Red Lake River and the Clearwater. They join - at a location known as “The Point,” where a mill used to be. Long before I was born, the industries sprang up because of the rivers. There was a large saw mill and a flower mill. There were dams to create electricity. Then the rail roads came through. Elevators sprang up (there were three that I remember, though two were shut down when I was young). A Flax mill sprang up too. From this, Red Lake Falls became a thriving community. Today it’s just barely hanging on.

That was when the lesson plan idea hit me: what if kids were to examine the death of a small town. Take a town close to RLF, Dorothy. This once was a thriving community with an elevator. They didn’t have a river, but the rail road ran right through it. Once that stopped though, the town withered and died. Just off the top of my head, I can think of dozens of towns just like this.

Then I started thinking about the information age and what are the new rail roads, mills, and lumber industries of today? What if students were to try to create a new town? What new industries would they want? Where would an ideal location of a town be? What elements would they want in their community (schools, churches, water parks, and so on)?

The culminating activity for the lesson plan involves students creating an imovie in which they advertise their new town for prospective residents.

So this morning I planned it out, typed it up, and sent it off. So far so good. Now I just have to see if I’ll ever use it.

*****

Teaching is an amazing profession. Sometimes one gets caught up in the day to day frustrations (like the post below about students whining over having to read) that one doesn’t stop to appreciate the small things - that sometimes aren’t really that small.

Prior to Thanksgiving break, I was inundated with several former students emailing me or stopping for assistance with papers or speeches. I was too glad to offer what I could. This included simply reading rough drafts, tweaking a thesis, meeting face to face with a student, and sending another former student essays and a book. I mentioned this to Kristie one evening and she smiled and said, “What a compliment.” Until then, I never thought of it that way. But they were compliments.

Then the Wednesday before break, several stopped in to thank me or just say hi or drop off books and materials. I guess this is another compliment.

Just today a former student, whose name escapes me, stopped in with her first project from welding. Now I haven’t had her in class for a few years, but when she was in class she told me that she wanted to be a welder. Well, jokingly, I told her that girls couldn’t be welders. That was a source of constant argument for us while she was in class. I wasn’t serious, and she knew it. I just liked to argue. Before the class ended, she promised to come back one day with a piece of welding for me to show me that she could weld.

Today was that day.

She turned in her first semester final project. A slab of steel with beads welded all around it. I couldn’t help smiling as she explained to me (and the German teacher, for she ran over and grabbed her to show off to her too) how on one side it was all sloppy looking because she was just learning how to use the arc-welder, but on the other side she mastered it and the workmanship (workwomanship?) is clear. Then she began explaining how her classes are going. While she struggled to write (her ideas were great - she was a voracious reader - but her grammar and sentence structure were elementary level), she obviously has found her niche as she explained the class to us in a totally different technical language than I have ever heard.

That was a great way to end a day.