Teach Classics to Diverse Students

An article in the May 31 Indianapolis Star, entitled Lessons adapted to diverse culture, presented the following scenario: "A teacher attempts a lesson in literature using the classic work of Homer's Odyssey. Half of her class of high school freshman [sic] yawns in boredom. Had she used a more contemporary tale—say, a book from the popular Hazelwood High Trilogy—she may have better captured the interest of her students."

The author goes on to report on the "cultural competency" law, which will take effect in Indiana on July 1 and will require educators to undergo more extensive training in dealing with students of diverse backgrounds. This idea could go one of two ways: either our teachers will become more proficient in passing on valuable knowledge of the American heritage to minority students, or they will cease to concern themselves with our heritage and will allow contemporary authors to replace those whom students have read and appreciated for millennia.

Homer's epics have been a cornerstone of education since at least 750 B.C. The Iliad covers a few days in the tenth and final year of the Trojan War and deals with the power of unbridled anger to rob a man of his humanity. The Odyssey chronicles Odysseus' ten year journey home from Troy and explores the meaning of humanity itself. Both poems have influenced the Western literary tradition and have profoundly impacted the development of the heritage which led to the founding of the American Republic.

One important goal of the modern-day educator is to introduce American students to Homer and other such authors who have formed our society and to whom we are indebted for our worldview and general cultural outlook. If the "cultural competency" law leads Indiana teachers to be better able to make Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and other great authors accessible to minority students, all the better. We will have a nation of citizens who understand and value the foundations on which this country was built.

The scenario related in the Indianapolis Star article, however, suggests that some view the "cultural competency" law as an opportunity to replace the Great Books with more contemporary fare. The author seems to suggest that educators "teach" the Hazelwood High Trilogy instead of Homer's Odyssey. This is ironic, given the high value that Sharon Draper, author of the Hazelwood High Trilogy, places on our literary tradition.

At her website, sharondraper.com, she describes as a good role model her Black fifth-grade teacher, who "read literature to us--Shakespeare, Thoreau, and Dunbar--and we loved it and learned it because no one ever told us we couldn't." While she recognizes a need for literature dealing with uniquely contemporary themes, Sharon Draper appreciates the great authors and views them as not only important in education but pleasurable to read. She does so to such a degree that she includes meaningful references to Shakespeare's classic play Macbeth in Tears of a Tiger, the first installment in her trilogy. Her main character, Andy Jackson, enjoys learning about important events in the history of Western civilization: "I like gym and I like lunch and I even like history, but don't tell my history teacher that. I got her fooled. She thinks I'm not payin' attention, but I could tell her every wife of Henry the Eighth, what he did to each one, and why (page 52)."

Indiana teachers could make good use of Draper's books in, say, introducing Macbeth to high school classes. As for the trilogy itself, the books are accessible enough to contemporary youth that students can read, appreciate, and discuss them without having to be "taught" the books in class. To suggest that minority students cannot appreciate the Great Books and that novels such as the Hazelwood High Trilogy should replace them is contemptuous of our heritage and insulting to Sharon Draper and the students she loves.