The Legs of Ozymandias: A Support Based Approach To Literary Engagement

Anderson Scull, Psychology, '19

The teaching philosophy assignment gave me a chance to reflect on what I truly valued in terms of an educator, and really invoked some introspection. Similarly, I’m certainly glad people enjoyed my verbal presentation of it in class, to the point of bringing it up and complimenting me in the day or two afterwards. As such, I want to share my thoughts on its context in a more concrete manner.

Students can’t be expected to fully engage with learning, even if they might want to, if they don’t feel like their more fundamental needs are being met. A basic statement derived from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Schooling is mandatory, certainly, but learning about more academic matters that aren’t immediately applicable life skills is closer to the top of the pyramid than the bottom, dwelling in self-actualization and esteem. Learning about literature is a luxury, and it’s not very easy to fully engage in that when you don’t feel that your foundation is solid.

A cartoon man scales an mysterious colorful pyramid demonstrating Maslow’s famed concept that recently materialized in the Rockies. If he didn’t have that physiological foundation himself, he would likely be plummeting towards the ground at high speed right now. (Courtesy of verywell Mind)

It seems like a relatively simple concept, one that should be a fundamental part of attempting to teach anyone. But for many poor reasons, a few mediocre reasons, and in many cases essentially a lack of reason, quite a lot of people with a say in the direction of public education seem to fail to understand this. Perhaps it’s being so high up the mountain of relative power; after all, for all the platitudes laid out in policies and speeches, it’s clearly very easy for those with clout to forget the ‘little people’ are actually still people. Ronald Reagan, for instance, had such disregard for students outside of something that can invoke moral outrage that he suggested ketchup and pickle relish count as vegetable for nutrition purposes in school lunches. Even today, two tablespoons of tomato paste means cafeteria pizza can be legally classified as a vegetable as well. Not only does this ignore the biological fact that tomatoes are fruit, but it also clearly demonstrates how happy people are to cut corners on a program specifically designed to help children with a home life that makes sating their physiological needs difficult.

Even in the local scale, a school district administrator, a principal, or anyone who lacks a direct connection with a student can lose sight of the fact that the ‘student body’ is just a term for a lot of young people in need of help and guidance, not a single minded flesh golem they have to prod subordinates into wringing bigger numbers from.

A false cognition of a student body, clearly driven by carrots and sticks crafted from free pizza and ice cream. (Courtesy of Castlevania: Curse of Darkness)

When figuring out how to make students better at learning, the primary question really shouldn’t be why they don’t perform well, but rather the more fundamental step of why they didn’t fully learn the material. There are a number of possible reasons for any given student, but purely attributing the matter to laziness or stupidity and giving up on the individual is not responsible in the slightest for an educator. The more responsible thing by far is to put in the effort to make sure that students feel safe and comfortable in the classroom. If you truly want someone to engage and learn, putting all that effort and energy into your topic, it’s only fair you put in effort of your own to help your charges.

To start at the base, students shouldn’t have to be distracted by hunger or physiological needs. No restrictions on using the restroom; letting people go when they need to lets them come back less distracted. In addition, if students need it, there should be filling and at least somewhat healthy snack bars, as well as cold water bottles. This can really help kids who may not get enough to eat, even if it’s just something small. The water also helps with emotional needs further up the pyramid: cold water, drinking or even just having it to focus on, can help people recover if they’re having a panic attack.

Stepping up to safety, students shouldn’t have any reason to feel unsafe in class. If there’s some social conflict or other issue, it’s part of the teacher’s job to notice, then try and make that not an issue anymore. Bullying can be more subtle than it’s generally portrayed in media, so put aside preconceived notions to look for potential trouble. A safe classroom is a classroom where people can start opening up to learning.

Love/Belonging is especially vital for an English classroom. After all, when engaging with literature, sharing your own thoughts and interpretations is key. Any successful and engaged English student is also a student who doesn’t feel like they’ll be mocked or dismissed by those listening. It should be made clear that expressing opinions (in good faith, mind you) is essential to the class, and students should try to consider an argument even if they disagree with it and let the speaker elaborate on why they see things so. Even if it’s not always with their best friends, students in groups should always be able to consider their teammates as people who will take them seriously.

This finally brings us to where the study of stories actually resides: esteem and self actualization. Once a student’s needs from outside are sorted, their remaining needs are more introspective and modeled on their own thoughts and perceptions, just like literary analysis. But from here, how does a teacher go about making their students engaged?

They let the students have choice.

Disliking the reading material or not seeing much value in it is fine, so long as the student does their best to explain why it rubbed them the wrong way and how it could potentially be improved, or what they think a better example of what the author was trying for is. A student is expected to do major projects based on at least three works throughout their time in the class, ideally on books originally assigned by me, but if they are willing to give me a presentation of why they would rather do their own and how it is appropriate, I am willing to be flexible in order to better enable personal passion. If the class as a whole decides that a book isn’t worth the effort and analysis, if they propose a reasonable alternative, work with them. If you show with your actions as well as your words that their opinions have weight, students can begin to give their thoughts more respect.

Students are expected to learn about literary devices and reading into subtext or themes in a work, being able to look into it more deeply, but they are also expected to learn about how a book becomes considered a classic, how best to judge for themselves what books are worthy of respect, and what value can still be gained from a text that you don’t agree with or particularly like. This relatively soft approach, with an emphasis on personal experience and self sharing, aims to help students become more personally engaged and get comfortable with learning and connecting without having it forced on them quite so much. In addition, meta analysis of books in a larger social context can help students find things to latch onto, such as Hamlet being rewritten as a choose-your-own-adventure book with a wide variety of endings, or how stories can be affected and rewritten by its readers in time, for good or for ill.

My Fair Lady, a fascinating experiment in making a new, ‘happy’ ending one of the worst possible outcomes. (Courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Times)

What it all comes down to really is simple. A teacher’s responsibility is to help their students learn. It’s just that for something as personal as literature in particular, there are things beyond the written word they have to account for first.