Yeah, but have you ever tried to keep up with a group of teens singing fast-moving lyrics to pop songs? Their brains are filled with all kinds of lyrics that sound like machine-gun-fired syllables to me. And they know every episode of "Friends" backwards and forewards and inside out. They laugh at me for what I don't know. They're interested in boy-meets-girl kinds of things. They're interested in watching adults fall all over themselves. I'm not speaking about the intellectuals, but just the average kids. I teach summer school English classes to kids who failed during the year, and they really do look at me as an out-of-touch maternal figure. They try to fill me in as I take them through "A Doll's House" and "Oedipus Rex" and "The Wife of Bath's Tale"...all the while trying my best to beef up ample energy to get them interested in the story lines and human dimensions.
I ran into a past student from about twenty-five years ago--one who had complained that farmers didn't need to know squat about Shakespeare. I'd forced Shakespeare down their throats. Made 'em build a stage in the classroom. We had a curtain, too. And a fountain. We did everything to bring about a real production of "Romeo and Juliet." 20th century farcical interpretation. Many complaints. Lots of laughs. They even had to memorize all the lines. And the artistic kids hand painted purple programs with crossed swords dropping drops of vermillion blood on the front cover.
Anyway, this past student told me that after my class, he'd never read Shakespeare again and had never gone to a play. But he was smiling all the while remembering his one intense encounter with William S. in my class. He said, "I like how you sprung it on us at the last minute that the boys would have to wear tights!" I'd forgotten that. Certainly I lived and learned and didn't try that little trick again. Hey, I was a green teacher. But the cool thing was we had this very long conversation this summer about that experience from over twenty years ago, and he remembered a lot about the play.
What I'm getting at here is average kids--kids who aren't highly competitive about getting into top colleges--need a lot of prodding and enthusiasm and energy to wake up to the fact that there's a world that's actually connected--and directly connected--to the story lines they devote themselves to on television and in movies, and directly connected to the lyrics they consume in their kind of music. It's all connected. Everytime one of those kids makes the mental effort to learn some factual context about the adult world into which they'll soon be entering, it's a victory--even a name and context as poignantly sad and bleak as Malvo's.
You take 'em where you find 'em, and you learn from them and they learn from you. If nothing else--and there's a great deal more--your energy level will go up because their own is contagious.
I don't worry so much about the 15/16-year-olds. I worry more about the 55/56-year-olds who've dropped out.
