Short Story Gift

One of my students who graduated in 2010 and is now studying literature at college wrote the following short story for me. Her name is Heather Ryan, and I feel amazingly blessed and encouraged by her love of literature, and her "getting it."

She wielded a gradebook of pain and an over-loved iPhone. If you could have seen her countenance that day, you might have thought yourself amongst Dante’s accursed. The swindlers of the world never found themselves so unlucky as they did that unholy date in Classroom 10. “After three years of learning MLA, some of you still think a citation is a traffic ticket! And for Pete’s sake, a comma comes before the contraction ‘and’, not after it!”

A slight giggle erupted from the back row. Shelly rolled her eyes and mindlessly uttered, “What could possibly be funny about comma splices?” A thought of Ron Weasley’s horridly graphic splicing in number seven, part two ran through her head. She softened slightly and remembered why she teaches literature. “It’s the books,” she thought, “not these brats.” She sighed.

A scrawny boy with a nose he hadn’t yet grown into dared to answer, slightly hesitantly but arrogantly nonetheless, “You said… tee-hee… CONTRACTION! BAHAHAHAHA!!” The back row now erupted into scoffs and guffaws.

A silence from the teacher’s ‘podium’, as people like to call the educator’s throne these days.

“Ya know… like, a pregnant lady…” the under-grown boy tried to explain as his best mate made distorted faces, meant to look like a woman in labor.

“I KNOW WHAT YOU MEANT,” Shelly snapped, slightly injured as these irreverent rascals mocked the difficulties of motherhood. The few front-row overachievers grimaced at the idea of being scolded by an esteemed authority figure. After a deep breath, Shelly calmly suggested, her voice laced with tiny arrows with which to draw out guilt and repentance, “We all know how to act maturely in here, so let’s do it.”

The giggles continued. “She said ‘do it’,” someone whispered just loud enough for Shelly’s ears to pick up. The hairs on the back of her neck began to stand up.

“DOESN’T YOUR EDUCATION MATTER TO YOU?” she pleaded with every ounce of emotion her tiny body could contain. Dead silence. William’s hearty, stilted laugh could be heard reverberating through the rear wall. A sound that would ordinarily evoke curiosity and amusement seemed ominous to the dumbstruck students. Satan himself mocked their torture. 2:10 could not possibly come fast enough.

“Yeah, school’s real important. I get it. I make good grades. UCF already accepted me. At least someone agrees that I’m smart,” a snarky senior girl growled pointedly. An onlooker might one day swear she saw the senior’s claws extending from the tips of her fingers.

“It’s not just about grades.” Shelly was honest as she spoke from her heart. “God didn’t put us here just to ‘do well’. He also put us here to ‘do good’. You should check your motives if you think the reason you’re in this class is to get an A and AP credit for UCF, should you choose to go there.” Their potential was so much greater than that.

“Why else are we here?” a shy student on the far side of the room questioned quizzically. Shelly glanced in his direction. He looked like a deer in the headlights. No, that wasn’t right. He looked… disturbed. Unsettled, perhaps. “It… isn’t about our… GPA?” he sputtered, slowing down with each syllable. As this thought rippled through the room, the shoulders of his peers began dropping, and they crumpled slightly in their seats. Even the proud star basketball player looked honestly puzzled.

Shelly was taken aback. They really don’t understand. “Why do we study literature?” She asked what she thought was simple question.

“Because this stuff… these books… they’re classics,” said the avid reader at the center table, looking up from her verbose notes.

“Yes,” Shelly answered, “but…why?”

Silence.

More silence.

Shelly returned to her whiteboard with her favorite green Expo marker. She wrote “BEAUTY” across the two boards in as elaborate script as her small, artistically-untrained hand could emit. “What does this word mean to you?”

Silence. Stupid remarks like “a pretty girl” or “Justin Bieber’s hair” now seemed helpless weapons against the weight of the impending answer of this question.

“Why do we study the Bible?

“To learn about God.” The first intelligent answer of the day.

