Comprehension and Compassion

As an English teacher, it is my ultimate goal to send my students out into the world with adequate reading and writing skills. That goal rises above all others. However, I also feel my purpose is greater than that. When I teach the Diary of Anne Frank, for example, I don't just teach comprehension and fluency as students read the play. I don't just teach effective expression as they write their essays. I don't teach just symbolism and other literary elements. I teach compassion along with comprehension. I teach empathy along with expression. I teach students that prejudice and discrimination have no place in my classroom, nor should they have any place in our school, our community, or our world.

Unfortunately, it's been a few years since I've taught eighth-grade English, so it's been a while since I've been able to teach those lessons to a wide group of students within the context of the Holocaust. I would typically show my eighth graders the "Paper Clips" documentary. From the publisher (watch online):

When the students of Tennessee's Whitwell Middle School began studying the Holocaust as a way to learn about intolerance and diversity, nobody could have predicted the results. In 2001, the Paper Clip Project culminated in a unique memorial that changed the lives of those who created it, as a well as touching Holocaust survivors and countless communitites.

Because Norwegians invented the paper clip and used it as a symbol of solidarity against the Nazis, students started collecting them to help visualize such vast numbers of victims. As word spread online and in the media, paper clips poured in from around the world, 11 million of which are enshrined in an authentic German railcar standing in the schoolyard.

I have zero tolerance for intolerance. In my classroom, if I hear remarks that are in any way racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-Semitic, or are in any way discriminatory, that student will be referred to the principal for potential punishment. I plan to process punishments through my new Classcraft system, so even if the student does not serve detention, they will have to complete a "pledge". They will have to write a letter, or a story, or a poem, explaining their behavior and how they plan to change. (More information about Classcraft can be found in my review.)

Discriminatory remarks are not only potentially hurtful to students in the room (all of whom deserve a positive environment in which to learn), they are also hurtful to me. Because of where I went to college, because of my previous experiences working for a convention company based in New York City, I have many friends who are living their truth in many different ways. My college roommate (and the best man at my wedding) lives with his boyfriend in Los Angeles. I have so many friends who are gay, lesbian, or transgender. I have friends who use they/them pronouns. I have friends who are Black, Brown, and Indigenous. Every time I hear an intolerant or prejudicial remark, I think about how they would feel if they heard that remark. I think it's so important to teach students to feel for others, to learn empathy.

This is why it's also so important that students read novels featuring characters who are in some way different than them. Yes, it's important for students to also read books featuring characters that they can relate to in some way because I want them to be engaged in the books that they're reading. However, if I can get students to live inside a character who is vastly different than themselves and try to understand what that character is going through, I will feel as though I've fulfilled that higher purpose. During the next English/Language Arts curriculum review, I plan to look for new class novels that feature characters who are multiracial or multicultural. My students need to experience characters who are culturally different from themselves. They need to learn empathy and compassion, along with expression and comprehension.