I’m sub teaching in a tenth-grade English class today. The students have been reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” and are down to the last few chapters. This seminal novel in American literature is often required reading for ninth or tenth-graders, and most of the students in the class have at least some level of appreciation for the book.
I’ve read it. You’ve read it. Most of us have seen the movie starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. The novel is structured around two intersecting plots. One plot focuses on the trial of Tom Robinson, a Black man wrongfully accused of raping a white woman. Atticus is his appointed attorney. The other story thread follows the novel’s narrator, Scout, her brother, Jem, and a friend named Dill who try to lure the recluse Boo Radley from his home.
The novel presents a number of challenges for a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old reader. It deals with serious issues such as racial discrimination, sexual assault, and social inequality. “To Kill a Mockingbird” often appears on lists of banned books in some school districts (but that’s another story).
At the same time, Scout’s perspective as a young girl allows readers to connect with the story, making complex issues more approachable, and suitable for group discussions and analysis when facilitated by an experienced teacher.
But what I find most compelling about this novel, the theme that virtually vibrates with power, is when Atticus says to his daughter, Scout:
“You’ll never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
To Kill a Mockingbird
That, my friends, is the definition of empathy.
Although these young students won’t be voting on Tuesday, for those of us who are, I believe the most important measure that’s implied but not specifically on the ballet is empathy.
Do we strive to understand what it’s like to be the “other”—to see from their perspective, to walk in their shoes, and see all others as equal to us? Or do we vote because we fear the other, care only for ourselves, and believe our own point of view is the true reflection of reality?
I didn’t mean for this post to be about the election and the choice we face, but everything is coming up that way for me right now. Give “To Kill a Mockingbird” another read. Or watch the excellent film starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. It might be something sane to do on election night.
