Conclusion
Asking students to grapple with a text as well as its context and the attitudes of its author in their thoughts and analysis is asking them to employ deeper depth-of-knowledge thinking, and connecting fictional literature to factual situations will also challenge their critical thinking skills. I could ask them to regurgitate obscure facts from 1984 or memorize the definitions of different government systems, but creating those connections through discussion and writing will help them practice more complex thinking across disciplines.
Despite setbacks in her personal life, Williams shared in The Prize that “‘I think a lot about what distinguished me from my friends who became statistics,’ [Williams] said. ‘Yes, I saw people get shot. Yes, I saw people get arrested in my own family. But I never had a teacher say, “I’m going to expect less of you because of what you’re going through.” We have to say, “We understand this is very hard for you, but we’re not going to use that as an excuse to hold you to a lower standard, and you can’t allow it to make you lower your own standards for yourself’” (28). While I as their teacher cannot change the home or social situation of a student in my class, I can encourage them to examine everything around them with a critical eye and to challenge themselves to rise above setbacks. They have already done this by signing up for my AP class in the first place, so I hope to support my students as they continue to engage in their own civic education.
My primary concern is for the wellbeing of my students, and this may be seen as an anti-academic attitude. However, in The Great Escape, Angus Deaton uses “the term wellbeing to refer to all the things that are good for a person, that makes for a good life. Wellbeing includes material wellbeing, such as income and wealth; physical and psychological wellbeing, represented by health and happiness; and education and the ability to participate in civil society through democracy and the rule of law” (29). Hence, engaging my students in a rigorous education is adding to their wellbeing just as much as acknowledging their mental health needs, for instance. Keeping the thread of civic education and education in general as a focus for the curriculum unit will underscore the connection between 1984 and injustices perceived in the world around us. Overall in my English classes, I want students to take what they have learned and think about how these lessons apply to real world situations. One main theme in my instruction in all classes is that I want my students to question the things, people, and systems around them.
Indeed, if Orwell’s sentiment as expressed through Winston is correct that “Nothing” truly is “your own except the few cubic centimeters in your skull” (30), fostering those critical thinking and analytical questioning skills that allow students to harness those “few cubic centimeters” to enact change in the face of the injustice of inequality is our most important mission as a classroom community.
Comments: