Reverse Psychology -- The Ultimate Educational Tool

"The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind." -- Kahlil Gibran

I want to be this kind of teacher. I want my students to engage that mostly inactive lump of gray matter between their ears and figure out what they think about this world they live in. I'm afraid that if they don't, they will be herded like sheep for the rest of their lives: safe and warm in the pack, comfortably running in the general direction of the others until they are cut out of the flock by predators or until the entire flock plunges over the edge of the ravine.

Today, I started talking to my kids about banned books in preparation for teaching To Kill a Mockingbird (TKaM). TKaM is one of my all-time favorite books. The messages in it are so powerful and so relevant for any person who has ever walked this planet. It's not bound by time, race, gender, nationality, language, or culture. More than almost any other book I've read, it's a universal. We feel the struggles of the characters within ourselves because we have walked those paths ourselves.

I want my kids to engage this novel actively. I was really encouraged by how impassioned some of them became when we were talking about banning books. Most of them had no idea what sorts of books might become banned or why someone might want to ban a book. I forget how young they are. We listed several famous examples, Harry Potter, The Catcher in the Rye, Huckleberry Finn, and talked about what sorts of complaints groups have had about them over the years.

Then I told them TKaM is in that same list of commonly banned and challenged books. I knew they'd perk up for that. Controversy draws a teenager more quickly than roadkill draws buzzards (how's that for a gruesome, but apt, metaphor). We talked about why TKaM is on the list, and we'll finish that discussion up on Thursday. I'm interested to see if we can have a semi-involved conversation on the topic. I so want them to think! If I can get even a few of them to start thinking instead of just passively receiving or floating through life, maybe I'll have done something worthwhile this year.