Animal Farm, revisited
I had the best conversation with my wife last night.
She had just finished reading Animal Farm for her book club. She hadn’t read it before, maybe because she’s from Poland. (Animal Farm is the allegorical tale of the Russian Revolution and Stalin’s rise to power in the Soviet Union as told through the lives of talking farm animals in England. Written by George Orwell and published in 1945. The whole book is online and free here.)
I have read this book probably 20 times. I taught this book 4 times per year for three years straight. I wouldn’t do that if it wasn’t such an important and great book that is also particularly easy to read.
When I taught Animal Farm, I would often pair it with Harrison Bergeron, a dystopian short story written by Kurt Vonnegut in 1961.
Set in 2081, Harrison Bergeron tells the story of a United States that has finally achieved equality; an equality the government enforces ruthlessly through the office of the Handicapper General. Strong people are forced to wear weights in order to prevent them from taking unfair advantage of their strength. Smart people have to wear headphones that emit piercing noises every few seconds to distract them from their thoughts. Attractive people wear ugly masks, newscasters stutter and so on. Disobedience is not tolerated.
As I was talking to my hot wife about Animal Farm and Harrison Bergeron, I was inundated with teaching flashbacks. I was suddenly teaching Animal Farm and Harrison Bergeron in my 12th grade Government class.
It was one of my favorite things as a teacher. There is a lot to chew on. And we look at these two stories while also reading Locke and Hobbes. For a solid week, we are neck deep in the state of nature, the origins and purpose of government, the social contract and state-sanctioned violence.
Which is the more important value, freedom or equality? How would you define freedom and equality? Should the government use violence to enforce these values? Which story would you rather live in?…
That last question always got people talking in class. After about a half minute somebody would argue that the question makes no sense unless we know what kind of animal we would be on Animal Farm….Exactly!!!…Now we’re talking about class structure and how it might interact with freedom, equality and violence.
As I was reliving those fierce and fascinating class discussions I started to remember individual students who had spoken. This is why teachers teach. These kids were in it. Hungry, smart and present.
And just after I had finished basking in those memories and patting myself on the back for planning and executing such an amazing and compelling unit on the Origins of Government, I started to remember the students who didn’t participate in the discussion.
Over time, I became more prepared for them. For kids who weren’t participating, I was ready with other supports. We read a lot of the book in class. And we would take notes together with graphic organizers. We would get in groups for reciprocal teaching. We would preview difficult vocabulary words because dictionaries are far too complex. I would assign a chapter or two per night; about 8-12 pages.
Most students didn’t read the book. In fact, I feel confident saying that almost nobody read the book. After all that….
Am I a bad teacher or are you guys really fucking lazy?
Dear Kids:
I’m doing my best. I think I put together a pretty interesting unit here. We are studying the basic ideas that animate all of humanity; the very origins of social structures and government. This is shit you don’t absolutely have to know, but you’ll be better off in the long run if you stop for a second to learn some names and basic ideas…
I care that you learn, but, unfortunately, I am not able to care for you.
I gave you a story about talking fucking animals that’s written on a fifth grade level. You are all between the ages of 16 and 23. We read half of it in class. We also read the entire Harrison Bergeron story aloud in class.
And you don’t have any idea what either of these stories is about?
Then fuck you. You’re an idiot.
Every second I spend with you is a second stuffed up my ass that could have been used on somebody else in this room who gives a shit or is at least willing to pretend.
Sincerely,
Mr. Teachbad
I could have written that letter.
I hate mid-term. It’s a non-stop, soul-sucking siege to recognize that you just wasted the last three months.
I’m going to TRY to teach Animal Farm in my Film and Lit class (the theme this year is about systems and the ways in which we work- or not- within them). Wanna take odds on how many of my kids actually do the reading?
Yeah, I think so, too….
Dear Parents of American Schoolchildren,
If your child walks in to my 7th grade classroom reading at a 3rd grade level–congratulations! You have worked REALY HARD to reinforce his essential laziness. You have skillfully eliminated all print material from his environs, you have encouraged him to watch TV pretty much constantly for the past 11 years. You refused to take him to the library and apparently dodged any attempt to engage him in conversation or critical thinking. Do I, for even one second, question the teaching ability of his previous teachers? Hell no! They were all highly educated, motivated, dynamic people who chose to spend their lives helping young children prepare for future academic success. Look back at all those report cards. Do you see where the teachers wrote LOTS of notes urging junior to practice what they were learning in school, keep reading during summer, read at home for half-an-hour each day? They wanted to add, “–for fucks sake!” but didn’t because they are really nice people. So now your kid’s sole purpose in my school is to drag down our reading scores even further. I am going to have to spend most of the year trying to get him to work his way through a paragraph and understand the content even though there is an illustration AND the main idea in blue italic text just off to the left. Congratu-effing-lations mom and dad!
