High school students' words offer a ray of hope
The kids really are all right, writes John M. Richardson.
One challenge of the Donald Trump years was figuring out how to teach high school in light of the U.S. president's outrageous words and actions.
Adolescence is a time of active identity formation when students look to adults for cues regarding how they should act, think and talk. How are we supposed to teach students to believe in kindness, the law, respect for others and pluralism when the world's most powerful man loudly proclaims the opposite?
When violence erupted in Washington on Jan. 6, I wanted to give my Grade 11 and 12 English students some means of coming to terms with the distressing news and images flowing across their screens.
Drawing upon the Ontario English curriculum's expectation that students connect texts to the broader world, I asked them to reflect on how works they had studied could be used to think about the violence, hatred and racism on display.
Their powerful insights reassured me. Here are some sample comments.
■ On Macbeth: “The president led his radical followers to break into the Capitol Building in an attempt to change the election results, or at least stop the congressional hearings to confirm his opponent. If Macbeth were alive today, this seems like something he would try.”
■ Also on Shakespeare: “Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband to kill by questioning his masculinity. Likewise, Trump manipulates his fans by saying they need to `show their strength.' ”
■ On Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates' 2015 exploration of the African-American experience: “It is obvious that the police were very lenient compared to the large army that was present when the BLM protests were held. The book argues that the American police and justice system is flawed, racist and some may say a `hoax.' ”
■ On Jeanette Walls' 2005 memoir about growing up in poverty: “I could imagine the grandmother in The Glass Castle flying the Confederate flag from the porch of her decrepit house. Like the MAGA rioters, the people in her town would have little regard for how hurtful that flag would be to people of colour.”
■ On Parasite, the 2019 South Korean movie about class warfare: “The Kim family feels they can take something that does not belong to them like the Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol. The fact that a white man could sit at the desk of the Speaker of the House of Representatives without being arrested or restrained shows unthinkable levels of entitlement and white privilege.”
■ On A Poison Tree by William Blake: “The 1794 poem is about a failure to communicate human emotions, similar to Trump's tweets denying the accuracy of the U.S. election results.”
■ On Not Stupid Enough, Barbara Kruger's 1997 artwork: “It comments on the very society that allowed the Washington events to take place and highlights how large brands want consumers to blindly consume. The Trump platform convinced many Americans that their country was not `good enough' and to be made great again. These are the blind followers that Kruger comments on. Trump has undermined the press and now his followers believe everything is fake except for him.”
■ On F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: “Like Gatsby, Trump is someone with power who wants something he cannot have. Gatsby's actions lead to his demise and I am waiting to see what will happen with Trump as I believe he cannot get away with his actions and, as with Gatsby, they will eventually catch up to him.”
After more than 20 years of teaching high school English, I continue to be surprised, impressed and moved by my students.
It turns out that the president's words and deeds over four years, culminating in the attack on the Capitol, have not disillusioned our future leaders. They have galvanized them.
The kids are more than all right. They are outraged.