Changing Perspectives Via Classic Literature

Yesterday, EP was presenting his fourth classic paper and project. That's the biggie in my class - the culmination of two years of reading classics. By this time, the children write and reflect very well, and essentially the presentation is a celebration of the student, the book, and good literature. (Often the papers are ten plus pages long!)

EP chose one of the more difficult books to read and present about: Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales. With several hundred stories included, many of which are obscure and seemingly pointless by today's standards, it is challenging to pull together a paper that covers such a broad group of stories. (Aesops Fables and A Child's Garden of Verses present the same problems.)

EP chose to highlight several of the stories in the book, stories with which he had a personal connection. He then connected these to other classics he'd read during the past two years and simply NAILED the assignment as he reflected on themes, messages, and other insights. (I love it when that happens!)

Afterward, the classmates are given the opportunity to ask questions and offer feedback. I always participate in this part, and I asked him why he thought that this book, which contained stories still well known as well as ones that would be forgotten otherwise, was still valued by our culture and being read.

EP's response caught me a bit off guard.

"I think it's because it gets people to think differently about the world, sort of like our spider cup."

Like our spider cup? The plastic cup I keep near the sink (along with a giant fake black spider) for the kids to capture spiders and other insects and then dump them out the window? How does the spider cup change our perspective?

And so I asked EP that very question.

He seemed surprised that I would ask. "Well, it's like how our perspectives changed after reading Charlotte's Web. Those of us who have read it look at spiders differently now. We put them in the cup and take them outside instead of squishing them."

He's right. That is why I have the spider cup. I am trying to teach children that all life, great and small, has value, and that there is no reason to kill something just because it wandered into our classroom. (I do make exceptions for flies, mosquitos, fleas, lice, and more recently, fire ants.)

And, if a classic book like Charlotte's Web put a face to those spiders and other insects, causing children to change their actions, then that, in my opinion, is a very good thing.

The fact that EP could then extend that concept to other books and their ways of changing us and our perceptions, makes me happy as a teacher.