Crud! I meant REALLY–not realy, as in, I’m really tired and need to go to bed so I can function tomorrow while we try to find facts in an atlas tomorrow. God give me strength.
I knew that was you. Good luck w/ the atlas tomorrow. I got your back.
Annals of laziness:
Today in my french class I asked a kid which word in the sentence was the verb. She said she didn’t know. The sentence was written on the board with the verb underlined and labeled “verb.” She also asked me what a verb was. I told her I really couldn’t make this any easier for her. Le grand sigh.
Hamlet, Act 4. (I am practically enacting the whole play for these unappreciative, non-reading lazy seniors. Read aloud, think aloud, fill in the answers for them . . but I digress)
Hamlet conveniently hops a pirate ship to get back to Denmark (oops spoiler alert!) anyway: I mention that there are still pirates in the world off the coast of Somalia.
“Where’s Somalia?” a kid asks.
“Africa,” I answer, glad to have any sign of life with this group.
“Oh!” says he. “Africa has an ocean?”
gah.
Today we were reading about tyranny. After taking notes, we “simulated” tyranny. Since tyrants normally take power by force, the kids engaged in a quick rock-paper-scissors tournament to see who would take power “by force” of their rock-paper-scissors skill. I modeled how to play rock-paper-scissors, just in case. In one of my classes, half of the kids messed it up anyway. Several said “I don’t get it.” In every other class this activity went fine; but with this one class I had to abandon it (and then it took five minutes for the dumb comments and Beavis and Butthead-style laughing to stop). I actually said “If rock-paper-scissors confuses you, then you’re beyond my help.” I normally don’t get sarcastic with them, but I couldn’t stop myself. (They’re middle-schoolers, by the ways.)
I know they say teachers shouldn’t be sarcastic. And why is that? They just say you shouldn’t do it…some touchy feely self-esteem don’t let the truth get in the way of how you feel about yourself crap. Sarcasm is my life. And the kids get it. And even the really dumb ones knew they had it coming and that it’s funny. Jeez, without sarcasm I don’t know if I could have survived.
Sarcasm really needs some verbal skills to understand. Most jokes need some skills in vocabulary, current events, social behavior. When you deal with dolts in the classroom, they simply do not understand what is going on. No jokes, no sarcasm, no amusement. If you say anything it is taken at exact literal value, if it is understood at all.
Life in inner city school is no joy.
Harrison Bergeron is one of my favorite stories. Maybe that is part of the reason I loathe teaching…I just cannot stand the touchy-feely “everyone is a winner!” mentality.
I teach chorus in an elementary school. I see the kids once a week for 45 minutes. The songs I assign are not easy, but they are not impossibly difficult either. I also try to pick music that they will enjoy. All I ask is that the kids come prepared to sing and not sit there rolling their eyes at me when I ask them to stand up or get out a piece of music. But I am sure you can guess how well that works out.
The saddest part of their attitudes is that chorus is an elective, so they have chosen to be there. And I feel for the upper grade teachers who get them after me, because I doubt they will suddenly start caring once they reach those awesome teenage years.
they chose their electives based on how easy they perceive the class will be. thus when you start asking them to do what they perceive as hard or annoying or whatever, you get the rolling eyes etc.
THE and i mean THE fundamental issue/difficulty we have been experiencing in education more and more as the years have gone on is that as a people we have valued and desired and worked less and less and less – education.
thus one of the main reasons why poorer countries have been doing so well in education is because they DO value education. its their way out and up. im speaking in general of course.
i asked my immigrant kids why they or their parents or grandparents came to america and they all said to get an education and have a better life. and then i asked them well how is that going – and i basically got a lot of avoiding the question because they’re not taking advantage of their education. they’re failing. dropping out. dealing drugs. getting pregnant. the poverty cycle continues.
i then ask them if education is the reason they came, if its the way out and up, then why aren’t they taking better advantage of it? their honest nearly unanimous answer? “because we’re happy with where we’re at. we’re happy with the way things are. all the effort…its too hard. too much. its not worth the effort.”
sex drugs and rock and roll. have phones and facebook. house parties with beer pong. raves. they get passed anyway. taken care of by their parents and/or the government. rarely parented. raised in an instant easily gratified or dont bother culture. any or all of these elements. no wonder they dont value education and behave as they do. no wonder they roll their eyes in music class.