Pickin' on Huck

In one Spokesman story, I read about Huck out there causing trouble again, this time in Spokane school classrooms. In another article, this morning, I see his name three times on a list of favorite books by well-known figures.

What's with this kid?

When I was little and heard about Huck Finn, he seemed like just another precocious lad heading off down the river on an outdoor adventure. Since my brothers and I did a lot of stuff down at our nearby Sand Creek and tried to build a raft or two, I identified with him as a fictional one of us.

I was too young at the time to understand the true depth of Mark Twain's great American novel. As I grew older and then taught the novel, however, my dim brain slowly came to light. I realized that Twain had provided for us the great ongoing discussion, which we face virtually every day---how we treat, react to and understand others.

Apparently, the novel has been assigned in a Spokane classroom, and one student has chosen to read it outside the class on her own while her classmates read and discuss the novel. As often happens, there's concern from parents about the frequent use of the term "nigger" in the novel.

From what I see in this morning's story, though, these parents have chosen a different path from the usual all-out desire to ban the novel from required reading lists. They have decided they're more concerned with "how" it's taught than "if" it's taught. With the experience I had teaching Huck Finn, I believe their discussion is headed the right direction.

I'm sure there have been cases in many schools where limited care has gone into approaching the novel. In fact, I'm also certain that early in my career, I was fairly negligent in the way I introduced the book to my students. During those early years, I was content to simply issue the book and expect the kids to read it because, after all, it WAS a classic. Who should question that?

Much of that attitude came from my own lack of experience as a teacher and my fairly limited knowledge/study of Twain's themes. As a novice, I simply accepted the notion that it was a great novel and expected my students to figure that out, once they'd read it themselves.

I learned over the years that teaching Huckleberry Finn requires great care, preparation and sensitivity toward all students. I doubt that I ever came close to mastering this unit with my junior English classes, but I did recognize, with each year's new experience along the Mississippi with Huck and Jim that Twain was offering a heckuva lot more than a good adventure story.

One of the best aids I ever encountered for my Huck Finn unit was a PBS video which examined many sides of the Huck Finn controversy, especially its inclusion as required reading in school curricula. In this video, one aspect focused on a situation in Tempe, AZ, where a black student and her Latino mother objected to the classroom requirement of reading the novel.

In one scene, the two disrupt a seminar where a black professor comes the school to discuss the merits of the novel. The mother is eventually asked to leave the school. Neither the daughter nor the mother ever budge in their assertion that the novel is inappropriate for required reading.

During my last years of teaching, after we read the novel, I always showed this video to my juniors. The discussion thereafter was electric and repectful. Those moments were some of the most exciting in my teaching career because the students were moved to dig deep down into their psyches and determine where they honestly stood on race issues. "Eloquent" is the word that comes to mind when I think of the level of what these young people had to say. Often, the discussions ran two or three days.

Again, we were far from perfect in our approach to Huck Finn, but we all discovered through reading and discussing the novel, that we had a lot more to learn about our dealings with people who might be different from us.

So, I say, "Huck, keep stirring the pot!"

Since writing this blog earlier this morning, I've gone outside, done my chores and thought of dozens of other observations I'd like to insert----like how wonderful it was to teach Huck in our predominently white high school and to have kids examine their prejudices---or how fascinating it was to watch the students when they'd see a short close-up clip in the PBS video of the Sandpoint resident at the O.J. trial, famous for his reluctance to admit whether or not he'd ever used the word "nigger" as an LA cop.

In short, there's so much more to say about the merits of Huck Finn. That's precisely why the novel should be read and re-examined at different times of our lives. Its story provides an instrument for never-ending discussion and reflection.