All year long I try my best to explain to my learners that "English Class" is more than just me expecting them to read something and write something, that "English Class" is about exploring the ways that they-yes, even as teens-can use language as a tool. A tool to mourn. A tool to grieve. A tool to vent. A tool to inspire. A tool to encourage change. No matter what is going on in the world, people use their voice-their language-to just make it through the day.
In the midst of a unit I call "The Rhetoric of September 11th", where I ask students to examine how Americans reacted to the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01, the Boston Marathon explosions occurred. It was the final day of in-class work time, and the final draft was due the next day. As I heard the news I had been considering how to "wrap up" the 9/11 unit. I wanted to drive home the point that sometimes when there is nothing to "do," we should just turn to our voice. Talk to someone. Listen to someone. Write-published or not. I wanted them to see that the power for the powerless is found in language and the ways we use it.
And so, I read and read and read and read. Hoping something would jump off the computer screen at me. I returned to school the next day with the understanding that I had exactly 4 hours to find something genius. All while also trying to teach other learners a lesson about "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathon Swift. And then it happened. I was listening to a local radio broadcast, when the DJ read the following Facebook post by actor, comedian Patton Oswalt. This was exactly what I needed.
Boston. F---g horrible.
I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction
was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."
But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to
be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem -- one human insect or a poisonous
mass of broken sociopaths.
But here's what I DO know. If it's one person
or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a
fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of
the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help
out.…This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices
and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is,
every once in a while, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled
and they're pointed towards darkness.
But the vast majority stands against that
darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken
and eventually wash away the evildoers and, more importantly, the damage they
wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if
humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.
So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or
intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just
look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always
will."
This originally appeared on Patton Oswalt's Facebook page.
Today I spent the entire period just talking to my kids about how people everywhere use language to do the thing they think need to be done. To say the things that need to be said. This simple reading took my discussion to a lot of different places, but it was one I will never forget. My learners were more engaged, more on task, and more interested in this discussion than any other we have had all year. They talked not only about this idea, but they shared and discussed other Tweets, Facebook posts, and new reports they had read over the last 24 hours, and for the first time in a long time...THEY GOT IT! They fully embraced the idea, even if only for a second, that maybe words do have power!!
