Waking Minds Up: What Makes Us Who We Are?
Irene Leyva Martínez, Mexico
Irene Leyva Martínez is an English teacher and academic coordinator at the language center of the Tec de Monterrey in Zacatecas, Mexico.
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A question
An answer
A reason
A reflection
Not a very long time ago, one of my favorite literature teachers asked us to think about what made us who we are. Once she gave us the opportunity to express our opinions, hands started flying out frantically into the air. Common and expected things were said: our tastes, our experiences, our family, and so on. Then our teacher placed us in a very different situation by asking a simple question: ‘What if all those things were taken away from you?’
I asked the same question to my students a couple of weeks ago and I got similar answers to the ones my classmates and I provided to our literature teacher. I thought my students might never provide the kind of answer I was looking for to start a constructive debate. Suddenly, from somewhere around the back of the room, I heard something interesting, a very weak voice (as it usually is when afraid of being wrong) that said: ‘our soul’. Bingo.
Every head in the classroom turned around to see who had given such an existentialist opinion, and indeed it was from the least expected person. Even before I had the opportunity to clarify anything, another student said that was impossible, there was no clear definition of ‘soul’ and that it was rather ‘emotion’ that made us who we are. It is easy to see they never got to an agreement. Defining who we are is hard enough, finding the reason or characteristic that makes us who we are, is almost impossible, but still there are some factors people and ethics agree on.
I was trying to do something different in my class, something that really woke the students’ minds and actually made them realize they had one. So, as an assignment, I asked them to read the first two chapters of the book ‘The Giver’. This book is regularly taught in Literature or English courses in American schools, not in a class of English as a second language. The following day, instead of getting the usual ‘good morning’ greeting, a unanimous ‘Teacher, I didn’t understand the book’ welcomed me into the room. We took 10 minutes of the class discuss the first events in the novel. Simple questions got them going: who is telling the story? Where are the people in the book living? What makes them happy, sad or scared?
My students really were curious about the book and continued reading it. I let them know it was not mandatory for them to finish it all in one weekend, eight chapters would suffice. Everything changed when they read eight chapters. Most of my students have trouble with vocabulary and reading comprehension, mainly because their reading habits have not been properly developed, but the majority of them had a good opinion of the novel. They were shocked about the events in it and the way the author’s imagination portrayed such a bitter future. Some of them could not help to compare it to ‘The Hunger Games’ and I did not mind. The important thing was they understood the plot and they were really discussing the concepts found in it.
I do not wish to spoil the book by describing the events in it, so I will limit myself to the description of the debate held between my students. What they found most outrageous was the idea of a human being not being able to have complete emotional depth. The society described in the book was apparently perfect, but perfection could not be reached by ripping humanity from its ability to have emotions. I argued that it was a price to be paid for not knowing pain or suffering, but the children wouldn’t agree. They argued that feeling pain and suffering is not always negative; it actually allows us to overcome obstacles and find ourselves, our true potential.
So through this discussion, the class agreed emotion was indeed part of what makes us who we are. What about our soul? The class agreed the people in the novel did have a soul but were limited by their knowledge of the world. After some more discussion, we talked about the ethical side of the events. Is it ethical to control a human being in such a way? Definitely not, said my students. According to them, it would be equivalent to psychological torture, even if the subject of the experiment did not know he was being experimented with. In order to continue in the same ethics oriented analysis, I asked what they would do if they knew the truth, if they knew that humans are not originally that way, if they knew the past of that future society. Most of them shouted they would fight the system and free the people, true revolutionaries they are. Comparisons to current governmental systems and practices arose and my students were close to marching out the classroom and to call everyone to arms.
After being able to calm them down, we continued listening to civilized and justified arguments about the constitution of societies, truth and justice. It was complicated, especially since most of them claimed they would do the ethical thing and tell everybody about the lie they lived, but when tested, did not exactly prefer to hear the truth. So what makes us who we are? Is it emotion? Is it bravery? Is it nature? Is it ethics? So far, my students have not reached a decision regarding this question, but they certainly have gone further than I expected. They have really questioned their capacity to lie, live, tell the truth and be human, for better or worse.
The next challenge for us is to continue reading ‘The Giver’ and finally get to compare it with another brilliant critique of how the world works: ‘Brave New World’. Hopefully, a deeper understanding of who we are and what ethics has to do with it all will come out of this comparison.
Through this experience I wished to share an interesting technique and its results, always through the wonderful eyes of teenagers and their everlasting ideals. I truly believe we should never underestimate our students. We should always find a way to wake them up from this technology dependent world where most of our lives and emotions are drained or dictated by an electronic device.
Please check the How the Motivate your Students course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Building Positive Group Dynamics course at Pilgrims website.
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