Lord of the Flies or Brave New World?

Whew!  One day down, 8 million to go.  I must have forgotten how much raw energy is unleashed in a roomful of boys.  I could almost see sparks flying.  I feel younger already, but also so, so old!   (Maybe that’s what Dylan meant.)   Anyway, I really like the students, as I expected to.  I can see that they’re interesting, lively, eager to learn, lively, friendly, respectful, lively, and...did I say lively?

Seventh grade English starts with 8-10 weeks on narrative writing.  That’s a great beginning since it’s just telling stories.  So we’ll read stories and tell stories and then analyze them and discuss their parts and their meanings.  It’ll be easy to connect stories to their lives in what we read but most of all in what they write.  Their own stories, their family stories, their friends’ and neighbors’ stories--all will be a fit subject for these English classes.  I’m envisioning small group work to develop stories, collections of stories bound and illustrated, stories read or acted aloud, oral histories, community histories (I’ll call you Susan!). 

But I’m also facing the age old dilemma of defining the teacher’s role on a continuum from Lord of the Flies to Brave New World, or maybe from Socrates to Aquinas.  Many colleagues and friends have admonished me to “Get control right away!” or the class will devolve into raging chaos for the whole year. 

I know that these seventh graders are immature and lack self-control--after all they’re not even teenagers yet!  I also know that there is a natural resistance to focusing and working, a desire to play and goof around.  I’ve even known adults who feel that way!

But I also know that loving stories--reading them, writing them, acting them out, talking about them--requires a wild, free-spirited atmosphere of adventure and excitement.  I also know that their own peer interactions are as likely to bear fruit in advancing their understanding and engagement as anything I might say or do. 

So this is THE teacher dilemma.  How much control do I seek to guide the students to learn and expand their understanding?  How much control do I cede to the students for the sake of their freely choosing to engage with writing and reading? 

I hope you didn’t expect an answer to that.  I’m working on it.  Suggestions are welcome, desperately!  More next time.