Jocelyn A. Chadwick
We Dare Not Teach What
We Know We Must:
The Importance of
Difficult Conversations
The author encourages
educators and researchers to
foreground the voices and
experiences of youth and
youth culture in discussions
about power and privilege
in canonical and
contemporary texts.
[With literature and teachers] they are taught self-respect and confidence. They are taught
that the true motives of life are to reach for the highest ideals. . . . And best of all, they are
taught to think for themselves. It is his self-thinking that goes to make up the true public
opinion.
—Sam Clemens’s interview with the Brooklyn Eagle news special, November 24, 1907
A
I’m not convinced we have to group ourselves—race, gender. . . . Human beings are the
most wonderful things. Why are we not loving one another?
Open doors, let them in, give permission, and see what happens. Students make you think.
I learn faster and more when I am teaching.
—Toni Morrison, The Norton Lectures–Harvard, Spring 2016
s for all educators, my undergraduate and graduate training, along
with my teaching and research,
have all melded to chisel how I read,
think about, teach, and interact with literature.
First, literature is writing, is rhetoric, is conceived
within a historical context—­whether that context
is ancient or modern—­there is always one historical context, and, as with Mark Twain’s Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn, the context is imaginative and
informational. Literature is always anchored in audience, occasion, purpose. Furthermore, just about
any literary text taught at the preK–­12 level can
be labeled as insensitive in terms of its treatment of
race, gender, sexuality, religion, culture, ethnicity,
or language.
These ideas frame my reading and teaching of
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as well. As I read the
contributed articles, I was impressed by what was
written, but also struck by what was missing:
• An in-­depth understanding of the two historical periods that engendered the piece
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• Any distinction and synthesis of the author,
Mark Twain, and the man, Sam Clemens.
Though quite different, Mark Twain and Sam
Clemens informed each other, challenged
each other, empowered each other. Clemens’s
life with Olivia Langdon, his experiences
among the best thinkers of his time, and his
youthful history informed Mark Twain; Mark
Twain, the writer, the satirist, enabled, persuaded Clemens to “act” beyond the pages of
text into life itself.
• Any reference to the relationship Sam Clemens and his family had with African Americans: John Lewis, George Griffin, Frederick
Douglass, Mary Ann Cord, and others—­all of
whom tremendously influenced his view of
the world
• Conversation about Mark Twain’s exploration
of voice through various characters, including a teen, a runaway slave, a freedman professor from the North, and members of a
slave community—­all of whom provided
vivid variations on important themes
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Jocelyn A. Chadwick
• Mentions of Twain’s and Clemens’s reliance
on strong women in narrative and in life, and
his literary depictions of both strong and
weak women
• Allusions to African American writers prior
to this novel, as well as contemporary African
American novelists who wrote novels similar
to Twain’s. Examples include
• The poetry of Ann Plato
• Slave narratives of Elizabeth Keckley, Bell
Scott, Harriet Jacobs, and Henry “Box”
Brown, among others
• Novels of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper,
William Wells Brown, Pauline Hopkins,
Anna Julia Cooper, and others
These components are critical as the discussion ensues about whether secondary teachers should or
should not be allowed to teach not only Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn but also any text that may fall into
some reader’s definition of sensitive.
During a 2012 International Mark Twain
Symposium in Elmira, New York, one of the events
was a conversation between Alan Gribben and me
in which we discussed the thematic thread that
connects these three articles: empathizing, helping,
and looking after African American children. Echoing the essays in this issue, Gribben’s book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn: The New South Edition (2011) intimates that
ELA teachers are “dropping the ball,” in a sense.
The assumption is that educators are neither prepared nor interested in understanding how to treat
these books and others. Echoing Gribben, these
three articles, well-­intentioned and earnestly heartfelt, preclude the voices and rights that they seek
to protect. I call this approach benevolent hobbling,
for it harkens back to the days of slavery and its
concomitant denigrations within a modern context
of empathy, caring—­a kind of Balm of Gilead. The
problem with this kindly and well-­intentioned argument lies with the shrill absence of the voices and
identities of contemporary students. Too often, objectors to Huck Finn, as well as other sensitive texts,
forget about the student audience of now, with regard to teaching literature and writing. We think
back to the way we were taught, the way we have
always taught texts, and what I have come to learn
so much about within the last twelve months—­the
plight of White guilt.
Our high school students today, Generation Z—­post-­9/11, post–­Great Recession, living
through a protean and morphing redefinition of all
terms and distinctions—­this generation feeds on
curiosity and risk and daring and inquiry, regardless of ethnicity, class, gender, or sexual orientation.
Indeed, they question most of the codifications
to which we have become inextricably enmeshed.
These students also reject the specious metaphor of
their being monolithic based on our old codifications. As Morrison stated, these students want to go
there and beyond. Suburban, rural, urban, African
American, White, Latino, Asian, American Indian,
Catholic, Muslim, Baptist, Southern Baptist, and
others, upper, middle, working class, some schools
literally in war zones, whereas others reside in pristine environs—­all of these students today are made
of sterner stuff and demand, demand to be heard.
They reject benevolent hobbling. They engage with
a text such as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and take
me and their teachers through our paces. Students
are part of the context in which literature is read,
studied, and interpreted.
So far, in all the years I have been with students exploring such texts, not one, not a single
one, has been aware of the presence and import
of the Black periodical press of the 19th century.
