In my High School English class we periodically had in-class essays where we received an unseen passage from a book we were reading and needed to construct an essay in response to a certain question in 45 minutes. They were some of the most challenging periods I ever took. What struck me was that I often did my best, boldest thinking during those classes. When the time pressure was on, and I had no opportunity to leave the work and return later, I made intriguing connections and bolder analyses than I did when I was writing an essay at home.
It turns out that the same leaps in thinking sometimes take place when I'm under the pressure of teaching a lesson. Today I wanted to talk to the twelfth grade about the purpose of memorials. Why do we feel the need to remember those who have come before us? I showed them these two images at the beginning of class:
This is a WWII memorial in Great Britain.
This is the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C.
They had great comments on the difference between them, how one seemed to emphasize the human experience of war - the loss, the hardship, the personal sacrifice, while the other glorified the collective experience, especially the victory. The fountains seem a celebration of post-war triumph. We'd looked at that "After total war can come total living" poster in class, and clever S. said in class today: "They had total war; now this is total living."
I asked them why we have memorials, and these are the things they said:
The last comment, added by R., I found fascinating. She pointed out that as we walk past those bronze soldiers in the current day, buzzing, peaceful city, we appreciate how far our nation has come. Similarly, when we walk among those fountains, we feel a sense of awe that this setting, which could not be a starker contrast the dim danger of war, is ours.
We talked about the last scene of All My Sons in which Keller realises that his son Larry flew his plane into a mountain when he learned that his father shipped out flawed airplane parts that caused 21 pilots to lose their lives in plane crashes. Keller agrees to turn himself in to the police. When Mother argues, protesting that "he's sorry! What else can he be?" Chris, the surviving son, is relentless. "Better!" he shouts. "You can be better!" He implores his parents to recognise that they are part of a great web of meaning, and that their actions affect others in the universe.
I asked the students which memorials they thought the characters would approve of. They said Keller would like the one that emphasises post-war prosperity, since looking at the soldiers would only remind him of the "sons" he indirectly killed by sending those plane parts out.
The part of the lesson that came into my head like an idea that surfaces during an in-class essay was that, hey, drama is a monument. Drama is a way to memorialise the past. When this occurred to me, I thought, Hm, how can we draw this out?
I asked whether memorials achieve the things they set out to do. R. said that they do, for a period of time. I asked what memorials could do to increase their sticking power - to make them more effective. A. said "Put my name on it." Others sniggered, but I was thrilled. We acknowledged that we needed something that related to our lives, that we could see ourselves in. Others added, if we have names and ages of the people involved, that would help us feel more connected to the memory. (Starting to sound like stage directions, right?)
Others said, I need to get a feeling for the experience of those who suffered, and I need to know how the families experienced the event. Seriously, they were putting it all together so well. After these comments, I restated them all, pointing to the person who had offered up each piece. Then I sat there for a second. Then I held up my book. Faces brightened. It was cool.
Now, the part that I then plunged onward with, which I'm not sure if it made any dent, was this:
Theater does what public monuments often don't, when it shows us the negative side of the memorialised event, and thus offers a warning that gets us to heed Chris's exhortation to "be better!" We can't really depend on the short-lived emotions stirred up by a memorial to get us to change the way we live. But when we see the warning embedded in the story of the Kellers, the way Keller's lie ripped his family apart, and his unwillingness to accept responsibility in society laid a huge burden on all his family members (not to mention the pilots who died) we see that and think, "Whoa, I'd better be better, or else!" This kind of message is generally considered too harsh for a sidewalk memorial, but drama is all over the warning part of the memorial's message.
As soon as Chris says "We need to be better!" we hear a gun shot, sounding off like a final warning:
Keller has gone into the house and ended his own life with a bullet.
It turns out that the same leaps in thinking sometimes take place when I'm under the pressure of teaching a lesson. Today I wanted to talk to the twelfth grade about the purpose of memorials. Why do we feel the need to remember those who have come before us? I showed them these two images at the beginning of class:
This is a WWII memorial in Great Britain.
This is the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C.
They had great comments on the difference between them, how one seemed to emphasize the human experience of war - the loss, the hardship, the personal sacrifice, while the other glorified the collective experience, especially the victory. The fountains seem a celebration of post-war triumph. We'd looked at that "After total war can come total living" poster in class, and clever S. said in class today: "They had total war; now this is total living."
I asked them why we have memorials, and these are the things they said:
We talked about the last scene of All My Sons in which Keller realises that his son Larry flew his plane into a mountain when he learned that his father shipped out flawed airplane parts that caused 21 pilots to lose their lives in plane crashes. Keller agrees to turn himself in to the police. When Mother argues, protesting that "he's sorry! What else can he be?" Chris, the surviving son, is relentless. "Better!" he shouts. "You can be better!" He implores his parents to recognise that they are part of a great web of meaning, and that their actions affect others in the universe.
I asked the students which memorials they thought the characters would approve of. They said Keller would like the one that emphasises post-war prosperity, since looking at the soldiers would only remind him of the "sons" he indirectly killed by sending those plane parts out.
The part of the lesson that came into my head like an idea that surfaces during an in-class essay was that, hey, drama is a monument. Drama is a way to memorialise the past. When this occurred to me, I thought, Hm, how can we draw this out?
I asked whether memorials achieve the things they set out to do. R. said that they do, for a period of time. I asked what memorials could do to increase their sticking power - to make them more effective. A. said "Put my name on it." Others sniggered, but I was thrilled. We acknowledged that we needed something that related to our lives, that we could see ourselves in. Others added, if we have names and ages of the people involved, that would help us feel more connected to the memory. (Starting to sound like stage directions, right?)
Others said, I need to get a feeling for the experience of those who suffered, and I need to know how the families experienced the event. Seriously, they were putting it all together so well. After these comments, I restated them all, pointing to the person who had offered up each piece. Then I sat there for a second. Then I held up my book. Faces brightened. It was cool.
Now, the part that I then plunged onward with, which I'm not sure if it made any dent, was this:
Theater does what public monuments often don't, when it shows us the negative side of the memorialised event, and thus offers a warning that gets us to heed Chris's exhortation to "be better!" We can't really depend on the short-lived emotions stirred up by a memorial to get us to change the way we live. But when we see the warning embedded in the story of the Kellers, the way Keller's lie ripped his family apart, and his unwillingness to accept responsibility in society laid a huge burden on all his family members (not to mention the pilots who died) we see that and think, "Whoa, I'd better be better, or else!" This kind of message is generally considered too harsh for a sidewalk memorial, but drama is all over the warning part of the memorial's message.
As soon as Chris says "We need to be better!" we hear a gun shot, sounding off like a final warning:
Keller has gone into the house and ended his own life with a bullet.
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