Each of us has moments from our education that are seared in our memories. They are touchstones for how we move through the world. I remember one such moment like it was yesterday. It was sixth grade at Wildwood Elementary School in Amherst. We were handed "100 Great Short Stories."
The first story we read involved violence, including between family members. It was all about the underside of a community and its traditions. It was unnerving and frightening. I never forgot the story and have returned to it, repeatedly.
It was Shirley Jackson’s "The Lottery."
Should I have been protected from that famous work of literature, of the annual stoning of one of the townspeople by all others? And maybe I also shouldn’t have been allowed to read the disturbing "The Chaser," by John Collier, in which a young man buys a love potion that makes his object of affection obsessed with him. The pharmacist notes that the apothecary also sells poison, then bids the young man farewell with a haunting "au revoir" — "until we meet again."
Was I harmed by being exposed to these troubling stories? Or was my teacher (who later won a national teaching award) putting before me and my classmates works of literature that inspired us to think about ethics and responsibility, and also that cultivated a love of literature?
I mention this, because over 13,000 people responded in October to an MTA Facebook post about the efforts of a small group to remove the book "All American Boys" from the middle school curriculum in Danvers. Seventh-grade teacher and Danvers Teachers Association member Sarah Stone observed when she spoke before the school committee:
"We are standing at a crossroads. Option A is to have faculty teach with books that we select based upon curriculum review, our expertise and the developmental needs of our students. Option B is to pretend that some of the most pressing and relevant issues of our time simply don’t exist and to fail in giving our students the experiences and tools they need to think critically in an increasingly complex world. Only one of these options sounds like a reasonable path for our school community."
Andrea Sherman, president of the Beverly Teachers Association, who spoke as a parent of two children in the Danvers schools and as an English teacher herself, said simply: "Discomfort is not harm. In fact, avoiding that which makes us uncomfortable does our students a great disservice."
We are rightly talking about the need to care for the mental health of our students, advocate for more recess, win a "bell-to-bell" ban on cellphones, protect our LGBTQ+ and immigrant students, and demand more supports inside and outside our classrooms. We will be more committed than ever to protecting those in our schools – students and educators – who are most under threat by forces spinning circles of hate.
At a moment when public education is under attack as never before, we paradoxically must reemphasize our need to offer the gift of discomfort to our students.
Discomfort is the birthplace of real learning – not rote, standardized-test learning, but deeper learning where students engage in a reading, an experiment, a class discussion, a performance and find themselves confused, lost, their preconceptions questioned, wrestling with a problem – and then emerge enlightened. "Comfortable" learning produces adults comfortable with the status quo. Learning rooted in discomfort will produce creatively contentious adults who expect better from a world that produces so much injustice.
And the crucible holding this chemical reaction together is the educator, guiding, supporting, cajoling, questioning, challenging. In other words, educating.
Max Page, MTA President
