Dear Teacher Faced with a Choice,
In 2005, I taught Arthur Miller's, The Crucible, while new shingles were being nailed to the roof of my classroom. The smell of tar paper accompanied with students' indignant cries of "What's that smell?" each period for five straight days was tons of fun.
By the end of the week, I was envious of John Proctor's march to the gallows. Perhaps, we've all had a few days like that recently, days where we feel like we are riding a dying horse.
One of my professors in college once said, "If you're riding a horse and it dies, get off it."
I've always loved that expression. That roof debacle was surely a dying horse I kept riding. I wanted to know how to do better, I just didn't. Sadly, inexperience will keep you saddled to a dead horse until the thing rots in the road and begins to smell like hot tar, but skilled teachers know when it's time to make a shift.
I love watching the teacher who instinctively knows when to switch gears in the middle of a lesson. Like a good coach who makes some offensive adjustments during halftime, skilled teachers, likewise, know when it's time to regroup.
That's why when she told them to close their stale textbooks and focus their attention on a short story instead, they didn't hesitate for a minute. The story was about two characters at a train station discussing the woman's unwanted pregnancy. On one side of the track, there was no shade or trees. On the opposite side, there were fields of grain and trees along the bank.
I have read this story many times. Every time I read it, the contrast between barren and fertile imagery on either side of the track entices me to predict the baby's fate, but do you know dang Hemingway never tells if the story turns into a happily ever after? Why won't he just tell us the ending?
I don't want to give ol' Ernest too much credit because he is, honestly, not my favorite author, but I think maybe he leaves the ending a mystery because the two characters represent all of us. We all get to choose what happens to the baby, and oh the difference, the choice makes.
This year we've all been dealt an unwanted hand. Unfortunately, we don't get a redeal, and we can't fold. We only get to choose how we play the hand we've been given. Barren or fertile?
How will you play your hand?
-CDB