“What is the chief end of man?”

“To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

“At least they’re listening to Clay,” Shelly conceded. “We’re supposed to enjoy God,” she revealed. “Have you ever thought about that before?” The quizzical looks turned to meditative stares. Shelly could practically see herself in the reflectivity of their eyes.

“God admires beauty. Genesis 1:31: ‘God saw all that he had made, and it was very good’” she explained. “Yes, we study literature so that we can hopefully enjoy a few books – maybe not Heart of Darkness, but some – and so that we can hopefully make a few good grades for college. We study so we can relate to others who are also studying, yes. We study also so that we can better ourselves in view of others’ mistakes. There is a greater reason, too, though.”

There is beauty in these books. They are classic, yes, because others before you have seen their beauty. There is meaning in every word. Yes, Dickens was paid by the word, but no, he didn’t throw words in if they didn’t belong. Like the stroke of Rembrant’s brush across a canvas, each word of these thoughtful authors is a bit of genius, a nugget of truth. Their words, like an artist’s painting, reflects the beauty of this world, even in the brokenness. These broken characters scream for redemption, much like you and me.”

“And yes,” Shelly said, breaking the seriousness up a bit, “it is ‘you and me’ in this case.”

“So,” a student conjectured, slowly forming his thoughts, “when we read about these guys who kind of suck – I mean, stink – at life, that’s sposta like… say something about God?”

“Yes!” said the girl next to him, obviously experiencing a revelation. “It’s like how we read these stories in the Bible and we see how God works in their lives. Well, maybe God’s not a character in the book, but His creation and laws are still there, right? Well, that’s it! If they can be broken and be redeemed, like, so can we!”

A small, lonely tear slowly but determinedly made a pilgrimage down Shelly’s flushed cheek, fell quietly from her hidden chin and found its final resting place in the calming blue carpet below. “Exactly,” she coughed out, trying to hide the fact that she was choked up.

Maybe, it isn’t about the books after all.

...

Only now, looking back, can I see their pain. Only now do I see why educators are different from lecturers. Only now are the blinders of laziness and underused talent lifted and I see the light. Only now do I long for the days when my teachers invested their hearts, minds, and strength into each individual student. Only now do I wish I had listened.

A Brief Comparison of Literary Magic

“’It means, ‘ said Aslan, ‘that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward. And now…” (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Chapter Fifteen, Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time)

“’But I knew, too, where Voldemort was weak. And so I made my decision. You would be protected by an ancient magic of which he knows, which he despises, and which he has always, therefore, underestimated – to his cost. I am speaking, of course, of the fact that your mother died to save you. She gave you a lingering protection he never expected, a protection that flows in your veins to this day. I put my trust, therefore, in your mother’s blood…Your mother’s sacrifice made the bond of blood the strongest shield I could give you.” (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter Thirty-Seven, The Lost Prophecy)

I was struck with the similarities in these two passages over the summer when I read the Potter series for the fourth time through, this time my UK version. Wow, I don’t know how I missed it before, but Lewis’s and Rowling’s words are so in sync with each other. Granted, I’m sure Rowling has read Lewis, but I can find no where that she says she had a copy of Lion, Witch, Wardrobe open next to her while she wrote this section of Phoenix. It just goes to show that truth is truth, and God’s truth will spill out in the most seemingly unlikely of places. I know JKR is a Christian and I’m sure her church life, while not super American evangelical, will naturally come out in her writing. As I look at these passages together, I can’t but laugh at the scores of parents who allow there children to read the Chronicles of Narnia, but shun Potter because it contains “magic.”

I could go on with more examples of not only Lewis’s use of incantational magic in his stories. I could point out that Tolkien’s Gandalf is indeed called a “wizard” and for all intents and purposes uses “magic” on more than one occasion. I could go on about Madeleine L’Engle’s science fiction works and the roles Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which play in aiding Meg. All of these authors are Christians and they all employ the use of magic in their writings.

