Recently, I was thumbing through the pages of books I had the privilege to teach to Upper School scholars in times past. I started thinking about the purpose of them. Afterall, good stories tackle the fundamental question of what it means to be human and among other great ideas, how to live with each other in community.
For example, in Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout, a young girl growing up in the deep south, comes to age in a community wrestling with prejudice and misconceptions, lies and vendettas. When her father takes a court case that divides the community, Atticus instructs Scout to “remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they’re still our friends, and this is still our home.” The admonition to be friendly comes in stark contrast to the unfriendly nature of the divide.
To expand on the theme, scholars read Golding’s Lord of the Flies. In this novel, a group of stranded schoolboys establish a community forced to navigate life without adults. When the foundational rules for living together – social contract, order, and more- get tossed out, devastating consequences emerge. In the end, young Ralph weeps “for the end of innocence, [and] the darkness of man’s heart.”
Then, from an island of adults who live in the same community to a community of children on an island with no adults, comes the story of a head strong, sometimes foolish young man who rejects his father’s advice and sets off on his own. He is successful, but when the call for adventure comes again, the choice to answer it lands him shipwrecked – this is Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.
Eventually, Crusoe comes to grips with his circumstances as a community of one and after significant struggle, realizes that “if nothing happens without His knowledge…He has appointed all to befall me.” Though Crusoe’s recognition of Providence changes the disposition of his soul, his physical condition and the arduous work of his island home remain. He learns to live by himself and with the consequences of his choices.
What a gift to read and discuss these classics with our community of young minds whose moral imaginations form by entering the lives of the characters and by contending with the complexities of the stories. CCA is forging a community unique to present-day, postmodern senses in a sea of competing islands. We have our scholars encounter texts that stretch them and prepare them with knowledge and confidence so that one day they, too, can reminisce about the good stories they read that brought meaningful insight to their lives and prepared them for life in their own communities off our island.
