TEENAGERS SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS | April 23rd 2008

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Met with groans and sighs, Anna Morrison introduces her class of high-school seniors to Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart". As she teaches this story of the Nigerian Ibo tribe, she witnesses some unexpected connections with her students in the Mississippi Delta ...

Special to MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE

The complaints began the moment I started passing out copies of the novel "Things Fall Apart" to the 17 and 18-year-olds of my English IV classroom. "What this book is?" moaned LaJohn, a big football player who always nabs a seat in the back of the room. J.T. was even more pointed when he turned to Tierra, shook his book in the air and said, "Man, she ain't gonna make us read this whole book!"

As a public-school teacher in the Mississippi Delta, I have become accustomed to this sort of aversion towards literature. My students are not comfortable readers. They have been raised almost entirely on television and the Internet; very few have access to books at home. The majority of the teachers in our school system use the textbook exclusively, so many students will finish high school having read only one or two books in total. With this in mind, I try to teach plot-driven stories that operate on a fairly basic reading level, without denying depth of content.

In "Things Fall Apart", Achebe weaves his tale of Nigeria in the 1800s with beautifully simple language. He enriches his descriptions with poetic references to the Ibo culture, filling the pages with their proverbs and natural metaphors. My slower readers would be able to keep up, while the more advanced might find some of the nuance in the poetry.

When I first read "Things Fall Apart" in high school, I was just as sceptical of its funny-sounding character names and its far-off setting, all which couldn't seem further from my life. But the novel's themes are universal, and Achebe quickly captured me. This year I chose his work knowing my students would relate to its emphasis on the inevitability of change, the struggle to succeed in life, and the title's simple creed: that things do fall apart.

The first day I briefly outlined the story: it chronicles the life of an Ibo tribe faced with a changing world. At the centre is Okonkwo, a man driven to success at the expense of his personal relationships. I ask, "Could you tell me something we might know about life in Africa already?" and am met with blank stares. Reginald raised his hand and calls out, "Slaves!" Someone else mentions lions and elephants.

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I am often shocked at how little my students know about the world outside their own. As teenagers they are entrenched in the intensity and drama of their own relationships and culture. As teenagers in rural Mississippi, most are completely sheltered from the realities beyond the streets of their poverty-stricken town.

I began to teach the novel with an eye towards its two most important themes: the ways in which the values of a society can conflict with those of its members, and the internal struggle of an individual attempting to overcome his or her own failings. As we begin working through the first few chapters, I want to establish with my kids the values of the Ibo community--kinship, hospitality, courage, achievements--and discuss the ways these principles are reflected in their own community.

My students themselves value many of the same things. During discussion Sarina says firmly, "You should always help your family, and your church, and the people that need help in your community." In a school where over eighty percent of the student body receives free or reduced-priced lunches from the federal government, and where extended families share the responsibilities of daily life to make ends meet, my students certainly identify with the Ibo concepts of kinship and hospitality.

I also push them to examine Okonkwo's own personal values--success, wealth, fame, strength, masculinity--and the ways in which these values conflict with his community, and threaten to pull him down. He spends much of the book battling his own insecurities. Once again, I see the text mirrors my students' lives. This particular class is almost entirely male, and like most teenagers, they are fiercely insecure about their own manliness. I have more than once had to diffuse an oncoming fight between boys seeking to prove themselves. A joke gone too far, a perceived gang affiliation, and suddenly shirts come off and spectators start cheering. Perhaps because many have grown up in single-mother homes, without male role models, they seem to pick up instantly on the notion that Okonkwo's "greatest fear was ending up like his father", a man of very little honour.

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As we moved through the book, the students began to pick up on my subtle (and not-so-subtle) nudges towards these ideas. I overhear them explaining concepts to each other in their own vocabulary, and putting the stories in the context of their own lives. Sarina points to a passage earnestly, "So before he go, Okonkwo threw the krunkest party of all time! People goin' to remember him--that man who threw that krunk party!" Anthony nods slowly at her explanation, then marks down his answer: Okonkwo must have slaughtered extra goats so that he would be remembered by his mother's village as a man of importance.

Later, they began to incorporate the events of the story into their own vernacular and jokes. LaJohn, under his breath, tells Travis to quit bothering him or "else I'm gonna go all Okonkwo on him." LaJohn, like Okonkwo, values his masculine role--not in war or as the head of a family, but on the football field, in the weight room, among his classmates.

As my students grew more comfortable with the story, a pattern emerges in their written answers and classroom discussions. Where I always tried to steer the conversation towards the concept of individual versus society, they would return again and again to the nature of Okonkwo's relationships. When he beats Oijugo, a strong woman and his favourite wife, Carolyn responded with an emphatic shake of the head, "He wrong for that. She shouldn't be staying with him." Later, when Okonkwo stuns the community with his anger, Nate has no pity--"He should have listened to his best friend. He didn't even go with what his friend said."

They see Okonkwo's world just as they see their own--a complex network of interpersonal connections. In their minds, this wasn't a man at odds with his community at large, or struggling internally with himself, but one who chose to break the bonds with those most close to him.

Of course, this had never occurred to me. But as I began paging through the novel, their observations popped out everywhere. Okonkwo systematically severs ties with friends, family members, and his own father's memory. To my students, who value their friendships above all, this was abundantly clear. Their lives, like most teenagers, are measured in moments spent with friends, siblings, and cousins. Their cell-phones are practically extensions of their hands--text messages fly by the thousand each day. Students are constantly introducing me to the people in their lives: "This is Cheri, Ms. Morris'." they'll say, and then, without skipping a beat, "She my best friend."

In an age where parents are "uncool", or at least absent and deemed unnecessary, these adolescents look out for one another, and act as mentors and confidantes. It is an unspoken rule that no one will "rat out" misbehaviour to an adult. So, of course my teenagers saw this story as fundamentally about the complicated nature of relationships--the ways in which we must sacrifice ourselves to help those we love, and how it is of the utmost importance to remain loyal those who are loyal to you.

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In our final discussion of the book, we talked about the significance of the title. I asked them whether they believed that things really do fall apart--either entire societies or individual lives. Reginald, a mountain of a student with a perpetual grin, immediately shot his hand in the air. "Well, yes. Things do always fall apart. Just like us. 'Cause we'll be graduating in three months and then we will all disappear and not be friends with the same friends again...and that will be sad."

I realised that he was not only talking about his own life, but also Okonkwo's. The main character's tragic, self-inflicted downfall was, in the end, propelled not by his own weakness, but by his choice to cut himself off from all who cared about him--a choice that, to my students, would destine him for failure.

(Anna Morrison is a member of the Mississippi Teacher Corps. Read her blog about the experience here)