A Question of Values

Abstract

A favorite story of my eighth graders is James Clavell's Children's Story (1963), a little allegory about a classroom filled with third graders who are taken over, their innocent minds and attitudes bent by a beautiful but anonymous young woman called New Teacher. An infiltrator from a foreign land, a sweet-smelling, smiling beauty who from head to toe is dressed in a suspicious shade of drab green, New Teacher sets about applying well-conceived tactics, a master plot designed to overtake her youthful victims. New Teacher, a practitioner of totalitarian politics, ultimately convinces these unsuspecting babes-even Johnny, the skepticthat their mamas and daddies, their flag, their country, and their God are no longer of value. All of this is accomplished in just twenty-five minutes! I thought beyond this tale, so filled with lessons, and directly considered my adolescent students, young people who adamantly insisted that they wouldn't-couldn't possibly-be taken in by such a nameless infiltrator as New Teacher; that they would-in their infinite wisdom and sophistication-certainly recognize evil methods designed to flatter, seduce, infantilize, persuade, brainwash, intimidate, and discredit; that they would know at once if their values and those of their parents were being diminished or dismissed. Surely, these kids approaching young adulthood would be quick to recognize any outside force that denigrated-denied them-their flag, country, and God. My street-wise eighth graders knew for sure that they couldn't possibly become the victims of any ruse perpetrated on them by an insidious power. And yet ....