The Tin Man

This week, just before my kids head home for Christmas break, I brought out the holiday cheer by watching a short film adaptation of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery."  The film is broken in 2 8-minute segments and shows its 1969 date well.  For those that don't know, the story consists of a small town who adhere to tradition rather than morals in determining who is released from the community.  The ending was shocking when I read it back in high school, again in college, and in video form watching it with my fifth graders.  Seeing their hands shoot up to ask questions is the best part of my day.

I thought this was a great intro to the Utopian lifestyle depicted in their next novel, The Giver. by Lois Lowry.  The story is set in some far off future, where the government controls the population, the educational tracts of its citizens, and even the worrisome problem of what to do with the elderly and the defiant.  In this story, and in countless other great science-fiction stories, choice is outlawed in the sake of the mass public.  Overpopulation leads to less resources?  Let's make everyone have 2 kids maximum.  Too many people sick?  Let's euthanize them!  Having "feelings" for the opposite sex?  Take a pill and control your "stirrings"!

The one thing lost on all the hubbub about another popular novel, The Hunger Games, is what the book really says about reality TV, our obsession with celebrities and our reluctance to fight for anything meaningful.  Ironically, one of our vocabulary words this week was rebellion.  No wonder the kids have no idea what the word means--I used the American Revolution and Star Wars as my examples, along with my impersonation of the Emperor himself!

After some note taking about the plot and the characters, we delved into the "why".  Why would a community sacrifice a member each year (again, in The Hunger Games, each district must give 2 tributes for the arena, and those tributes are chosen by a forced lottery)?  Religion was their first answer.  We talk about the Aztecs who sacrificed conquered peoples (did they really rip the hearts out of virgins or is that just some Hollywood fantasy of men?) in order to assure themselves a plentiful crop.  One of my students from Africa starts getting into a punishment ceremony where limbs are chopped off of criminals.  That really got the kids talking!

Another student said that you control the population because you can't feed them all.  Perfect answer!  So we get into hypotheticals.  If having a perfect society means you rid the state of poverty by killing all the poor, would that be okay?  What about the sick and the old?  Where's their place?  Why do you think the people of the town just go along with the lottery?  Why doesn't anyone fight anymore?

We finalized the into to the novel by looking at the movie trailer for the film adaptation of George Orwell's "1984."  What a trailer with its tunic blues, Big Brother faces and fascist embodied flag waving.  It's bleak and gruesome, and I doubt the kids really "get" all of it.  But they see the nonsense of watching our every move.  Don't we have cameras everywhere, I asked.  Eyes light up.  We talk about Hitler.  We write down some thoughts on if a perfect society can be accomplished.  Pencils race.

I have plenty of friends on Facebook and Twitter that rail about all the rights we have supposedly or arguably lost over the last decade.  Gun rights, what we can eat, health care.  I find it ironic too that the phrase "thought police" that was penned by Orwell decades ago is being used so much today, especially after the comments made by Phil Robertson of "Duck Dynasty" fame.

So here's the question--do we really have free speech?  As a teacher, and I'm sure you have too dear reader, I have read countless stories about fellow teachers being sacked because of their rants on social media.  From gun rights, hating Obama, Sarah Palin, gays, blacks, lesbians, PETA, you name it some teacher has said something to defame another which leads to them being put on "administrative leave until a further investigation" is held.  When social media was first making its way into our lives we were all told, not so politely, not to have any social media presence whatsoever.  If it wasn't something you said that would get you fired, what you do in your personal life undoubtedly will offend someone.

After some close calls with my own tongue (it's no accident that the Bible mention the tongue as a flame), I've grown to understand the sensitive nature of my social footprint.  But then again, I can't censor what I don't do.  You wont find pictures of me holding shot glasses (okay maybe) next to some divorced lady with wrinkled cleavage.  You wont find me sticking my middle finger to the viewer as if I have some secret about life that they do not possess.  I hardly even share links to other stories.  I'm pretty bland, not because I have to but because that's just me.  I haven't waded into the culture wars that are prevalent on today's news.  I hardly knew there was a war on Christmas.  They can take all the nativity scenes from every city hall in America and the one that matters most to me is the one at my church, the one in my house and the one in my heart.

What bothers me the most about the divide I see growing in our culture, form black-white, gay and heterosexual, alien believers and non alien believers is that no once can be civil.  Petitions are immediately set in place and signs are thrusts.  If I banned every form of merchandise recommended to me by progressive teachers, Christian moms and environmentalists, I wouldn't drive, eat, drink or wear any clothes.  Where does it all end?  The second worst?  The endless comments that someone felt necessary for every article on the internet.  The Christian spouts biblical verses and the unbeliever pulls something meant for the Jews in the time of Moses and throws it back at us.

One thing for certain, I don't consider myself a bigot.  But then again, what do I really care about what anyone does in their bedroom?   What would I really say to my family members that are gay?  I would still hug them if I saw them.  I don't know what we'd talk about, but I bet it would be catching up and laughs.  I dont always agree with what is shown on tv, but guess what, I just turn the channel.

Maybe our freedoms and ideals are being stripped away.  I think we lost heart years ago.  I was reminded today that in the original "The Wizard of Oz" the character of the Tin Man had a much different story line.  You see, he was a man first, of blood and bone.  The witch was jealous of his love he had for a woman (a munchkin at that) and when he was cutting wood, his axe began to cut off his own limbs.  Each limb was replaced by metal until eventually he became the Tin Man.  He no longer had the love of the woman in his heart, and eventually he was undone by a rainstorm that rusted his parts.  A man without a heart, frozen along the yellow brick road, undone by a green-skinned witch.  

My kids still have those hearts.  They raise their hands and mine beats.