I’ll share this bit of the story–more to come.<\/p>\n
My Rock\/Soul\/Progressive<\/a> class just finished James Miller’s Flowers in the Dustbin<\/em>. At our last meeting, I decided we’d use what Miller says about Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/em> as a test case for a)\u00c2\u00a0 evaluating the idealism and folly of the Sixties, b)\u00c2\u00a0 evaluating Miller’s take on the Sgt. Pepper’s<\/em> phenomenon (and by extension, the Sixties as well), and c) thinking about whether the current generation my class represents has anything in its experience of popular music to correspond with the Sgt. Pepper’s<\/em> phenomenon.<\/p>\n My students argued intensely that Miller was disillusioned, bitter, dismissive. Better to dream than not to dream. Better to have a beautiful illusion than a paltry reality.<\/p>\n I pushed back. It was hard to do since I agree with them, but I felt I had to. They were answering too quickly.<\/p>\n They pushed back, harder.<\/p>\n We went back and forth. It hurt me to push the pain and cynicism of decades of post-Sixties withdrawal on them, but they needed to know what they’d have to invest to maintain their positions. I was as kind as I could be even as I bore down. They were kind too as they responded with passion and, at times, real soulfulness.<\/p>\n Finally I said to them, “If you think Miller’s all wrong, if you think he’s a bitter man, if you think he’s giving up on that dream too easily, write him. He’s a professor at the New School. Find his email address and write him. Be courteous, don’t be confrontational or mean, but tell him what you think and invite his response.”<\/p>\n They were silent.<\/p>\n Then one student said, “You know, there was an assignment in my high school that asked us all to write to someone who’d inspired us. One guy wrote to John Lennon–well, John Lennon was dead of course, so he wrote to Yoko Ono about how John Lennon had inspired him. And you know what? She wrote him back!”<\/p>\n I spread my arms wide: “I rest my case.”<\/p>\n “Well,” she went on, “he was a really smart guy, our valedictorian, a really great writer. He wrote three beautiful pages in that letter.”<\/p>\n I said, “If you’re worried your own writing isn’t up to that level, why don’t you all write a letter together?”<\/p>\n A young woman on the other side of the table looked up and said, “I’d like that. It sounds like fun.”<\/p>\n I said, “Great. Now, who’ll organize it for you?”<\/p>\n “You will!” they responded.<\/p>\n “No I won’t,” I said. “Do you know why?”<\/p>\n “You don’t want to be associated with student writing?”<\/p>\n “You don’t think we’ll do it right?”<\/p>\n “You don’t want to make Miller angry?”<\/p>\n “No, no, and no. Doesn’t anyone know why I won’t organize your project?”<\/p>\n Silence.<\/p>\n “Because this project needs to be yours, not mine. Organize it yourselves. When you’re done, if it’s ready to go, I’ll be happy to put my name on the document. But this needs to be your project. Get together, talk it over, set it up. I can help if you need it.”<\/p>\n Class was over. Folks headed for the door. One student said, “I’m going to take you up on that.”<\/p>\n Three hours later, I saw that she had.\u00c2\u00a0 She cc’d me on her email to James Miller. Her email was heartbreakingly beautiful.<\/p>\n Later that evening, I got an email from her telling me that she and Miller had been emailing back and forth.<\/p>\n Today, in another class she’s taking with me. I asked her if I could see the exchange when she was ready. She said she’d share it with me. A student from last year’s freshman seminar, also in this other class, asked what had happened. I explained it to her, and she was round-eyed with wonder.<\/p>\n Amazing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ll share this bit of the story–more to come. My Rock\/Soul\/Progressive class just finished James Miller’s Flowers in the Dustbin. At our last meeting, I decided we’d use what Miller says about Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band as a … Continue reading