Thursday, April 01, 2004
teachable moments
I was trying to explain Romeo and Juliet. I was trying to explain the part where Benvolio defends Romeo before the Prince by saying that he had “but newly entertained rage” when he killed Tybalt. I tried to connect this to premeditated murder vs. crimes of passion.
My kids were tired. They had been in three-hour testing all morning and were not in the mood.
”Okay,” I said , trying to be relevant. “You know how the law works. If a woman walks in and finds her husband cheating on her, and - in a moment of jealous rage - she shoots him, then
that crime does not get punished in the same way that it would be punished if she carefully planned it out in advance?” This interested my kids.
“Mrs. J”, they asked, “Would you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Would you kill your husband if you found him cheating?”
So I told them that my husband knows to never cheat on me. He has told me that even if he ever wanted to, fear would keep him faithful. Because I had a boy cheat on me once. And when he did, I did many, many bad things. I put all of the letters I had written to him in a pile in the middle of his bedroom floor and set them on fire and then poured water on the flames. I gave his clothes to Goodwill. I forwarded his mail to Alaska.
One of the girls in the front row raised her hand, more engaged in the lesson than I had ever seen her. “Wait a second - how do you forward mail to Alaska?”
And I looked at these kids, these ninth graders. For many of them, the path to adulthood will not be easy. They will be hurt. They will trust. They will love. And it will hurt them.
Last week was senior skip day - and first block - nine of my ninth grade girls were missing. Just the girls. Ninth grade girls who got “honored” by invitations from twelfth grade boys. That trust will get stripped away. It will get lost the hard way.
And I thought, for a second, that knowing how to forward mail to Alaska was a skill that could prove valuable in later life.
I thought this, but I did not tell them how to do it.
Instead, we went back to the text of the play and the murder and the exile. The kind of love that made a fourteen year old girl take a dagger to bed with her. The lies. The desperation. The tragedy that could have been prevented again, and again, and again.
The story that did not have to end the way it ended.
And the sun for sorrow will not show its head. Some will be pardoned, others punished.
I went back to that. I hope it is enough.
My kids were tired. They had been in three-hour testing all morning and were not in the mood.
”Okay,” I said , trying to be relevant. “You know how the law works. If a woman walks in and finds her husband cheating on her, and - in a moment of jealous rage - she shoots him, then
that crime does not get punished in the same way that it would be punished if she carefully planned it out in advance?” This interested my kids.
“Mrs. J”, they asked, “Would you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Would you kill your husband if you found him cheating?”
So I told them that my husband knows to never cheat on me. He has told me that even if he ever wanted to, fear would keep him faithful. Because I had a boy cheat on me once. And when he did, I did many, many bad things. I put all of the letters I had written to him in a pile in the middle of his bedroom floor and set them on fire and then poured water on the flames. I gave his clothes to Goodwill. I forwarded his mail to Alaska.
One of the girls in the front row raised her hand, more engaged in the lesson than I had ever seen her. “Wait a second - how do you forward mail to Alaska?”
And I looked at these kids, these ninth graders. For many of them, the path to adulthood will not be easy. They will be hurt. They will trust. They will love. And it will hurt them.
Last week was senior skip day - and first block - nine of my ninth grade girls were missing. Just the girls. Ninth grade girls who got “honored” by invitations from twelfth grade boys. That trust will get stripped away. It will get lost the hard way.
And I thought, for a second, that knowing how to forward mail to Alaska was a skill that could prove valuable in later life.
I thought this, but I did not tell them how to do it.
Instead, we went back to the text of the play and the murder and the exile. The kind of love that made a fourteen year old girl take a dagger to bed with her. The lies. The desperation. The tragedy that could have been prevented again, and again, and again.
The story that did not have to end the way it ended.
And the sun for sorrow will not show its head. Some will be pardoned, others punished.
I went back to that. I hope it is enough.
