This afternoon, during a conversation I was having largely with myself about my anger with Tom Sawyer (Why you might ask? He was completely enthralled in his efforts to write himself as the hero in the epic story of the rescue of Jim, a runaway slave and my newfound friend, while Huck knew what needed to be done to free Jim. Unbelievable right?), one of my more conversational students decided to change the course of our discussion by blurting out this little gem:
Student: "What do you care?" (but really more like "Whudda you care" muttered in a voice not loud enough to be full volume but plenty loud enough to let almost everyone hear what he said)
Me: "Wait, what?" (I really hadn't heard him well...)
Student: "Why do you care? So what about Tom? It's a book man, it doesn't mean anything. So, what are you so mad about?"
Me: *a long pause*
I broke the silence with a host of thoughts still racing through my mind. These thoughts ranged from questioning the effectiveness of my attempts to teach my students to approach the novel as more than just a little boy's adventure story, my desire to fight said student at that moment, and the always popular self-reflection, "What's this for?" Luckily, I have a core group of students in this class who were successfully indoctrinated with the expectations and standards of our outstanding department last year, and these students proceeded to put in their two cents on the issue. It was nice to hear a few unexpected voices enter into that conversation in defense of literature.
At first, I rationalized that at least this student had given this issue some thought, but now I've decided that he hasn't even given this book, or maybe anything we've covered this year, a chance for deeper meaning. Tomorrow, I'll finish teaching my first novel, and my students will finish reading their first novel of the year. It'll be interesting to see how this works out this semester. I can't imagine this student reading through two more novels this spring without seeing something of greater value in them, but I don't really believe that the upcoming books will be more appealing or approachable for him either.
I can't figure out how to end this post, so it's going to be put on hold here. Perhaps it will be continued at a later date, I really have no idea.
Side note: The other explanation for today's unexpected discussion could be rooted in potential payback from a coworker for snide remarks I recently made online about several topics near and dear to his heart. If that's the case, and I find out, he'd better hide all those toys.
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