Too often test-fearing schools serve up a dull literary curriculum that's meant to teach instead of enchant, excite and prepare our students for a life time of learning. Two new books for adults have views that argue strongly for bringing back imagination, thought and wonder
Barbara Feinberg is the creator of Story Shop, a writing and arts program, but it was parenting two children that inspired her to write Welcome to the Lizard Motel: Children, Stories, and the Mystery of Making Things Up (Beacon, $25.00). Her memoir was launched when she noticed her twelve-year-old son, usually an enthusiastic reader, sitting "stiffly" over an assigned middle school book. She questioned him. He disparaged the literature. And she found the courage to investigate a genre that had intimidated her.
Feinberg's reading led her to discover a grim variety of problem novels chosen bent on teaching life's hard realities like drinking, neglect, atrocities of foster care, abandonment, alcoholism, kidnapping, child abuse, family violence, sexual abuse, incest, teen suicide, running away and child prostitution, and self mutilation. Many were written with a serious tone that tackled these "traumatic themes" with " a relentless earnestness." Instead of a literature from which children could draw courage, the books seemed a "teaching tool" limited and protected by the "strict, humorless watchdog of Political Correctness".
Her memoir mixes parenting, philosophy, psychology, reviewing and poetry in a readable book that makes you think. Feinberg gives convincing arguments based on keen observations at home, in her workshops, as well as her research and experiences with the literature.
Her point of view is often personal and poignant as when she compares two classic books: Katherine Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia and Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Feinberg is captured by Paterson's beautiful writing and the story of a young boy with an imaginative and wonderful friend who dies without warning near the book's end. The finish left Feinberg "unsettled" and "unconsoled". In Smith's book Francie, the heroine, faces poverty and her father's alcoholism and early death, but these occur in the book's middle so the book becomes " bigger that the tragedy" and portrays " a whole life, not just one driven by a 'problem'".
Feinberg's observations of how children create offers the most powerful arguments against a literature that force-feeds reality. She describes calming herself and her daughter with a student story about a mystical, mysterious hotel run by a lizard. They escape into this magical world and all their worries faded.
In contrast, she recounts a joyless writing session in her daughter's classroom, led by a special teacher who comes in to share the work of Lucy Calkins' Writing Project (probably the most popular writing method in today's schools). Calkins proposes that children need to have "writerly" lives, continually observing and waiting to leap on a poetic moment from their experiences to orchestrate it and see how important their lives are. This teacher demands the children pay attention to her lesson, ignoring the fact that their interest has been captured by a spider dramatically weaving a web behind her.
"No child I have known," Feinberg writes, "experiences 'reality' only in terms of what happens...for all children, except in cases of extreme pathology, there is to a greater or lesser degree a corresponding magical, imaginative counterpart to experience." In problem novels, "the child protagonist, while presented with the darkest and most upsetting situations imaginable, is denied what in real childhood would exist in abundance: recourse to fantasy." In these novels, "the worst the reality, the weaker the character's imagination, the more he must learn to cope, by relying on himself. In reality, I think the reverse is more often true: the harsher and more stressful life is for a child, the more fecund the imagination, as if the imagination is the natural antidote, sanctuary, resting place, insulation, place for renewal."
This book is strong and insightful, but not perfect. The author sometimes indulges herself in extraneous, distracting details. And while she's adamant that children find their own way in creating and reading stories, she's often invasive in asking her children's opinions. "Leave me alone!" her son cries. Reading, I felt as annoyed as he did.
The second adult voice comes from respected children's book author, Sam Swope. Swope, a writer with a wacky imagination, was asked by Teachers & Writers Collaborative to run a ten-day workshop with a group of third graders in Queens. He fell in love with this class of children from twenty-one countries who spoke eleven languages, and he continued collaborate on stories with them for three years. When he moves from becoming "just Sam" to Mr. Swope, he is "renamed. At a stroke, rechristened. In a way, reborn-although I didn't know that yet." This man who'd pared his life down to "the essentials: a small Manhattan rental, no kids, no car, not even a TV" suddenly finds himself sharing his sense of wonder with children. His resulting memoir, I Am a Pencil (Holt, $25.00), is a record of their stories and his journey into the art, frustrations, and magic of teaching children the pleasures and pitfalls of writing.
His format was to launch an exciting long term project which required writing. For example, his students drew their bodies and turned those drawings into personal islands with descriptive topographies that initiated stories. Swope met with children individually, asking questions that prompted tales and making notes so that the children could create and learn from their own writing experiences.
The children's writings are good, but not great. But it's not the end, but the means that intrigues Swope. He's thrilled by the writing process, the unearthing of true thoughts and free-wheeling imagination. One of the strengths of this book is Swope's insightful, well-written discoveries about writing, teaching, children and life. The other is his honesty. Transcribed conversations reveal much and it's not always pretty. It's painful to read about an intriguing child who suddenly tells him that she hates him, or that he's missed clues to really understanding a student. Though he wishes to have a quiet, Zen-like presence he understands, "you have to be the teacher you are, not the one you'd like to be." And when he tries desperately to reach a promising student he realizes "a teacher can only show his passion, not give it." On the other hand, there's joy in his delight of their voices and sweetness in his longing for the children over summer breaks.
Swope is dedicated to his students. He tries to understand their families and even helps them find middle schools that will support their learning. He gives them so much and yet, it's clear that he's also receiving much from them. Near the book's end Swope speaks to Miguel who is lost and you understand the strength of his purpose. He tells Miguel, "I was lost in my life three years ago. I felt my life was pointless...I found your class and made a commitment...You children changed my life. But I gave my life a purpose." The book ends with a letter to his students, concluding "Teaching is like reading a fascinating novel that you lose before you've finished the story. Drop me a line if you get the chance."
This is a man who will never forget these children. Swope understands the art and spirit of teaching and thrives watching their thoughts and imagination expand and unfold. Swope is unfettered by curriculum chains and is able to follow where his creative heart leads him.
Are most teachers allowed and encouraged to nuture our children in this way? Certainly not public school teachers in the climate of No Child Left Behind. Is it important? Thomas Kean and his fellow 9-11 panelists cited the most important failure of our leaders was "one of imagination." We may be educating children to meet short-term skills goals with testing, but what about the long-term effect on our society and culture and tomorrow's leaders?
Feinberg's examples are astute. At one point, she compares two well-regarded young adult books from different eras to draw conclusions about how the genre has changed. Both are well-written and have conflicts, but it's how these quandries are handled that concerns Feinberg. Katherine Paterson's Newbery-award winning Bridge to Terabithia tells the powerful story of a boy who is changed by an wonderful, imaginative friend who dies who dies without warning near the book's end. The finish left Feinberg "unsettled" and "unconsoled". While Betty Smith's classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is full of issues. Francie, the heroine, faces poverty, her mother's severity, her father's alcoholism and early death, but these occur in the book's middle so the book becomes "bigger that the tragedy" and portrays " a whole life, not just one driven by a 'problem'."