I’ll leave this post with some wisdom from L’Engle, “‎"When we write a story, we must write to the absolute best of our ability. That is the job, first and foremost. If we are truly Christian, that will be evident, no matter what the topic. If we are not truly Christian, that will also be evident, no matter how pious the tale.”

Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.

This often inflammatory quote has been attributed to George Bernard Shaw, a famous Irish playwright who wrote at the turn of the 19^th century. Shaw is probably most well remembered for Pygmalion, the play upon which the musical My Fair Lady is based. The original Shaw quote is, “He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches” and most likely was not his own invention, just an old proverb he chose to repeat and give some credence. At any rate, many a teacher today is faced with this aphorism and the question, “Why do we teach?”

Let’s be real…teaching is not only one of the most underpaid occupations in our country today, it’s one of the most thankless (supplanted from being MOST thankless only possibly my motherhood). Even in the socially and economically advanced twenty-first century, teaching is still one of the few jobs that allow a woman to pursue both motherhood and a career. Great, two thankless jobs for the price of one? Gluttons for punishment?

If an amazing salary and oodles of praise are not in the cards for a teacher, then again I ask, “Why teach?” I’ve asked myself this question several times over the years I’ve been a teacher, but it’s been even more in the forefront of my mind in recent months. I didn’t originally go to college with the intention of working in the world of education. For years I thought I would study art and become a commercial artist. By the time I was applying to colleges I thought perhaps I’d make use of my artistic gifts and academic prowess and pursue architecture or engineering. When push came to shove, however, I chose to major in English because quite frankly, I would’ve rather written a paper than crammed for an exam any day of the week. I had always loved reading and talking about books, so why not? I even tried a few education classes “just in case” I couldn’t find any other job than teaching, but I wasn’t hopeful after several semesters of very liberal educational philosophy. Straight out of college I took a job as an editor and administrative assistant and that was that.

Only when my son was in first grade did I seriously consider getting in front of a classroom. I realized that I still loved my books, and more specifically I had a hidden passion for juvenile literature. Maybe I could inspire young minds by bringing the written word to life while also teaching them critical thinking and writing skills. That, certainly, would be awe-inspiring and life fulfilling. Over optimism at it’s best, I guess. The reality of classroom life is not all blue skies and roses.

Students today are inundated by an instant world. Instead of learning everything they need to know in kindergarten (i.e. the classroom), everything they need to know, or think they do, is instantly available through the computer, the iPad, the iPod touch, Ask Cha-Cha, cable television, Netflix, or any other myriad of non-print sources. Surely those men and women who stand in front of them every day in that place called “school” can’t have any more information that they would need for life. Life? What’s that? What’s a “real world”? Each sophomore class I teach thinks it’s more and more intelligent and well informed than I am. Might as well start replacing teachers with T.V. screens and automate the whole process.

Yet, three days a week I still go to my classroom and send my son to his (homeschooling the other two days). There must be some purpose behind such an action or logic would preclude me from doing so. Undoubtedly my students could find most of the information I give them about American government and classic literature through outside sources in plentiful quantities. They might even be able to take the literary definitions they find online and make substantive associations to the texts they are reading all on their own. I didn’t say they weren’t smart. Can the technology care about them though? Obviously the technology can tell them about values and give them empiric definitions of these values, but can it hold them accountable? It can give them due dates, and even penalize them for failing to meet certain requirements, but can it be disappointed, and can that disappointment encourage them to do better next time? Is it always about a high score, or is it sometimes about hearing the human voice saying “Great job!”? Can the technology hold their hands when they are hurting, can it pray with them and for them, can it check back in and ask if everything is okay? Can it be hard and mete out necessary discipline with the hopes of correcting behaviors before they become too ingrained to change?

Honestly, I’m still not through asking myself the question. I’m also not sure I disagree with Shaw. Are there things I’m not doing because I’m teaching? Of course. Would some of those things be more rewarding both financially and emotionally? Perhaps. So why am I teaching? I guess I’ll keep teaching until I figure out the answer, because that one is definitely not readily available through our information age of sources.