An infinitesimal few have been aware that freemen
existed—­African Americans who were never slaves,
such as Ann Plato. And not one was familiar with
“who knew whom” during these historical periods;
for example, with whom did the Langdons associate? Were they really abolitionists? Did Sam Clemens actually know any African Americans? What
happened to his writing and philosophy after he
completed The Adventures of Tom Sawyer—­where
he really begins Huck’s conscience-­awakening regarding race, voice, responsibility, and identity—­
and after “A True Story,” Huck Finn, The Tragedy
of Pudd’nhead Wilson, essays, speeches, interviews?
Only with this new generation have some of these
probative queries begun to emerge. Needless to say,
their teachers and I are initially shocked and keenly
excited. Now, with this generation of students, I
have learned to prepare myself and expect the “out
of the traditional box” queries, and, no, I never have
preconceived responses. I have even been known at
times to say to students, “Well, this is the first time
anyone has ever posed that question. Let’s explore
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We Dare Not Teach What We Know We Must: The Importance of Difficult Conversations
further.” Or—­
“Oh, wow, I never, ever thought
about this kind of interpretation of view. Now that
is deep.” Thank you, Generation Z.
I have often described ELA teachers such as
myself as hybrids: educators with experience in both
K–­12 and university. I think that my experience
and continued work with teachers and students are
critical as we formulate ideas and perspectives about
what should or should not
With this generation of
be taught at the high school
students, I have learned
level. Until our postsecondary
to prepare myself and
colleagues have sustained opportunities to work with these
expect the “out of the
students and these texts—­to
traditional box” queries,
see students themselves take
and, no, I never have
up the fight to defend their
preconceived responses.
teachers’ rights to keep these
books in front of them, students who ask such
amazing queries that I often tell them no graduate student I had has ever posed such a question—­
until this happens, we should all take a breath and
inform ourselves by collaborating with colleagues
who do teach Huck Finn.
This past summer, I was surrounded by 60
amazing sophomores being taught by an ELA/
NCTE teacher and a museum educational director
at the Mark Twain Museum in Hartford. We explored and drilled not only into the obvious tensions around race, but also we looked at how Mark
Twain’s/Sam Clemens’s comments and ideas in the
novel and in his life resonate today. For those of
you who are adamant that this text ought not be
taught, take a look at our list:
Issues Today
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Immigration
Religion
Racial insensitivity
Gender insensitivity
LGBTQ insensitivity
Women’s rights
Education reform
Being “American,” Americans first
Civil disobedience
NAFTA, outsourcing
Hazing, bullying, intolerance, guns
Mark Twain: Adventures of Huck Finn and
Speeches, Interviews, Letters, Journals
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Human nature
Immigration
Religion
Education—­“self-­thinking,” critical
thinking
Women’s suffrage
Jews
Technology: telephone, gramophone/
phonograph, photography
Free trade, tariff, protective tariff
Revolution, patriotism
Plagiarism
Fashion
Hazing
Civil disobedience
Racism
Ironically, Mark Twain/Sam Clemens until his
death in 1910 wrote about, spoke about, and reflected on many of today’s most significant issues.
As we discovered and explored, shared and learned
together, two representative queries reflected the
incredible capacity for depth young readers possess.
One student asked me: “So, do you use the n-­word
all the time, or when you need to?” Another student posited: “Well, today everyone uses ‘the word’;
it’s just around, right? It’s OK that way, right?”
In response to the first student, I told the class
that I do not use racial slurs, nor profanity at all,
and that I request that those around me refrain from
doing so. That said, I fight for the right of artists,
including writers, to use terms necessary to compose
their narratives and the rights of teachers to bring
these works to the classroom. Examples I gave included Jefferson, Morrison, King, Hughes, Schuyler, Flannery O’Connor, among others. To the other
student, I explained that too much blood from too
many people still populates the word nigger. Nothing—­no one person and no group—­can redact the
sting and import of this word. And make no mistake, it does sting and has import in Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn, just as other literary slurs such as
when Iago calls Othello the “black ram,” or Solanio
calls Shylock “Jew dog” sting and have import.
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Jocelyn A. Chadwick
Our ELA classrooms take our children around
the world and beyond—­into past, present, and future worlds. We provide safe and trusted spaces for
them where difficult conversations can and do take
place. If at times teachers, at whatever level they
teach, hit a roadblock, perhaps this impediment is
due to or own predilections of codifying our students, stereotyping them before we even listen to
them, much less get to know them. We can learn
much from students if we listen and allow ourselves
to learn along with them in lieu of our wanting to
shut down, close out, and shun uncomfortable conversations because I am of color and my students are
White or you are White and your students are of
color. And despite many differences, the last time
I checked, we teach students—­not colors, not types.
Perhaps it is we who need to stop and reread all of
the texts we teach from the
21st-­century perspective of Despite many differences,
students’ empowerment—­ the last time I checked,
empowerment that our we teach students—­not
literature provides. Trust colors, not types.
me, our secondary students
are far more resilient than we give them credit for;
they always have been. It has been some of us who
have been demurring, listening to the voices of others, telling us we dare not teach what we know we
must.
Jocelyn A. Chadwick, formerly of Harvard Graduate School, returned in 2012 to teach a seminar, guest lecture, and work
with secondary teachers and students around the country. She is vice president of NCTE. Her most recent book is Teaching
Literature in the Context of Literacy Instruction and her most recent article is “21st Century Challenge: Necessary Perspectives
on Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as Anti-Slavery Novels” in Mark Twain: Critical Insights.
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