Buying Virtue

I think some of my favorite scenes in movies are those where a family, or a group of people is learning together.  Let me use three examples to paint a picture in your mind of what I am speaking of:

In the movie, A River Runs Through It, two young brothers, Paul and Norman Maclean, don't attend school in their small community in Montana, but instead are taught by their Presbyterian minister father.  There is a scene where Norman (the more studious of the two) brings his writing assignment to his father who then spends less than ten seconds reviewing the assignment, deleting chunks of the writing with his red pencil, and then hands it back to Norman with the command, "Half as long."  Here's the actual clip from the movie: Learning to Fish and Write.  (I profess that I have not read the book upon which this movie is based.)

The second movie is Dead Poet's Society.  Mr. Keating, a young teacher of high school aged boys at a New England prep school, is attempting to teach the boys how to think deeply.  How to not just look at the form of a poem with its stanzas and rhymes, but to think of what the author is trying to teach humanity.  Here's a small clip:  Understanding Poetry

Seabiscuit, by Laura Hillenbrand, goes down as one of my favorite books which has been turned into a movie.  Red Pollard, the hero of the story, was raised in a large family where dinner times were more like literary review hours.  As Ms. Hillenbrand writes, "His other escape was intellectual.  Johnny (later known as Red) devoured great literature.  He committed long passages of prose and poetry to memory and engaged in lively recitation duels with his sister Edie as they bounced over the local roads in the Model T.  Graced with an agile mind, he had the makings of a man of letters."  The first two minutes of this clip portray a beautiful picture of it all:  Learning at Dinner.

A more recent movie, The Greatest Showman, had a line that hit me to the core.  When P.T. Barnum originally introduces himself to Philip Carlyle, a producer of plays, Barnum asks Carlyle how he is able to sell out shows every single night (whereas Barnum struggles to get anyone to come see his).  Carlyle responds with, "Mr. Barnum, I sell virtue."

I have always wanted to be one of those respectable, literary persons who can quote Shakespeare or Milton or Dickinson on a dime.  I've striven to be some kind of great literary thinker who can change the word with one clever turn of a word.  I've imagined my family sitting around the table, discussing the great writers of the centuries.  I've envisioned the floors of my home covered in stacks of books, all of which I've read.

I, however, am not that.

Don't get me wrong.  I have spent most of my adult life attempting to elevate the thoughts of my children.  Their "screen" time has been limited with me pushing them to find better things to do.  They have been encouraged to read, to attend concerts, to get out into nature.  I take great pride in the fact that some of my children are so very good at being bored.  Despite how droll their experience at the moment, they can contribute to a conversation, or find a way to occupy their minds until they can escape.  And like vitamins or exercise, things that are good for us to take and do (but don't necessarily encompass fun), they do those things that are good for their souls.  "I am afraid.  Not of life, or death, or nothingness, but of wasting it as if I had never been." (Charlie, Flowers for Algernon)

In other words, we have been the consumers of virtue.

A couple of weeks ago, Glo proudly announced to our family that she had understood the reference when a fellow student announced to the class that he had bought a pet mouse and named him Algernon.  I was surprised to know that Glo had read the book, Flowers for Algernon, but when I mentioned it, she said, "There's a book?"  As it turns out, she had thought that the mouse was named for a scene in the TV sit-com Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

I knew then that I had let down my children, at least in literary studies.

At the same time, Mark was lamenting that he had been living the biggest lie of his life.  He had spent the last four years pretending to understand the daily references that his teacher and mentor, Dr. Makin, made about Hamlet and King Lear.

Mark has never read either.

So with these two occurrences in mind, I figured the Fates were trying to tell me something.  I needed to fill the hole left by the English Department of the State College Area School District.

Mark and I came to the conclusion that we needed to start a book club between the two of us, and that any other Kennedys were welcome to join us.  And the first book on the list would be Flowers for Algernon.

I wasn't at all sure how this would work, or where this would go, but Mark and I dove right in.  In fact, it didn't take us more than three or four days to finish the book.  At the end of it, I just felt this ridiculous amount of pride in finishing it.  I anticipated some dinner at a friend's home and dropping the line, "Recently, when I was reading Flowers for Algernon...."  In other words, I would become a flaunter of virtue.

Or, better yet, I would collect valuable insights into the author's work and share those with my neanderthal-thinking son.  He would grovel at my feet in gratitude for this gift I had given him.

However, the book club took a turn I could never have anticipated.  Everyone in the family decided to join. I quickly became the student at the feet of the masters.

We decided to share our thoughts online and not in person because finding a time to meet would prove nearly impossible.  Since I was the moderator for this book, I looked online for thought-provoking questions.  However, I didn't like them so I tried to start my own train of thought.  But the next day, Mark just "word vomited" his thoughts onto paper (his words, not mine), and I felt like I was reading the final dissertation of an English major.  In fact, I had to re-read several things he wrote, because I wasn't exactly sure what he was talking about.  And this was followed up with an hour long discussion on the phone with him.  And my mind couldn't stop thinking about everything he had just taught me.

And then yesterday, John posted.  John likes to express what he thinks about things by referencing other works of literature, music, or cinema which he did beautifully.  It reminded me that literature is often just rethought thoughts.

And this morning, Ethan contributed.  He was a bit nervous to post his thoughts, because they didn't correspond to the previously posted thoughts, but my response (which wasn't more than a couple of paragraphs) took over 45 minutes to compose because I had a million thoughts running through my head based on what he said.  (In fact, I find that I go to bed thinking of the comments I've read and the discussions I've had, and each morning I wake up, hoping that someone has posted something else that will get me thinking some more.)

And not 10 minutes after I had finished that response, Mark called me and told me that he thought he should delete his posts because he thought they sounded stupid in comparison to Ethan's.

And with that, I reassured Mark that in this book club (versus an English class), there are no wrong answers.  There are no wrong thoughts.  We aren't trying to get through a syllabus or teach anyone a specific point during a coming-of-age period in their lives.  This is a time to share what we think, and to learn from each other.

And so here I find myself, at the proverbial family dinner table, discussing the literary classics of the world with my family.  I can only hope that it will continue, and that my kids will take their literary vitamins and do their literary running miles each day with me.  We are all sitting at the head of the table teaching each other, and listening at the sides, learning.