Islands

This week I covered chapter five of Lord of the Flies with my honors freshman English class. While Simon, Piggy and Ralph toil in the tropical sunlight, trying in vain to get the other children to help them build shelters, my students come to class expecting minor explanation, maybe some notes on applicable history or philosophy. They always want to debate whether Piggy or Simon is a better example of a Christ figure, even though it’s a strange topic at this point: both characters are still alive in chapter five.  The honors kids are sharp: they can smell the sacrifice coming.

Instead, every year I pull the same stunt.

First, before class, I find one student who takes good notes, is observant of the people around him, and is usually inconspicuous during discussions.  I tell that person to write down everything that happens in class that day. After the students have settled and I’ve got their attention, I begin.

• I tell the students I’m offering 10% extra credit on the next test to only one student.
• I pick a student.
• I tell that student he can earn the extra credit if he (1) draws an accurate map of the island, (2) completes a two paragraph summary of each chapter in the book, (3) writes a two paragraph summary of each of the six main characters in the book, along with illustrations of each character, and (4) provides a four paragraph analysis of the symbolic importance of the conch shell.
• I tell him he has 20 minutes to finish.
• I leave the room.

The result has been vastly different each year, but always gives the opportunity to emphasize Golding’s point. Virtue, as Shakespeare put it, “is not strained.” We may compel a man to behave in certain ways through bribes or threats, but virtue, by definition can only be given, never demanded. Ralph can’t make Jack or anyone else help build the shelters, maintain the fire, or wear clothes, if they’d rather hunt pigs, daydream, or throw rocks at littluns.

When I get back to class I have the student who was in on the stunt recount his notes, to the horror and dismay of the other students, whose misbehavior (or sometimes merit) is now unexpectedly exposed.

Year one:

The first year I did this, the reactions were widely varied. The girl who got the assignment was of course overwhelmed, and a few students decided to help her. However, they didn’t do that by doing the work themselves, they yelled at everyone to get involved.  One kid declared himself “President of the Class,” but was quickly deposed. One girl went to sleep on her desk.  Two boys began playing paper football.  Several got out food.  Two boys collapsed on the sofa in the corner of the room, thus earning the moniker The Lazy Boys for the rest of the year. They later said, “the problem was that no matter what we did, we still proved your point! So we gave up and went to sleep.”  Eventually a few students tried to help the girl with the project. Afterward they explained their virtue a bit defensively saying, “She just looked so helpless,” or, “I couldn’t just leave her in such a horrible position.” This last bit they uttered with no small amount of condemnation pointed in my direction.

Still, they accomplished the goal.  Everything was well written, and the student who volunteered for the essay finished just as I walked back in the door.

Year two:

This year’s class misunderstood the assignment a bit. They did all the drawings on the dry erase board, which was a bit messy to clean up… but that was a minor problem.  They completed the assignment in record time. Everyone pitched in, wrote carefully and did the work.  The theme they repeated over and over when I asked why they helped was “It’s boring to just sit here and do nothing; we wanted to help!” Virtue was so simple and obvious to them, as if there was no other choice but kindness and self-sacrifice. They gave me hope for education and students in general.

However…

Year three:

All the students went to sleep.  “It was hopeless,” they complained.  “Why put us through that?”

These guys had trouble all year.

Year four:

This year I had high hopes.  I knew a very precise and perceptive young woman in the class who loves teasing her friends, and I enlisted her in taking notes.  The outcome was thoroughly delightful. The absolute mayhem that occurs when one removes an authority figure from the lives of the students is in one respect amusing and in another way horrifying. I can’t figure out whether I should be amazed by it or not. Still, the last entry makes me think they got the point. Enjoy.

What follows is what my little secret agent recorded after I picked the person to receive the assignment and told him what to do for a 10% bonus on the next test (I’ve referred to this undercover operator as the narrator).

Everyone complains about not getting the extra credit assignment.

Then they see the requirements and shut up.

[at this point I left the room]

Everyone FREAKS OUT and Student 1 starts screaming.

Student 1:  “I KNOW: IT’S A TEST! HE WANTS US TO BE LIKE THE BOYS AND FORM A GOVERNMENT!”

Student 1:  “I CALL PIGGY!”

Everyone starts yelling and going crazy at once.

Student 2: “Everyone shut up.”

Student 3: “We don’t have to do anything.”

Student 4: “What if there are cameras and he’s watching us!”

Student 3 says a bunch of big words.

Student 5: “We could play hangman.”

Student 5: “Who wants to play hangman?”

Everyone raises their hands except Student 2, who slaps Student 6 with a pencil box [apparently this stood in for the conch shell during their abandonment], and says “Everyone shut up. I can do whatever I want, no one’s in here.”

Student 3: “We should reproduce and form a civilization.”

Narrator: I told him he’s a creeper after that.

Student 4: “Look for a camera!”

Student 7: “We should call the office.”

Student 8: “Everyone stop talking. There are classes next door.”

Narrator: I think she’s in on it.

Student 7: “Maybe there is no symbolism, maybe he had an appointment.”

Student 9: “He wants us to develop a democracy.”

Narrator: Just for the fun of it I randomly yell, “You can’t make me!”

Student 5 takes a vote. We all start hangman.

Student 10: “It’s our teacher. Nothing is simple with him!”

Student 11: “We should look for themes and make them the hangman words.”

Student 2: “How ironic is it that we’re alone reading a book where kids are alone?” [For my money, this is the best part. They think it’s an accident!]

Student 12: “How ironic is it that his wife is pregnant?”

Everyone is convinced she is near death at this point.

Student 4 won’t shut up about the video camera.

Everyone is still yelling and arguing and going pretty much insane.

Student 6 asks what Narrator is writing. Narrator says homework. He asks what homework. Narrator says, “Your Mom.”

Finally everyone is quiet.

Student 13: “He would have biceps” [apparently indicating the drawing the central student is doing of one of the characters] Student 3 finds this amusing for some reason.

Student 4 is convinced it’s some sort of conspiracy.

No one is talking now, everyone, almost everyone anyway, is doing homework, reading, etc.

Student 6 is listening to his iPod.

Student 13 says, “C sharp…ha ha, that definitely makes you sooooo cool,” in a sarcastic tone.

Thank the Lord that we’re not on that island.  We would all die.