Huckleberrying is not on Marzano's Checklist, and Other English Teacher Musings on Thoreau

I really am going to write a book about education one of these days. But in the meantime, you, my magnanimous reader, will just have to be subjected to my brief musings on literature, curriculum, and multiple guess exams.

I never learned about Thoreau when I was in school besides the quick one line definition: Thoreau was a transcendentalist. Then, my textbook defined transcendentalist and moved on. Alas, in my final year as an educator, I came across this play, written as a protest piece during the Vietnam War era. I love Vietnam War history. I took an entire semester-long course in it in college, complete with a professor who did a really bad, but mildly addicting Lyndon B. Johnson accent. So, obviously my interest was piqued. But with ALLLLLLL of the texts I had to re-read (and read!) this year, I didn't have time for a play that wasn't even really on the curriculum. But, when I covered Romanticism, Regionalism, and other -isms in literature, I postponed Transcendentalism. I'm not sure why. I figured I would get to it at the end of the school year. Maybe it's the mere length of the word that intimidated me. I'm not sure. But, regardless, here I am towards the end of the school year, and I find myself holding this short play. And now I find the need to comment on it. So, here are some musings...

My high school didn't give me this play most likely because they couldn't trust us with it. I can't imagine who the brave English teacher would be who would try. Thanks, Stuyvesant!

If my name is Jamie Leigh, and I feel as though my middle name is not getting enough limelight, can I call myself Leigh Jamie?

"If the law is of such a nature that it requires you to be an agent of in justice to another, then I say, break the law."~Thoreau. Would this stand up in a court of law if I used it as an excuse as to why I didn't follow the curriculum? Technically, this play is on the honors' curriculum. So, am I teaching rebellion? Am I giving students another "excuse" to use? What is really going wrong?

Why can't the alphabet start with Z? Or even Q for that matter? J?

Ulysses S. Grant says, "only I had not the moral courage to resign" in reference to the war waged by the U.S. on Mexico in the 1800s. What would you do if you had the moral courage? Stanley Milgram experiment: would we shock the world? Would you be an electrocuter or the change you want to see in the world? Why do we, as a society, bow down so low to authority to protect something that we don't even really believe in in the first place? (I.E. a job?) Could we live jobless? We can't answer that unless we have tried.

College, in a dialogue nutshell:

"Welcome home. How's your overstuffed brain?"
"I've forgotten everything already."
"At least you've got a diploma."

Emerson gets described as the same way Hesse describes Siddhartha. There's got to be something to that.

Teaching, in Thoreau summation:

Huckleberrying is not on Marzano's checklist.

"Class. You've heard the Deacon. We shall stick to the approved books. Your eyes must not wander from the page--to look at a leaf, or an unauthorized butterfly. You must not listen to a cricket or smell a flower that has not been approved by the School Committee. You'd better close both ears and hold your nose--though you may have to grow an extra hand to do it."

"What you believe is irrelevant. Your opinion, as a teacher, has not been asked for."

"Obedience. An essential quality in subordinates, whether they are pupils in a classroom or soldiers on a battlefield." (Or teachers in a school... always consequences)
"They are not training to be soldiers. Not my students."
"These young people are not YOURS. They have been sent to you by the tax-paying citizens of Concord, who expect you to abide by the rules laid down by the school administrators. Perform your duty, Schoolmaster Thoreau, if you expect to retain your post in the community." (How Machiavellian, and how true!)

"I shall never teach again."

And they wonder why history is a required class...